The architecture of pleasure: an inclusive dance floor injects hope into the UIA congress

Sant Adrià de BesòsWithout pleasure there is no revolution. And pleasure must be for everyone: architects Anna Puigjaner and Pol Esteve Castelló and the Care group present a pioneering inclusive dance hall within the macro-exhibition that can be seen at the Tres Xemeneies for the World Architecture Congress being held in Barcelona from June 28 to July 2. In this space, no one should be left on the margins; instead, the installations are conceived as a "ceiling," as Puigjaner says, with straps for support – also for making love, if applicable – armchairs, light lines to avoid disorientation, and hoses for drinking water. There is also a metallic cylinder that vibrates to the rhythm of the music so that deaf people can follow it.

"We are interested in where the line is between orthopedics, desire, pleasure, sexuality, and sensuality. All these bodies that may not be canonical can also be desirable and desiring, and we ask ourselves how they can inhabit this shared social space. We are interested in the dance floor as a space within the city's infrastructure that could be a space of care, but not from a medicalized perspective," explains Esteve. "We analyzed what happens in Barcelona's techno scene, and why it can be exclusionary. Accessibility is not only physical, but also mental and corporal," adds Puigjaner.

The exhibition, which will be open to the public until July 19, bears the same title as the congress: Becoming. Architectures for a planet in transition. It consists of twelve installations from the Research by Design program, also selected by the congress curators, Maria Bajet, Pau Giramé, Mariona Benedito, Carmen Torres, Pau Sarquella, and Tomeu Ramis. The installations correspond to different lines of work for the congress, on issues such as water management, soil, and biodiversity in the anthropocene; the rehabilitation of built heritage and the circular economy; and housing and inclusion policies. Furthermore, the curators wish to reflect on the local impact of planetary dynamics, digitalization, AI, and the poetics of architecture. “The Sant Adrià de Besòs thermal power plant, which for more than forty years burned fuel and therefore emitted tons and tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, today shows us that precisely what we want is to avoid these emissions,” states Tomeu Ramis.

Repairing the Ebro Delta

In the exhibition, which covers an area of approximately 4,000 m², in addition to the installations, the results of a workshop in which 180 students have participated over the last week can be seen. The perimeter walls are full of images of works by the 120 speakers at the UIA (International Union of Architects) congress, to which more than 6,500 participants have registered, reaching 10,000 when the events of the World Capital of Architecture 2026, which will take place in Barcelona throughout the year, conclude.

Another of the installations is Monusediment, by Eva Franch and the Takk studio. It is an expansion of part of the Catalan pavilion at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, Water Parliaments. Monusediment is a monument to the sediments on which the Ebro Delta depends, currently threatened because more than a hundred dams retain them along the river. “We need water and to produce electricity; all of this is preventing these sediments from depositing in the delta,” recalls Mireia Luzárraga, founder of the Takk studio, along with Alejandro Muiño. “The rise in sea level and intensive rice cultivation also contribute, which causes the soil to lose quality. This is why the phenomenon of subsidence occurs, which is the collapse of the soil,” explains Luzárraga.

"The installation is a liturgical space and, at the same time, a laboratory that stages the discontinuity of river basins – says Franch. Through these different levels, we show, from a silty and opaque aquatic unit, up to eight elements, representing eight of the dams in the Ebro basin, with different levels of sediment and infill, which then begin to tell us about levels of toxicity, repair structures, and habitats that are in danger. This monument makes visible a water, geological, architectural, and systemic violence.” Furthermore, for Luzárraga, this project could be applied in other contexts, such as the dams on the Mekong River – which also generate geopolitical conflicts because they cross Vietnam, China, and Thailand – and the dams in Venezuela.

Another Catalan studio, Harquitectes, addresses the differences between the flows, light, temperature, and ventilation between a vertical space and another of the same proportions placed horizontally. For the curators, these two spaces serve to reflect on the lower environmental impact of vertical spaces. The studios Baukunst and Structural Exploration Lab reveal, in a project in collaboration with Barcelona City Council, how the rubble from public works can be converted into structural elements with an 80% saving in concrete.

Alternatives in extreme climatic conditions

Among the participants in the exhibition is the Dutch landscape architect Dirk Sijmons. The installation he presents together with the KK+N+S studio advocates, to cope with rising sea levels, the replacement of concrete dykes with plant ecosystems. The work of the Japanese firm Atelier Bow-Wow also addresses extreme situations: as Tokyo has registered very high temperatures in recent years, these architects have transferred to collective drawings the results of research on active nightlife in Rio de Janeiro, Bangkok and Cairo. "It's not madness. The city must be able to move time cycles so that we don't all have to live at 40 degrees," says Carmen Torres.

While almost all proposals are of a propositional nature, the Forensic Architecture installation reconstructs, from thousands of videos and social media images, cross-referenced with satellite images, the Israeli genocide in Gaza. “Bombs not only destroy territory, but also contaminate it, forcing people to leave and incentivizing colonialism,” says Maria Bajet.