UIA World Congress of Architects 2026 Barcelona

The International Union of Architects (UIA) tarafından düzenlenen "UIA World Congress of Architects 2026 Barcelona" için son başvuru tarihi 23 Mayıs 2025.

UIA World Congress of Architects 2026 Barcelona Purpose of the Call

The purpose of this Call for Participants is to invite contributions to the UIA World Congress of Architects 2026 Barcelona, titled “Becoming. Architectures for a planet in transition”. The congress seeks to explore innovative perspectives, interdisciplinary approaches, and transformative ideas that address contemporary challenges. Together, we aim to identify the most pertinent questions, practices, methods, and modes of research and development; informing the urgently needed transformations of our habitats to enable sustainable, equitable and inclusive futures.

The Topic of Becoming

Becoming explores spatial practices that foster the appropriation and transformation of our inhabited environments —both human and more-than-human, individual and collective— by investigating the potential of time as a design tool. Rejecting the notion of tabula rasa, it is rooted in a deep awareness of pre-existing physical and cultural landscapes, curating transitions through material, political, ecological, and poetic interrelations. In an effort to move beyond the depletion of capitalist-driven paradigms, Becoming poses challenges that suggest alternative prospects: six thematic research lines frame these explorations, inviting open-ended, intersecting investigations into what it means to design for a world in transition.

With this call for participants, the Congress aims to bring together knowledge across research, practice and education to provoke new perspectives and new alliances, reshaping architectural thinking and action.

Research lines covered by the Call

Becoming explores the transformation of the existing reality, addressing the relationship between the urgency of contemporary challenges and a long-term perspective that unfolds through six thematic research lines: Becoming More-than-human, Becoming Attuned, Becoming Embodied, Becoming Interdependent, Becoming Hyper-conscious, Becoming Circular.

The call invites relevant research and knowledge, that critically explores the diverse ways in which architecture connects to the six thematic research lines. Submissions must, therefore, address at least one of them:

Becoming More-than-human: How can architecture embrace ecological coexistence?

Becoming Attuned: What forms of meaning and poetics can we engage with our everyday practice?

Becoming Embodied: How can technologies and values be embedded in the transitions from matter to construction?

Becoming Interdependent: How can we design politics of space that activate interpersonal relationships?

Becoming Hyper-conscious: What actions can emerge from a deeper awareness of global and local interplays?

Becoming Circular: Within post-extractivist proximity policies, which cycles can be spatially produced?

This Conceptual Framework has been further developed in a separate document that can be downloaded from the website and from this link.

Who can participate?

This call is aimed at architects, landscape architects, urbanists, designers, engineers, researchers, photographers, filmmakers, artists and researches in social sciences and humanities —transdiciplinary approaches related to spatial practice.

Committees and Expert Panels

Scientific Committee Members

Joan Busquets, Honorific President of the Congress

Fuensanta Nieto, President of the Scientific Advisory Committee

Curators of the Congress: Pau Bajet, Mariona Benedito, Maria Giramé, Tomeu Ramis, Pau Sarquella and Carmen Torres.

Delegates UIA Regions: 5 representative members .

COAC/CSCAE advisors: Josep Lluis Mateo, Mar Santamaria, Meritxell Inaraja, Oscar Miguel Ares, Elisa Valero.

Academic support

This open call counts with the institutional support from the ETSAB-UPC (Escola Tècnica Superior d’Arquitectura de Barcelona, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya) and the academic advice of Areti Markopoulou.

Jury of Experts

Critical design. Citical essay. Critical image.

Each format will have an associated Jury of Experts, a panel of distinguished professionals and academics, each linked to one or more of the research lines of the congress.

The complete list of the jury members will be disclosed in further announcements.

Evaluation Committee

The Evaluation Committee will consist of academics and professionals from diverse nationalities, with established academic ties in the case of the critical essay. The total number of evaluators will be determined according to the number of submissions received through the Call for Participants. The complete list of evaluators will be made public prior to the start of the selection process.

Calendar

31 March 2025: Launch of Open Call

23 May 2025: Deadline for submissions – Critical design, Critical image and first phase of Critical essay

The Open Call will be open until 23 May 2025, 23:59:59 CET.

In the case of the Critical essay, this only includes the essay proposal (1st phase).

20 June 2025: Announcement of selected proposals of the essay proposal (1st phase).

10 September 2025: Deadline for submissions of the complete essays (2nd phase).

The Open Call for the second phase of the complete essay closes on 10 September 2025, 23:59:59 CET.

30 September 2025: Announcement of selected Critical design and Critical image.

20 October 2025: Announcement of selected complete essays (2nd phase).

15 December 2025: Deadline for materials to be included in Catalogue.

January – April 2026: Revision and correction of texts to be included in Catalogue.

May 2026: Reception of materials to be included in the exhibition.