Milan, May 10, 2025 – “Canal Café shows how Venice can become a testing ground for reimagining new ways of living on water, while also making a meaningful contribution to the city’s public space.” With this statement, the international jury of the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia awarded the special project Canal Café the Golden Lion for Best Participation. The initiative was made possible thanks to the expertise of Webuild Group and its subsidiary Fisia Italimpianti.

 “Canal Café is a symbol of how we can provide citizens with access to drinking water through innovative technologies that protect the world’s most precious resource,” said Pietro Salini, Chief Executive Officer of Webuild. “The desalination plants built by the Webuild Group currently serve 20 million people a day, demonstrating our commitment to addressing the global water crisis. We are ready to do the same in Sicily, where we have just submitted a proposal under a public-private partnership (PPP), as provided for by law. The proposal, developed pro bono by Webuild and presented to the Region of Sicily, outlines a comprehensive plan of interventions entirely financed by private capital, aimed at permanently resolving the island’s drought problem. Within two years, it would be possible to provide unlimited water directly to households across Sicily, with an investment of nearly 900 million euros fully funded by the private sector. This proposal offers a practical solution to the water emergency. Now, the choice between the available options lies with policymakers, but a concrete solution is finally on the table,” Salini concluded.

The project aims to clearly and simply illustrate the potential of desalination and water purification technologies to address the global water crisis. Developed in the Arsenale area, it shows how saltwater from Venice’s canals can be filtered and purified to the point of even being used to make a cup of coffee. It offers a powerful example of how environmental challenges like water scarcity can be transformed into opportunities for daily life. Supported by the Webuild Group, the project was curated by Carlo Ratti and developed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Natural Systems Utilities, SODAI, Aaron Betsky and Davide Oldani, with additional support from Lavazza and Kartell.

The sustainable management of water is one of the main global challenges that must be met in a moment where the world has 40% of its global population living in areas with a water scarcity risk, while over 2 billion people cannot access drinking water. Webuild Group has dominated the global ENR rankings for the water sector for over a decade. With Fisia Italimpianti, a company with nearly a century of experience in desalination and water treatment, the Group positions itself as a strategic player in water-stressed regions, particularly in the Middle East.

Thanks to its desalination plants, Fisia Italimpianti is currently able to meet the water needs of over 20 million people worldwide, providing access to water even in the most arid regions of the planet. The Group, through Fisia Italimpianti, has built some of the main desalination plants in the Middle East, like the Shoaiba-3 plant in Saudi Arabia, which covers the demand of over 1 million people of the cities of Jeddah, La Mecca and Taif; and the Jebel Ali M one in the United Arab Emirates, to produce drinking water and for other domestic uses for the population of Dubai.