The Biennale d'architecture et de paysage d'Île de France, is the most important exhibition of architecture in France. For its third edition, Sana Frini, from the Mexican firm LOCUS, and Philippe Rahm, from the French firm PHILIPPE RAHM ARCHITECTES, were selected as co-curators of the exhibition of l'École Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture of Versailles, which will be presented in the stables of the Château de Versailles from May 7 to July 13, 2025.
The theme of their exhibition, titled «Quatre degrés Celsius entre toi et moi», is based on the official statement made in 2023 by former French Minister of Ecological Transition Christophe Béchu, announcing that France will experience a temperature increase of +4°C by 2100. As climate change progresses, the current temperate climate of Paris (and other cities at the same northern latitudes) will shift by 2100 into a subtropical climate—hot and dry in summer, mild in winter with heavy rainfall—similar to the current climate of southern Mexico, Tunisia, or South Korea. According to the Météo-France report, this will mean the following in Paris in 2100:
In summer:
- A rise in average temperatures of up to +5.3°C
- A sharp increase in the number of heatwave days, reaching 3 to 26 days per year, instead of the current average of one day
- An increase in drought
In winter:
- An increase in average temperatures of up to +3.9°C and fewer periods of frost.
- An increase in the amount of water in precipitation, with no significant increase in the number of rainy days.
The point of the exhibition is to say that architects and urban planners working in temperate northern climates like Paris, New-York or London must now look south, to these subtropical, Mediterranean or even arid or tropical climates, to find models for the architecture and urban planning of their future, draw inspiration from the practical solutions found in subtropical climates to combat heat, drought, rain and flooding, and acquire know-how that will enable them to build, transform and adapt buildings and cities in more northerly latitudes to these rising temperatures and ever-increasing heat waves. The urban landscape of temperate climates will become “Mediterraneanized” and “tropicalized” over the course of the 21st century. And this climatic and hydrographic transformation of northern cities will consequently bring about a revolution in the aesthetics of architecture and cities, in their forms and appearances, and more profoundly in the culture, customs and arts of living in phase with these new material conditions.
ABOUT THE CURATORS
Sana Frini is a tunisian architect based in Mexico City, and co-founder of de LOCUS (Mexico). Her work focuses on architectural practices of the global South, such as participatory processes, artisanal manufactured systems, post-vernacularities, local reintegration and climate resilience. With LOCUS, Sana Frini has recently delivered various contextual regeneration projects, including the construction of Mexico's first low-carbon public building, Latin America's first zero-waste restaurant and the continent's first rehabilitative climate prison. She was also selected to curate the Île-de-France 2025 biennial of architecture and landscape, as well as the Mexican pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2025 among a collective lead by Ignacio Urquiza (Estudio IUAPdA), Ana Paula Ruiz Galindo and Mecky Reuss (Pedro&Juana), Jachen Schleich (Locus), María Marín de Buen, Lucio Usobiaga Hegewisch, and Nathalia Muguet.Sana Frini has taught in the USA at universities such as Cornell University, Columbus and Kent University.
Philippe Rahm is a Swiss architect with a degree from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and a doctorate from the Université de Paris-Saclay, whose practice of PHILIPPE RAHM ARCHITECTES is based in Paris. His work, from the physiological to the meteorological, has received an international audience in the context of sustainability. His projects include the Taichung Central Park in Taiwan, inaugurated in 2020 (with Mosbach paysagistes). In 2023, he authored the books Histoire naturelle de l’architecture, Climatic architecture and The Anthropocene Style. He has taught at Harvard, Princeton and Columbia universities, HEAD – Geneva and ENSA Versailles. He has taken part in numerous biennials, including those in Venice (2025), Tbilisi (2024), Madrid (2024), Chicago (2023) or Tallinn (2022). In 2025, he is co-curator of the Île-de-France and Saint-Etienne biennales. He is a knight of the Monaco Order of Cultural Merit and has been awarded the Silver Medal of the French Academy of Architecture.
