AA alum Iris Hansen participates in the Biennale d’Architecture et de Paysage d’Île-de-France with the project Heaven Under Our Feet

AA alum and Studio HIDE founder Iris Hansen is participating in the third Biennale d’Architecture et de Paysage d’Île-de-France, which runs from 7 May to 13 July 2025 in Versailles, France. Hansen’s contribution, a project titled, Heaven Under Our Feet, is featured in the ‘Future’ section of the exhibition, 4°C entre toi et moi, curated by Sana Frini and Philippe Rahm, and presents an extract from Hansen’s AA Diploma 1 project.

The project explores the idea that the city has become our new biotope, with over half the global population (55% in 2017) now living in urban settings. Soil – long revered in mythologies and religions as the origin of life – shapes our food systems, economies, health and material cultures, yet urbanisation and soil sealing have severed this connection; leading to floods, subsidence, landslides and urban heat islands. Hansen’s work speculates on what it could mean to grant soil a right to the city, unsealing the asphalt and allowing soil to resurface across streets, courtyards and lobbies. In this future, unsealing becomes an act of liberation, reconfiguring urban life and restoring our connection with the ground beneath us.

This year’s exhibition responds to a 2023 announcement by France’s Minister of Ecological Transition, forecasting a +4°C rise in national temperatures by 2100. As Paris transitions toward a subtropical climate, the curators called for spatial, ecological and social reimagining.