OBEL Build 2026

The 2026 OBEL Build program is now open for applications!

Systems’ Hack —Forage, Form, Feast

For the second edition, we once again will partner with LUMA Arles and their research and design lab, Atelier LUMA.
Under the annual OBEL focus of Systems’ Hack — Calling on architecture to critically engage with and intervene in the systems that underpin contemporary society — we will together host a one-week immersive program in Arles exploring the relationship between our bioregional food systems and building practice amid changing weather systems.

This workshop approaches food not only as sustenance, but as a system of transformation, structured through three lenses:

MAP — food systems as spatial, ecological, and political territories to be decoded and redesigned
MATERIAL — food and agricultural by-products as resources for construction and fabrication
MEAL — food as ritual, culture, and social infrastructure

Through hands-on experiences, students will explore, map and ideate on how the region’s foodscape can shape future building economies, navigating the current risks the Camargue neighbourhoods face over this century due to climate and ecological breakdown. Students will learn about the approach, investigation and mapping of bio regional design, how to process innovative, low-carbon building materials and techniques and explore the many layers – historical, cultural, environmental, social, and economic of bio regional industry transition and testing at scale.

The week will conclude in collective outputs combining territorial mappings, material experiments and edible experiences all with the purpose of proposing new imaginaries for living and building with food systems.

Please note that only students currently enrolled at the following schools are able to apply:

• The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts School of Architecture (KADK)
• Copenhagen University (KU) Landscape Architecture
• Aarhus School of Architecture (AARCH)
• Aalborg University (AAU)

Please reach out to jw@obelaward.org for any questions

Apply now