Rev. Walker's porch featured in 19th International Biennale Architettura

Venice Biennale Porch — Pavilion designed by Marlon Blackwell Architects, D.I.R.T. Studio, Ten X Ten Landscape Architecture and Urbanism, and Stephen Burks Man Made

The 19th International Biennale Architettura has begun in Venice, Italy, and Rural Studio is represented with a box installation about Rev. Walker’s Home. This biennial historic exhibition features architectural work from around the world and will run May 10, 2025, to November 23, 2025. Rural Studio is part of the US exhibition, PORCH: An Architecture of Generosity. PORCH was commissioned by the US Department of State, and the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design at University of Arkansas, in partnership with DesignConnects and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, organized the event. Much of the photography was provided by our long-time friend, Timothy Hursley.

The exhibition is being held at the US Pavilion, a permanent three-room hall in the Giardini, a park in Venice with 30 permanent pavilions, each sponsored by a country that participates in the Biennale. Although the US Pavilion was built in 1930 and reflects the classical Venetian Palladian style, its façade is covered for the event with an expansive modern rendering of a porch. This “porch” is meant to show the vital role porches play in American architectural life, how they provide spaces that are both inside and outside, communal and private.

Venice Biennale gallery with "boxes" on display that represent porches

Rural Studio is honored to participate in this celebration of porches. Most homes built by our students include a porch and feature it as a central space of the home, both extending the “inside” living quarters of the home and creating an invitation for the “outside” public world to share this communal space. Rural Studio’s Front Porch Initiative, which aims to support home ownership throughout the South, was so named because we believe porches embody all that is good in home design: dynamic communities, natural shelters, and creative spaces.

To exemplify this commitment, Rural Studio’s exhibit highlights the grand porch of Rev. Walker’s Home. Rev. Walker wanted a space that featured the outdoors as much as the indoors, so his home consists of an expansive roof, covering a broad porch and two buildings (a living quarter and a storage space). The design inverts our understanding of the porch as an add-on to the home: in this case, the home is subsumed within the porch.

Rural Studio's "box" that features Rev. Walker's porch with a quote on glass front from Reggie — Rural Studio’s PORCH box design-build team: Andrew Freear, Stephen Long, Natalie Butts-Ball, Tricia Smith, Reggie Walker, Timothy Hursley, William Dooley

The design also exemplifies the utility and sentimentality that porches provide, including shelter from weather, cooler temperatures, and a sense of community. The aim of the PORCH exhibition is to celebrate porches as ecotones: spaces of transition from one ecology to another. Rev. Walker’s Home exemplifies an ecotone because it connects the built environment with its surrounding natural environment. Rev. Walker uses this “threshold” to inspire his writing, which connects spirituality with the physical world:

“The porch symbolizes being on the threshold—neither fully inside nor fully outside—mirroring the balance between the self and the world. It becomes a sacred space where thoughts can flow freely and divine inspiration feels closer, shaping the words I put to paper.”

Photography by Timothy Hursley

Recent press:

The Architect’s Newspaper: U.S. Pavilion completes construction ahead of 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia opening

The New York Times: At the Architecture Biennale, the U.S. Says ‘Come Sit by Me’