IABR 2026 SYSTEMS OF SUPPORT

SYSTEMS OF SUPPORT. Image: Stahl R

The Piekfabriek at the Hunter Douglas terrain, Piekstraat 2, Rotterdam

It is a time in which everything seems to be shifting at once. What this will lead to remains uncertain. Climate change, geopolitical and social tensions, and increasing scarcity of space, resources, and energy are placing systems across the world under immense strain. Yet precisely in this friction, a new momentum is surfacing. As long-standing structures reach their limits, renewed appreciation grows for what is close to home: the strength of local communities, regionally integrated approaches, ecological balance, renewable resources, and cooperative systems that restore rather than exhaust.

The IABR 2026 SYSTEMS OF SUPPORT, invites everyone to explore this movement – to think ahead together, and to imagine and build a future in which locality once again sets the course.

The 12th edition of the IABR explores how to build new economies. Which values should lead the transition away from a fossil-fuel-based, linear model? What opportunities arise from an economy rooted in regional contexts – one that reduces global risks and centers public interest? How might energy, water, food, infrastructure, and construction logistics together form a new foundation?