UIA 2026: Six Themes for Rethinking Architecture

An open call for proposals was launched in late March, seeking proposals that address the six thematic pillars laid out by the curatorial committee. These pillars seek to rethink the role of architecture in the face of the urgencies of the present: Becoming More-than-human, Becoming Embodied, Becoming Attuned, Becoming Interdependent, Becoming Hyper-conscious, Becoming Circular. The participation format includes lectures in plenary sessions moderated by critical antagonists, conferences, debates between two or three speakers, round tables, workshops for students, a large public exhibition and an official Congress catalog.

More than 10,000 people from all over the world are expected: professionals, representatives of the academic community, and students. The Congress will be urban, with the intention of turning the city into another agent of the debate. The main venues will be Les Tres Xemeneies (The Three Chimneys) in Sant Adrià de Besòs and the Disseny Hub Barcelona (DHub). The awards will be presented at the Sagrada Família and the closing ceremony will be held at the Moll de la Marina and Montjuïc Castle.

On April 14, 2025, the official launch of the Congress was held at the headquarters of the Architect’s Association of Catalonia (COAC). We spoke with three of the six curators—Mariona Benedito, Tomeu Ramis, and Carmen Torres—to explore the keys to their curatorial gaze, to understand the scope of this global call and the methodological approach behind it, how the six thematic pillars were developed, and what it means, today, to design architecture in a planet in crisis.

Tomeu Ramis: These six Becomings have to do with an approach to the idea of time as a tool for architectural projects. This is what Becoming means: away from the operations carried out during the twentieth century—generally thought to be the tabula rasa—closer to today, to a careful transformation of the existing.

The political, social, and poetic materialities intertwine in ways that led to the development of six lines of research—each one distinct, yet closely connected, and with clearly defined areas of influence. The number fits very well with the span of the Congress: three days, six half-days. Also, we are six curators, so it was posed as a huge opportunity for each of us to appropriate and deepen one of them. Although we are organized in several layers and have many fronts to address, each of us is curating a line of research in constant communication with the others.

To name each theme, we looked for ambiguous words with certain mysteries, like in a novel or a movie, so that interested people would be curious to approach these phenomena. The idea is that each line is so open that it can receive a diversity of answers.

Becoming More-than-human appeals to the fact that architecture must deal with other species, not only humans, and escape from the anthropocentric vision that has taken place until today. Architecture must seek a new relationship with the planet; it must understand that the human being is one more species in an ecosystem, and that there is interdependence between many other species and with other phenomena in the biosphere.

Becoming Embodied refers to the social, economic, and ecological responsibility of materials, from the raw material to the finished product. It has to do with traceability: from the extraction to implementation, and including the technologies needed in this process that also assume these responsibilities. Being aware of the material responsibility and its implementation is what determines this research.

Becoming Attuned alludes to the search for that tone or that contemporary frequency that derives from aesthetic and poetic meanings. It has to do with the revision of the meanings with which we now coexist, with the creation of possible imaginaries, aesthetics, and poetics.

Tomeu Ramis: Becoming Interdependent is an investigation that points to the articulation of interdependence between humans and non-humans, the recognition of diversity in that coexistence and the conflict shared by that coexistence. We do not all think alike, we are different, and architecture creates the scenario where that interdependent coexistence is possible.

Becoming Hyper-conscious picks up the relationship between global and local phenomena. This research asks how macro-global phenomena—such as the Internet, broad-spectrum regulations, or regulations of narrow fields (such as the European ones)—affect our daily lives. Hyper-conscious has to do with the need to be aware of that traceability that understands that our local actions, however small they may be, are intertwined and related to regulatory frameworks and global spheres beyond our reach, what Timothy Morton calls “hyperobjects.” We are interested in studying this traceability, this hyper-awareness of recognizing the scale of things.

Finally, Becoming Circular not only addresses the necessary circularity of materials and inhabited environments, but also energetic and programmatic circularity. It has to do with the action, or the anti-action, of tearing down and building, of understanding that any square meter can be reprogrammed or re-energized, and, in case it is torn down, that its materiality can be recirculated in the inhabited environments.

Mariona Benedito: We expect to receive a maximum of 30 documents in each format, and we do not know how many will be accepted.

Tomeu Ramis: In previous experiences, such as at the UIA Congress in Copenhagen in 2023, about 1,000 entries were received. We have facilitated the submission in PDF format to invite more people to submit their ideas. It will be a huge job, but the intention is to open up the spectrum beyond our understanding, beyond the immediate understanding of our environment, beyond what we can control as curators. The idea is that the open call can surprise us and reach places where we have not yet been.

Tomeu Ramis: From the first day, we decided that it should be an intergenerational congress, which will give space to very young voices and to others with a lot of experience and long practice. We agreed that it should be a parity congress, something that has yet to be named. We also decided that it should be transdisciplinary, because the climatic and social challenges we face are not only for architects. We want to hear the voice of geologists and philosophers, of other disciplines that have conceptualized the umbrella for the lines of research. We decided to make it transnational, obviously, since it is the World Congress of Architecture, with representations from the five regions of the UIA. We are interested in exchanging with places and voices that are silenced or far from the European approach we are familiar with.

