Barcelona, November 2025. The UIA World Congress of Architects 2026 Barcelona (UIA2026BCN) launches the International Emerging Workshop, a Congress’s special format designed for students and young practitioners to engage in a real-time laboratory led by twelve recognised emerging architectural practices.
The open call invites local and international participants to join a week-long design investigation, setting the stage for the main event. The program includes public lectures, conversations with workshop leaders and site visits across the city.
Participants will be organized into twelve groups of up to fifteen people each, working collaboratively at Les Tres Xemeneies de Sant Adrià de Besòs, one of the most emblematic post-industrial sites in the Barcelona metropolitan area, fostering cross-cultural and interdisciplinary exchange. The workshop will take place from 19 to 27 June, just one week before the Congress events.
Barcelona as a Laboratory
Barcelona has long been a dynamic testing ground where architecture, urbanism and social life intersect to drive systemic transformation. Today, its capacity for reinvention faces urgent and unresolved challenges: climate change and rising heat, mass tourism and gentrification, a shortage of affordable housing and the depletion of material and ecological resources.
These tensions mirror planetary-scale crises, calling for new ways of thinking about space. The city is not seen as a fixed model, but as a laboratory where design can explore physical, social and ecological challenges.
Workshop Leaders
Simulaa (Australia)
‘Additions and Adaptations’ – Becoming More-Than-Human
Design Earth (Lebanon/Algeria)
‘Brava!’ – Becoming More-Than-Human
Mio Tsuneyama and Fuminori Nousaku (Japan)
Making Knots, Weaving Shed’ – Becoming Circular
Nicolas Dorval-Bory Architectes (France)
‘The coolest summer of the rest of our lives’ – Becoming Circular
Nuno Melo Sousa (Portugal)
‘One, two, three, more, many tables’ – Becoming Embodied
TEN Studio (Serbia/Switzerland)
‘Try again. Fail again. Fail better’ – Becoming Embodied
Assemble (UK)
‘Merchants & Warriors’ – Becoming Interdependent
Plan Común (Chile/France)
‘In between Commons BCN’ – Becoming Interdependent
Common Accounts (Spain/Canada)
‘Parade!’ – Becoming Hyper-Conscious
Ibiye Camp (Nigeria-UK)
‘Revised Cartographies’ – Becoming Hyper-Conscious
BeAr (Spain)
‘Elements of dissidence’ – Becoming Attuned
Bangkok Tokyo Architecture (Thailand/Japan)
‘Collective Completions’ – Becoming Attuned
Process and elegibility
The workshop is open to students of architecture and related disciplines from all over the world, as well as to recent graduates who completed their studies in 2020 or later.
Applications must be submitted through the official Congress website including an academic CV, a portfolio and the ranked studio preferences. There is no application fee.
Selected participants will be contacted to confirm their place. A participation fee will be required, covering the workshop, shared materials and full access to the UIA World Congress of Architects 2026. Fellowships will be available, and details will be announced shortly.
Calendar
31 October 2025 – Workshop launch
10 January 2026 – Portfolio submission deadline
31 January 2026 – Announcement of selected participants
15 February 2026 – Payment deadline
19 June 2026 – Workshop start
27 June 2026 – Workshop final presentation and exhibition
28 June – 2 July 2026 – UIA World Congress of Architects 2026
Press Office
Labóh / Miriam Giordano / Lesly Noguerón
press@uia2026bcn.org / uia2026bcn.org
The Congress is organised by the International Union of Architects (UIA). The organisation of this edition is led by the Higher Council of Professional Associations of Architects of Spain (CSCAE) in collaboration with the Architect’s Association of Catalonia (COAC) and is made possible thanks to the drive and support of the Barcelona City Council, the Generalitat de Catalunya and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Agenda (MIVAU).
Ilustración: Collage of digitally manipulated images. Full credits available on the Congress’ website.