Natura Futura
Babahoyo, Ecuador
Founded by José Fernando Gómez Marmolejo in 2015, Natura Futura is an architecture studio focused on exploring socio-spatial issues in Latin American cities through experimentation and research. The practice emphasizes contextual design, engaging local traditions and emotional narratives while seeking to redefine collective dimensions and urban processes. Natura Futura works with simple frameworks that allow for knowledge transfer and community involvement. The studio has received awards from the Quito Pan-American Biennial and has exhibited at the Architecture Festival in Bali and Valparaíso. In 2020, it won three awards at the Quito Biennial and in 2022, the Brick Award in Vienna.
2025 Biennial Project
Project Overview
The Collector
In many flood-prone and riverine areas across Latin America, communities face chronic exposure to rising water levels, limited access to safe water and energy, and infrastructural neglect. These territories lack the basic systems needed for dignified and resilient living. Environmental risk intersects with social inequality, producing conditions where conventional architecture and planning tools are insufficient or inapplicable. The project responds to this context by presenting a self-sustaining floating platform that integrates rainwater harvesting, solar energy generation, and basic hygiene infrastructure. Built with modular wooden components and locally sourced materials, the structure is designed for low-cost, community-led construction. It demonstrates how architecture can operate as a decentralized system for survival, autonomy, and infrastructural justice in contexts of environmental and institutional precarity.
Venue
View more840 N. Michigan Ave
Address
840 N. Michigan Ave
Description
The Biennial expands its footprint downtown with the opening of its fifth site at 840 N. Michigan Avenue, transforming more than 65,000 square feet of space on the Magnificent Mile into a dynamic hub for art, design, and dialogue.







