Yu Sing, an Indonesian architect, relies on local materials when constructing homes and public spaces. Natural houses are no longer the first choice for peoples homes, Yu Sing said. The state even calls them uninhabitable homes.

Yu Sing founded Studio Akanoma in 2008 to showcase the design of low-cost housing using natural materials. A year later he published Dreams of Affordable Homes, which covers his design process and shows a breakdown of development costs, which are often low when opting for local building materials.

Studio Akanoma cites the decline in the use of nipa, a mangrove palm, in roofing. Today most new homes opt for more expensive zinc sheets because the nipa palms are widely seen as backward. Some believe the palm fronds will last only one year before a replacement thatch is required, but nipa, when thatched correctly, can ensure long term waterproofing, cooler temperatures and quieter living conditions compared with the disruptive patter of rain on a hot zinc roof.

In 2016 Yu Sing and colleagues designed the simple kitchen from bamboo for a local womens group. The kitchen was a place to learn and hone their craft, producing food from wild plants and locally grown produce. The kitchens bamboo roof appears inverted, but it is a deliberate technique to retain rain for drinking water. The kitchen walls are made from a composite of soil, rice straw, rice husk, limestone and cow manure.

Bamboo has been used for food and shelter for centuries across these islands, but when Yu Sing hired carpenters to build the structure, he found bamboo was almost a novel commodity for the tradesmen. They said it was their first time as carpenters to have a lot of bamboo to make bamboo constructions, he said.

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This years Venice Architecture Biennale has as its theme The Laboratory of the Future. The laboratory part of the title suggests experimentation and radical rethinking.

The National Pavilion of Saudi Arabia shows a series of more traditional yet still alluring spaces with arches on either side of a rectangular central room that feels almost cave-like and prehistoric. Inside the dimly lit central space is just one object a hollow 3D-printed clay column from which light is projected on to the floor, walls and ceiling. The patterns are  inspired by undulating desert dunes and the vernacular architecture of Asir, a region in the south-west of the country that consists of coastal plains and high mountains.

This object will be relocated to the bottom of the Red Sea eventually, where they will create new habitats for marine life and leave a legacy for future generations.

It is in this long cavernous central space that one can also smell a fragrance created specifically for the pavilion. It was designed to capture elements of the culture, explains the assistant curator. We have frankincense, which was a core element of our trade routes, we have myrrh and we also have lavender. Its our way of introducing Saudi Arabia to the world. When we talk about architecture we always forget the unseen and focus on the visual.

The curators of the Saudi pavilion are keen to emphasize that the pavilion is a collaborative effort that seeks to finds common ground in its desire to improve the human condition and answer the challenges confronting our world. In practice, what thi...