Maiju Suomi and Elina Koivisto's works featured across Europe

Exhibition installations designed by Maiju Suomi and Elina Koivisto can be explored this year in London, Logroño, and Venice.

The More than Human exhibition at the Design Museum in London delves into design as a facilitator of multispecies well-being through art, science, and radical thinking. The exhibition examines, as its title suggests, how design fields can impact the well-being of humans, animals, plants, and other species.

The exhibition features over 140 works exploring the interaction between humans and nature, created by more than fifty artists, architects, and designers. The Finnish representation includes the Alusta Pavilion, designed by Suomi and Koivisto, which will be showcased as part of the exhibition.

“Architecture is changing too slowly to meet the challenges of the climate crisis and species extinction,” Suomi and Koivisto comment.

“Experimental, small-scale projects like Alusta can more nimbly seek holistic, sustainable solutions that can then be scaled to mainstream architecture. Through a concrete, aesthetically engaging example, it is easier to communicate the potential for change both within our field and in society at large. In London, Alusta becomes part of a broader discussion on the shift away from human-centered design paradigms.”

In addition to London, the meeting place of humans and other species will also be presented as part of the main exhibition at the Biennale Architettura in Venice, to which Suomi and Koivisto were invited through the Space for Ideas call. Read more about the Finnish participation in the Biennale's main exhibition here.

The 19th International Architecture Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia opens to the public on May 10 and closes on November 23, 2025. The More than Human exhibition at the Design Museum in London opens on July 11 and runs until October 5, 2025.

A total work of art invites urban citizens to participate in a ritual

The Architecture and Design Festival Concentrico will be held again in June in Logroño, Spain. Established in 2015, the festival has become one of Spain’s most international and renowned events, attracting 30,000 visitors annually.

Concentrico delves into themes related to the surrounding city and its phenomena: communities, the collective use of public space, and shared experiences. Suomi and Koivisto are creating a site-specific and participatory installation for Concentrico in collaboration with the IC-98 artist duo, Patrik Söderlund and Visa Suonpää.

The installation, titled A Third of Life, combines visual art, gardening, architecture, design, poetry, and music. Suomi and Koivisto have designed a pavilion for Concentrico based on the concept by IC98, creating a framework for experiencing a shared ritual. The title of the work refers to sleep, and the installation invites visitors to calm down together and create new, shared thoughts and experiences born from the subconscious.

The temporary pavilion, built from recycled materials, is like a dream itself: experienced for a moment and gone after the festival ends. In the heart of the warming stone city, the installation offers rest not only for people but also for nature and the city itself. The work revitalizes a forgotten spot in Logroño and plants a permanent garden there, which will provide nourishment and shelter for other species.

“We create spaces that are both practical environmental actions and poetic images of a changed relationship with nature,” say Suomi and Koivisto.

“In Logroño, we address climate change and the urban heat island effect. Through shared dreaming, we seek common ground in a politically divided reality. We are creating a garden in a decayed building, which will serve as a space for dreaming during the festival and remain after the festival to delight and cool the city's multispecies inhabitants,” the architects explain.

The Concentrico Festival will be held in Logroño, a city near Bilbao in northern Spain, from June 19 to 25, 2025.