The British Council announced today the winning proposal for the British Pavilion at the 15th Venice Biennial of Architecture: Home Economics, a project authored by the architecture writers Shumi Bose and Jack Self alongside the architect and planner Finn Williams.

According to the curatorial team, Home Economics will address "the frontline of British architecture: the family home." The team plans to divide the British Pavilion into a series of 1:1  immersive domestic spaces, designed by a "multidisciplinary team of architects, artist, designers and developers." 

In their proposal, the team writes, "The exhibition will ask urgent questions about the future of housing. Social and technological changes are collapsing the patterns of domestic life - but the design of the home hasn't caught up. Can the house ever escape its economic status as an asset? Should our homes still be considered private spaces? How do new types of families and households produce new spatial needs? What are the models of ownership, finance and work that make these conditions possible?"

Bose and Self are both architecture writers and journalists (among other roles, and according to their LinkedIn profiles). Their work can be found at Domus, the Architectural Review (Self is a contributing editor) and other publications. Bose is also a senior lecturer at the Architecture Association in London. Together, they recently ran a successful crowdfunding campaign to start the Real Review, a bi-monthly print architecture magazine. The first issue will include writing by such luminaries as Bifo Berardi, Metahaven, Keller Easterling, and Sam Jacob.

Finn Williams is a public planner, writer, RCA professor, and the Regeneration Area Manager for the Northwest and Central London. He's also the founder of Common Office, a planning office that "deals in the complex reality of the built environment." In a 2011 profile in GQ, he was described as "one of the youngest and most exciting urban planners in Britain."

While there's still no substantial information on the specifics of the project, Williams recently tweeted, "Zaha Hadid, Will Alsop, Nigel Coates, FOA, Peter Cook, Jeremy Till, Ellis Woodman, muf, FAT, @jack_self, @tontita00, @commonoffice," perhaps hinting at some of the figures we can expect to surface in their pavilion.

In any case, it seems a very promising team with a spot-on curatorial focus. Here's looking forward to next May!