The award went to Canal Café, a project created by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, teaming with Natural Systems Utilities, SODAI, Aaron Betsky, and Davide Oldani. The installation uses natural filtration systems to purify water from the city's canals and transform it into a coffee that Arsenal visitors can enjoy.
The water is split into two interdependent streams: one flows through a natural membrane bioreactor, a “micro-wetland” where salt-tolerant halophytes facilitate purification but retain minerals; the other undergoes artificial filtration, reverse osmosis, and UV disinfection to produce distilled water.
"Café is a demonstration of how the city of Venice can be a laboratory to speculate how to live on the water, while contributing to the public space of Venice. It also invites future speculation about the lagoon and other lagoons. It also represents an important parallel track in DS+R’s practice since the start, one rich in transdisciplinary experimentation. We also acknowledge the extraordinary persistence of the Canal Cafè project, which started almost 20 years ago. It’s an example that the Biennale can be a long-duration project and go far beyond the event."
Jury Statement and Motivation.
The International Jury of the 19th International Architecture Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia was composed of Hans Ulrich Obrist (President, Switzerland), Paola Antonelli (Italy), and Mpho Matsipa (South Africa).

Canal Cafè Bar, by Diller Scofidio + Renfro. Photograph by Iwan Baan.

Canal Cafè Bar, by Diller Scofidio + Renfro. Photograph by Iwan Baan.
Project description by Diller Scofidio + Renfro
While the canals and lagoon are the source of the city’s historical wealth and beauty, they also elicit fears of contamination and flooding—concerns that are heightened in an era of mass tourism and climate change. Canal Café reaches beneath the photogenic surface of the city by converting these brackish waters into the comforting scent and taste of espresso—the irreducible Italian pleasure. The public will drink Venice.
Canal Café is part espresso bar, part laboratory. A hybrid natural-artificial purification system accelerates the cleansing effects of tidal wetlands, rendering canal water potable. A transparent pipe draws water from the lagoon, channeling it through a bio-filtration system that removes sludge and toxins. The water is split into two interdependent streams: one flows through a natural membrane bioreactor, a “micro-wetland” where salt-tolerant halophytes facilitate purification but retain minerals; the other undergoes artificial filtration, reverse osmosis, and UV disinfection to produce distilled water. The streams are then mixed, steamed, and forced through coffee grounds to produce espresso. Unused purified water irrigates an adjacent landscape installation.
Diller Scofidio + Renfro has worked in collaboration with the US based water systems engineers Natural Systems Utilities, and the Italian based environmental engineering and water engineering company Sodai.