Heatwave: How Bahrain's award-winning pavilion will live on beyond Venice Biennale

Project that won Golden Lion prize could be used to produce shading structures for construction workers

Heatwave combines a geothermal well, which brings in cool air from underground, with a solar chimney that expels warm air. Reuters

Bahrain’s award-winning pavilion at the Venice Biennale of Architecture may inspire several new structures across the kingdom – its passive cooling technology offering construction workers shade and respite from the heat.

“The idea is to replicate this prototype across several sites in Bahrain,” explains Noura Al Sayeh-Holtrop, deputy commissioner of the project. “The pavilion served as a test for a shading structure that we hope to implement across Bahrain in the near future.”

Heatwave is commissioned by Shaikh Khalifa bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, president of the Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities. It is curated by architect Andrea Faraguna.

The project explores how architecture can respond to rising temperatures. The geothermal cooling system on display draws from the techniques used in vernacular architecture from Bahrain and the wider region. However, it has been bolstered by contemporary innovation.

The structure combines a geothermal well, which brings cool air from underground, as well as a solar chimney that expels the warm air out. These two forces are connected in what the designers call a “thermo-hygrometric axis” that creates a gentle, controlled climate inside the space – all without machinery.

Heatwave is commissioned by Shaikh Khalifa bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, president of the Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities. Photo: The National Pavilion of the Kingdom of Bahrain

“Temperatures are rising across the world, but their effects are unequal, and the Gulf is one of the regions that will be the most affected,” Al Sayeh-Holtrop says. “The urgency of the situation is what compelled us to focus on this topic for our national pavilion at the biennale. These public shading spaces are conceived to provide shade and cooling for the most vulnerable members of society and those most exposed to heatwaves: construction workers on work sites.”

The pavilion underscores this connection between climate, architecture and social equity through its scenography. Sandbags are piled around the central geothermal well – acting as seating to visitors.

“The proposal starts by acknowledging the alarming issue of rising temperatures and its consequences, specifically for the Gulf region,” Al Sayeh-Holtrop says.

“Yet, it is also a call not to be fatalist about the situation but to investigate what the current possibilities are, reinvesting existing technologies and practices and thinking of simple ways of deploying them in an affordable, modular and replicable manner.”

Heatwave, Al Sayeh-Holtrop adds, may be rooted in traditions from the Gulf, but it invites architects worldwide to consider “local solutions” to climate challenges.

The pavilion highlights the work that has gone into its construction. Photo: The National Pavilion of the Kingdom of Bahrain

“From Bahrain and from the Gulf, we aim to propose local solutions to global challenges that, while rooted in the contemporary realities of our urban conditions, are inspired by ancestral methods of dealing with the heat,” she says.

While Heatwave may go on to inspire innovative shading structures across Bahrain, there are plans for the project in Venice to be reappropriated after the biennale concludes in November.

“We are in discussion with a few partners in Venice to relocate the installation to a location in the laguna, where it can serve as a public shading structure,” Al Sayeh-Holtrop says. “In terms of sustainability, it would not make sense to ship this installation back to Bahrain, so we are looking for a site that is in or close to Venice.”

Heatwave is Bahrain's second Golden Lion win. The country’s pavilion also received the top honour at the Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2010. That project, entitled Reclaim, examined the social implications of extensive land reclamation in an island nation.

“Awards are always great motivations to continue working and talking about important issues,” Al Sayeh-Holtrop says.

“It's important for us in Bahrain to have a seat in international architectural dialogues and exhibitions and to use these platforms to shed light on the urgent issues that we are addressing.”