The public call for entries to represent the US Pavilion PORCH: An Architecture of Generosity at the Venice Biennale 2025 went out in December 2024. Affiliate Associate Professor, Susan Jones, FAIA submitted the 2,000 SF project her firm, atelierjones, designed for the Maidu Greenville Rancheria, The Roundhouse Council.
“It was a deep honor to be asked to represent the United States at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2025.”, said Susan Jones, FAIA, Principal Architect, atelierjones.
Completed in late 2024, the Roundhouse Council is a 2,000 SF project that rebuilds the Maidu Youth Education Center that was burned in the Dixie Fire of 2021, in Greenville, California. The project was a model in participatory design, conceived together over a kitchen table in Greenville, with members of the Roundhouse Council—Mary, Harvey, Charlene, Danny, and Shelby—sharing stories, images of traditional Roundhouses, and sketches together.
Designed in a short 5 months, it was built the following year, by Lights Creek Construction, using mass timber panels from Washington State’s Vaagen Timbers, made from approximately 100 Douglas Fir trees from Washington State. Rising literally from the ashes, the design process was facilitated by the local community non-profit, The Sierra Institute for Community and Environment, led by Jonathan Kusel.
The project has been featured in The Financial Times, London, and The Seattle Times. The project engages with themes of resilience and regeneration, community and forest health, and materiality.
Selected in January 2025, atelierjones was one of 54 firms representing the United States at the Venice Biennale IXX from May 8 to November 23, 2025. Sometimes called the Olympics of Architecture, the event attracts thousands of visitors—some 15,000 in the first weeks—to the beautiful Giardini Biennale, featuring international pavilions from 65 countries.
Under the curatorial direction of Co-Commissioners Dean Peter MacKeith (University of Arkansas), Susan Chinn, FAIA (DesignConnects), and Rod Bigelow (Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art), the US Pavilion was designed by Marlon Blackwell Architects, Stephen Burks, Manmade, D.I.R.T Studio, Julie Bargmann, and Ten x Ten.
Selected firms were asked to create models for display in the US Pavilion, of their projects representing themes of PORCH: An Architecture of Generosity. atelierjones led the rich crafting of their Roundhouse model with local firm CompanyK assisting with the blackened steel frame and 100 trees of the model.
Professor Jones was also asked to deliver a keynote address for a collateral event hosted by the European Cultural Center, ECC Time, Space and Existence, on May 8, at the Giardini Marinaressa, Venice, on the themes of Repair, Regeneration and Reuse focusing on her firm’s work. She also took part in two panels: one hosted by the US pavilion and the other by ORO Books, moderated by Ashley Simone and William Richards, titled The Implacable Book, where she spoke on themes from her 2018 book, Mass Timber Design and Research. A forthcoming book, Light on Wood, is to be published by Birkhauser in Fall 2025.
About Susan Jones:
Architect Susan Jones brings design to drive systemic change since founding her award-winning, female-led architectural firm, atelierjones, in Seattle over twenty years ago. Over the last decade, she and her firm have become national leaders in introducing environmentally responsible and bio-based material systems at scale.
A third-generation citizen of the US Pacific Northwest, Jones earned degrees from Stanford and Harvard GSD, began her practice in Vienna, was a Fulbright scholar in Berlin, and is now an Affiliate Associate Professor at the University of Washington. She was awarded the AIA Seattle Gold Medal and the national Women in Architecture award, both in 2024.
“What propelled me forward was a vision that there was a more systemic way to design our built environment…”
— Susan Jones, FAIA
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