The UIA World Congress of Architects 2026 Becoming, Architectures for a Planet in Transition has officially launched its Call for Participants, inviting architects, researchers, and practitioners worldwide to contribute to the congress with their insights and ideas.

Becoming represents the continuous transformation of our environments, acknowledging existing cultural and physical landscapes rather than starting from a blank slate. It promotes alternative transitions beyond the exhausted paradigms of the centrality of capitalism, fostering material, political, ecological, and poetic interrelations.

Contributions must align with one of the six key themes that define Becoming. The open call encourages submissions in diverse formats aiming to break silos between research, practice and education:

Critical Design: Submissions in this format include design projects, industrial design concepts, prototypes, and explorations of design methodologies, ranging from conceptual ideas to practical solutions and innovative approaches, both built and unbuilt.

Critical Essay: This format is for written works such as essays, academic articles, research papers, critical analyses, theoretical discussions, research findings, or transcribed interviews related to the field of design.

Critical Image: Submissions in this category include visual works such as films, photography, multimedia pieces, visual conversations, and creative or experimental work.

Learn more about the submission guidelines and requirements here.

Becoming explores the transformation of existing reality, understanding time as a design tool and addressing the relationship between the urgency of contemporary challenges and a long-term perspective, through six research lines: More-than-human, Attuned, Embodied, Interdependent, Hyper-Conscious, and Circular.

This call will select a significant number of speakers for the congress, evaluated by a renowned jury of experts. We invite research that critically explores how architecture connects to these six lines. Submissions must address at least one of them.

Read about Terms & Conditions and Conceptual Framework.

Who can participate?

UIA 2026 is aimed at architects, landscape architects, urban planners, designers, engineers, photographers, filmmakers, artists, and researchers in the social sciences and humanities—focusing on transdisciplinary approaches related to practical space.

Image courtesy of UIA World Congress of Architects 2026 Barcelona

Contributions - Three submissions formats

Critical Design 

This format invites submissions of Design projects, industrial design concepts, prototypes, or explorations of design methodologies. The focus is on innovative approaches within the design field, ranging from conceptual ideas to practical solutions, whether built or unbuilt.

Critical Essay

Submissions in this format should be written works such as academic essays, research papers, or theoretical discussions that address critical analyses, theoretical perspectives, or research findings while also connecting to the themes of the Becoming research lines.

Critical Image

This format encompasses visual works, including films, photography, multimedia pieces, and experimental or creative visual projects that engage with design themes and the critical discourse surrounding architecture and spatial practice.

Scientific Committee & Jury

Scientific Committee Members

Joan Busquets, Honorific President of The Congress

Fuensanta Nieto, President of the Scientific Advisor 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: Oscar Miguel Ares, Meritxell Inaraja, Josep Lluis Mateo, Mar Santamaria, Elisa Valero.

Image courtesy of UIA World Congress of Architects 2026 Barcelona

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.

Schedule

March 31, 2025: Launch of the call for participants
May 23, 2025: Submission deadline
September 30, 2025: Announcement of selected proposals
June 28–July 2, 2026: UIA World Congress of Architects 2026

Register via this link. 

Inaugural event The UIA World Congress of Architects 2026 Barcelona will officially kick off with an event on 14 April 2025 at 10 a.m. (CEST). The event is publicly accessible with prior registration and will also be streamed on YouTube. Streaming via this link. 

Physical presence: Assembly Hall located on the first floor of the COAC Barcelona headquarters (Architects’ Association of Catalonia), Spain. 

The top image in the article: Collage of digitally manipulated images. Image courtesy of UIA World Congress of Architects 2026 Barcelona. 

> via UIA World Congress of Architects 2026 Barcelona