Finally, we are committed to participation formats at different speeds. We think it is very important to include reflections and research lasting a year, as in the block called Research by Design, or faster approaches such as the international student competition. We understand that researching for five days with a lot of intensity and doing something for a year will give some complementary results that can be discussed at the Congress.

Carmen Torres: We believe that architectural thought is created through research, but also through design research, that is: not only through a critical vision towards something existing, but also a propositional vision. It is about research that seeks to understand contexts, to project into the future with speculative proposals to advance, solve, improve, or adapt to a more resilient and appropriate environment in the midst of the climatic, social, and political crises in which we find ourselves.

So, by direct invitation or by competition, the Congress will feature 12 proposals on various topics and worked through the Research by Design methodology. Six of them are located in Barcelona, with the idea of using the city as a research laboratory, and the other six will be developed in different contexts and sites around the world.

Of these 12 investigations, one of them is already underway and has reached a point of maturity: Water Parliaments, Catalonia's proposal, curated by Eva Franch + TAKK, for the Venice Architecture Biennale opening in May. We participated in the drafting of the bases and as jury of the competition, so we have closely followed the research of the issues on political and social agency related to water management of the Catalan counties, from the peaks of the Pyrenees, through the provinces, to the sea. This project responds to the Becoming More-than-human line.

Two more projects will be chosen from the international call Mineral. Architectures of Urban Mining, organized in collaboration with BIT Habitat Foundation and the City of Barcelona. This competition, corresponding to Becoming Embodied and Becoming Circular and open until April 25 this year, focuses on finding real solutions in the reuse of waste generated in public works in Barcelona. The main intention is to create a new construction system with a material that can be used in the streets as they are renovated annually in the city. It will have a life beyond the Congress, as a prototype that will become a system to be implemented in other cities.

Other Research by Design will come from Atelier Bow-Wow, Eyal Weizman of Forensic Architecture, Vilder Vinck, Anna Puigjaner, and Colectivo C733. Each one responds to different lines of research.

Mariona Benedito: It is a call that will be open to any student in the world and will be developed in a single stage. It is not an invitation nor is it associated with architecture schools: it is a competition for young people anywhere in the world who are not yet architects. It will be related to the lines of research and will focus on a cross-cutting theme: resilience.

In addition, the International Emerging Workshop will take place. What is the idea?
Carmen Torres: This workshop will take place a few days before the congress. The idea is that 12 emerging practices will lead the workshop under the structure of the six thematic pillars. It is also complemented with visits and conferences of these studies that will be public events in the city.

How is the selection of these external collaborations to be chosen from the open call for papers?
Carmen Torres: The Congress will take place over three days, so six half-days are planned with keynote lectures, small-format sessions, dialogues, or short talks. The call is open until May 23 for participants to send their proposals in three different formats: they can be projects (Critical Design), essays (Critical Paper) or multimedia pieces (Critical Image). The call is aimed at professionals in architecture and urban planning, design, research, photography, film, art, philosophy, or any other discipline that may be relevant to the conceptual framework of the Congress.

When participants submit their proposal in a specific format, the jury will be able to choose how it is presented: whether it is a talk, part of the exhibition or added to the catalog. The main exhibition will be a fundamental part of the Congress, as much as the paper catalog that will be edited beforehand in order to soak up the themes, and the digital publication that will be presented during and after the event.

Does it cost money to participate in the Congress?
Carmen Torres: Compared to other editions, this one has the advantage that the public administrations have been involved in the organization of the Congress. This makes it possible to adjust the price to have a very symbolic entrance fee, in addition to a special price for students.

Mariona Benedito: It is necessary to have an adjusted minimum ticket to be able to schedule and adjust the number of activities, in addition to cover logistical issues such as insurance and hospitality services. It is important that, with the currency changes, it opens the possibility for many people from different countries to attend.

This is a question sent to us from our editor in New York: The U.S. government is dismantling programs related to climate change and environmental protection, is promoting increased fossil fuel production, and apparently doing everything they can to accelerate the destruction of the planet for capitalist purposes. Could this situation change the way you approach the theme of the congress?
Mariona Benedito: As commissioners, it is clear that our position is the other way around. It even reaffirms to us that the urgency is where they don't think it is. In any case, it is important to mention that we are under the umbrella of the UIA, which so far has not pronounced itself.

We are curious about what might happen before or during the Congress, whether vetoes will be demanded or other issues will arise. It is not only about the current US government, but also issues in the Gaza Strip or some activism that we are interested in bringing to the Congress and that maybe not everybody likes.

Tomeu Ramis: In any case, this is a very critical situation that is becoming more and more important. It has to do with a theme that we mentioned at the beginning of the interview, and that is the fact that when we say the Congress is approaching time as a project tool, it has to do with a very contemporary situation, which the circumstances in the United States underscore: it is about the contradiction that exists between the urgency of some answers and the need to have long-range visions. The Trump administration does nothing but confirm this contradiction and this situation.