"The OBEL Foundation has announced "Systems' Hack" as the focus of its 2026 cycle, setting the conceptual framework that will guide the foundation's activities and the selection of the next OBEL Award. Founded in 2019, OBEL recognises architecture's potential to act as a tangible agent of positive social and ecological change, supporting approaches that expand how the built environment is defined and shaped."
"Defined annually by the OBEL Jury, chaired by Nathalie de Vries of MVRDV and comprising architects, designers, and cultural practitioners, including Sumayya Vally, Aric Chen, Anne Marie Galmstrup, and Manuel and Francisco Aires Mateus, the foundation's focus reflects the most urgent conditions shaping the built environment. For Systems' Hack, "systems" are understood as interrelated mechanisms governed by shared rules, while "hacking" is framed as a strategic intervention that seeks to alter how these mechanisms operate."
"The theme asks whether architecture can move beyond conventional problem-solving to intervene directly in the structures that organise production, governance, and resource flows, positioning architectural practice as an active participant within ecological and social systems. The focus emerges amid growing economic, political, and climatic instability, as architecture increasingly operates within systems that are under strain or no longer fit for purpose."
OBEL Foundation announced Systems' Hack as the focus of its 2026 cycle, guiding activities and selection of the next OBEL Award. OBEL recognises architecture's potential as a tangible agent of social and ecological change and supports approaches that broaden the built environment. The theme calls on architecture to engage with systems underpinning society—such as infrastructure, energy, food, water, education, and information—and to examine how interconnected networks might be reconfigured amid accelerating global challenges. The OBEL Jury frames systems as interrelated mechanisms governed by shared rules and frames hacking as strategic interventions to alter how those mechanisms operate.
Read at ArchDaily
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