For a world in the midst of multiple global conflicts and a pressing climate crisis, the theme of the seventh edition of the biennial architecture exhibition run by the European Cultural Centre—Time Space Existence—treads familiar ground: Repair, Regenerate, Reuse. This alliterative triad echoes the structure of the exhibition itself, split across three sites, comprising two grand Venetian palazzos and the Marinaressa Gardens.

The first, Palazzo Mora, is set back from the thoroughfare of Strada Nuova, Venice. One can often see people lingering at its entrance at the start of a long stone pathway, uncertain but intrigued.

The curious are rewarded. After entering, a plethora of projects are unleashed for the viewer to take in. Free and open to all, there is something thrilling about the access the architecture exhibition provides. These spaces, with their frescoed ceilings, terrazzo floors and secret terraces, already feel special to see. The addition of three floors of architectural projects and material only enhances the experience.

Walking into the main seat of the exhibition in the 15th-century Palazzo Bembo, a series of sculptural forms stand silhouetted against the arched Gothic windows. A large-scale installation by Henriquez Partners Architects and ARUP, the designs are revealed to be futuristic buildings, modelled on the structure of a glass sea sponge and focused on harnessing the power of the elements using concepts like geoexchange and photovoltaics. In another installation, Tender Soul of Ocean: A Marine Climate Preservation Initiative, the Taiwan-based WHYIXD transforms scientific data into an immersive experience. Local wind data captured using an anemometer is converted into a shifting light pattern using LED filaments. The result is a hypnotic performance where light shifts and shimmers like flowing water, the rhythms of nature made visible in new ways.

Moving from room to room, it becomes clear that the elements that make the show so compelling—its vast size, variety and the sheer number of projects—are also its biggest challenge. The quality often varies, and underlines how it takes a certain kind of skill and deftness to translate good ideas into good presentations that capture an audience’s attention. Perhaps it’s for this reason that the Marinaressa Gardens have often proven to be a highlight of the Time Space Existence exhibitions over the years.

One of the greatest strengths of the split-site exhibition then is the way it branches out not only from the internal architecture of the historical palazzos, but into the landscape of Venice itself. Here, we see installations and prototypes of buildings and technologies in action, engaging directly with their surroundings, not merely in theory, but in active practice. This year, the SOMBRA pavilion, designed by MVRDV, reacts to sunlight, its solar panels activated by the sun and shade. “What yesterday polluted, now builds” in the USB Prototype—a grey construction assemblage by Alejandro Aravena and Holcim, where waste is transformed into the functional material biochar to create a “house of the future”.

Yet, the question lingers: what future? Many of the projects within the exhibition contemplate this great unknown, but the most successful do so while also addressing the realities of the present. In H_arbor—a collaboration between the American studio Hyperlocal Workshop and the Egyptian studio Handover Projects, specialising in earth construction—a modular system that can be rapidly assembled and replicated is presented as a solution for housing in an emergency, whether in the wake of natural or man-made disasters.

In unEarthed / Second Nature / PolliNATION, a collaboration between Virginia Tech and Cloud 9 Architecture showcases how architecture can support pollinators to restore biodiversity in the lagoon. An ephemeral observatory in the gardens is paired with an organic presentation in Palazzo Bembo, where a whole room is overtaken by live specimens set within a brightly coloured grid structure, creating a scene composed of lush greenery. These parallels serve to link the various sites, encouraging dialogue and a natural pathway that sees visitors move from one area of Venice to another.

It would be almost impossible to put up an architectural exhibition of this scale and not address the threat that looms large over the architecture of the floating city itself; yet in The Sinking Cities Project, presented by photographer Cynthia Boll and journalist Stephanie Bakker, their study is expanded to Jakarta and Gouda to underscore how Venice is not alone in its architectural predicament. Twenty per cent of the world's cities are sinking, affecting a fifth of the global population.

At times, the sheer volume of content within the show can become overwhelming, with different projects jostling for attention. Yet the exhibition situates itself as an open forum, a town square, wherein myriad voices and points of view from all over the world are able to come together. In a matter of steps in Palazzo Bembo, you travel from South Korea to the Americas, from Hong Kong to the Irish coast. Architecture is a universal matter, and Venice has always been a centre for multicultural discourse.

Last year at the Venice Arts Biennale, multiple pavilions and collateral events addressed Israel’s ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people; there was even a protest during the Vernissage. This year, the Architecture Biennale has already been criticised for its lack of engagement with the conflict, which is arguably one of the greatest architectural traumas in modern history. The Land Remembers at the Lebanese Pavilion catalogues Israel’s ecocide of their country using white phosphorus – one of the photographers involved in the pavilion was even murdered in the process. In Palazzo Mora, we find a response to this devastation. The project Roots of Hope confronts us with Israel’s violent destruction of Gaza, but also reminds us of the richness and beauty of the environment before it was reduced to rubble, with a map of the rich flora and fauna, plotting a probable path towards regrowth and rebirth, anchored in hope.

Another installation in Palazzo Mora, A Stitch in Time by The Palestine Museum US, presents a preview of Palestine History Tapestry, which—as the name suggests—chronicles the country’s history through hundreds of panels of intricate embroidery. It’s sobering to know the next phase of the project will document the devastation in Gaza, wherein the destruction of buildings is a lived reality, while their rebuilding, a powerfully charged symbolic act of resistance. The fabric of history, vividly woven here by hand by women in refugee camps in the West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan, the Naqab and Gaza itself, is a physical example of how something can be built up through collaborative action.

And in that, one of the best things about the European Cultural Centre’s exhibition is that it is unafraid to create space for these voices to be heard; it gives these projects the room they deserve to reach an international audience on a global stage. At the time of writing, aerial footage is finally revealing the extent of Israel’s destruction in Gaza. In January, the United Nations estimated it had destroyed or damaged at least 92 per cent of housing in the area, and just last month, verified footage exposed the extent of the illegal demolitions being carried out by Israel as they continue to destroy civilian infrastructure. Recently, their plans to construct 3,000 illegal housing units were unveiled: architecture can thus also be construed as a weapon, making the showcase timely and urgent.

Wildfires are raging once again this summer in Europe, temperatures continue to rise, cities are sinking and the fossil fuel industry is booming. Architecture requires attention, and a key question seems to hang over all three sites within the Time Space Existence exhibition: how can we build for the future if we do not act to save the present?