Design and Activism: A Candid Talk with Andrés Jaqué at UIA 2026

When the UIA World Congress of Architects gathered in Barcelona this summer, the buzz wasn’t just about striking façades or new materials. The theme, Becoming. Architectures for a Planet in Transition, asked everyone to think of architecture as a living, breathing response to climate, politics and society – not a separate, ivory‑tower discipline.

Among the voices that rose above the crowd was Andrés Jaqué, founder of the Office for Political Innovation and dean of Columbia’s GSAPP. I sat down with him in a quiet corner of the conference hall, coffee in hand, and we quickly fell into a familiar rhythm: a mix of concrete examples, a sprinkle of philosophy and, inevitably, a few anecdotes that felt almost like a sideways digression.

“Design is inseparable from activism,” Jaqué began, almost as if he were answering a question that hadn’t yet been asked. He went on to explain that every project, whether it’s a community centre in Madrid or a speculative platform for citizen budgeting, carries a political charge. “Even choosing to stay neutral is a political act,” he laughed, adding that neutrality often ends up reinforcing the status quo.

We talked about the Office for Political Innovation’s recent work in Barcelona’s Sant Martí district, where a series of temporary installations turned vacant lots into pop‑up gardens, rehearsal spaces for local theatre groups and venues for public debates. “The point isn’t to create a permanent building,” Jaqué emphasized, “it’s to spark a conversation, to make people see their own agency.” Those interventions, he said, are proof that architecture can be a catalyst for social experimentation, not just a finished product.

Education, of course, came up next. Jaqué is a strong advocate for “learning by doing” at the graduate level. He described a recent studio at GSAPP where students spent half the semester designing a speculative policy framework before ever picking up a drawing board. “The idea is to blur the line between architect and activist, between theory and practice,” he noted. He admitted that the approach sometimes feels messy – students get frustrated, prototypes fail, deadlines slip – but that’s exactly the point. “If you only ever succeed, you never learn what it means to be resilient,” he said, a tiny grin breaking through.

Perhaps the most thought‑provoking part of our chat was his take on “transition”. Rather than viewing it as a destination – a future where everything is green and equitable – Jaqué frames transition as a condition, an ongoing state of becoming. “We’re in the middle of a massive shift, and that’s what architecture should reflect,” he argued. It means embracing uncertainty, designing spaces that can adapt, and, crucially, listening to the communities that inhabit them.

When asked what advice he’d give to young architects eager to make a difference, Jaqué’s answer was both simple and surprisingly modest: “Start small, stay curious, and never forget that design is, at its heart, a conversation.” He paused, looked out at the bustling Barcelona streets, and added, “If you can make someone pause for a second and think differently about their environment, you’ve already won.”

Walking away from the interview, the echo of his words lingered: architecture isn’t just about brick and steel; it’s about people, politics, and the messy, beautiful process of change.