Vena Cava, an installation by SoA RPI faculty Gustavo Crembil and alumna Mae ling Lokko shapes award-winning British Pavilion at the 2025 Architecture Venice Biennale. Designed Gustavo Crembil, architect and SoA RPI Associate Professor, and Mae ling Lokko (RPI class 2016), material scientist, artist and Associate Professor at Yale, Vena Cava is a striking, contemplative installation featured in the British Pavilion’s exhibition GBR – Geology of Britannic Repair. Recasting the Palm House at Kew Gardens in West London as a site for ecological and colonial reckoning, Vena Cava challenges narratives of botanical empire and materials extraction. Contrasting the original Palm House’s iron-and-glass, Vena Cava fulfills the room with a timber frame structure. Left intentionally empty, it evokes the greenhouse’s architectural form—evoking absence as meaningful presence. The structure is tiled by an undulating surface of emerging materials — such as fly ash, bioplastic, and fungi — proposing a shift toward architecture grounded in ecological cycles and reparative materiality. Lokko and Crembil’s collaboration aligns with the Pavilion’s broader curatorial theme: exploring architecture’s entanglement with colonial histories and the possibility of restorative futures. Vena Cava repositioned botanical history and built form in conversation with issues of material justice and regenerative design. This year 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, titled “Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective”, was curated by Carlo Ratti. The British Pavilion curated by Kabage Karanja, Stella Mutegi, Owen Hopkins and Kathryn Yusoff, also featured works by Cave_bureau, Thandi Loewenson, and the Palestine Regeneration Team / PART, alongside Vena Cava. The British Pavilion received a Special Mention for National Participation at La Biennale di Venezia, with Vena Cava playing a central role in the exhibition’s critical impact. The Architecture Biennale closes November 23rd, 2025. Vena Cava, credits: Designers: Mae-ling Lokko and Gustavo Crembil Production Team: Thomas Roland, Oswaldo Chinchilla, Alireza Zamani Samani, Xingyue Elis Huang and Sae Jun Kim. Panel Manufacturing Partners: Opovate Ltd. and RiceHouse Benefit Corporation Commissioned by: British Council Additional Funding: Yale Center for Ecosystems in Architecture, Yale School of Architecture, RPI School of Architecture and Willow Technologies Ltd.