Practices in Research #07 Un-Disclosed: Exposing the Dirty Documents, the Controverses and the Confession, the Back-site of Design Processes in Architecture

Practices in Research #07 Call for Contributions: deadline 14 February 2026 – Conference 20th of May 2026

In architectural discourse, what is shared is often polished: the final render, the built result, the curated narrative. Yet behind every project lies a dense, messy, and often invisible terrain of effort, negotiation, failure, and persistence. PiR #07 – Un-Disclosed invites contributors to turn the spotlight toward this “dark side” of practice—the backstage, the back-office, the back-and-forth. We call on architects, designers, researchers, and educators to share the unseen labour of their work: the annotated spreadsheets, the marked-up plans, the failed competitions, the internal debates, the moments of doubt and discovery. These are not just remnants—they are critical sites of learning, where practice is shaped, challenged, and redefined.

This issue seeks to uncover the undisclosed processes that rarely make it into publications or exhibitions yet form the backbone of architectural production. We are interested in the documents of struggle and negotiation: the iterations, the revisions, the test models, the internal emails, the contracts, the whispered questions of “are we still relevant?” or “is this still beautiful?”. At the same time, Un-Disclosed opens space for reflection on architectural taboos and tensions: the aesthetics of failure, the politics of visibility, the ‘fashion’ cycles of design, and the emotional labour of staying having a societal impact and surviving in a shifting professional landscape. What do we choose not to show, and why? What does this say about our values, our vulnerabilities, and our ambitions?

Suggested Themes

Contributors are encouraged to engage with the following themes—or propose their own—while focusing on the representational and explorative instruments (drawings, models, sketches, spreadsheet-files, wastebasket content…) that reveal the undisclosed layers of practice:

Dirty Documents and Unspoken Aesthetics: What happens behind the scenes? How do architects document, reflect on, and learn from the messy, iterative, and often frustrating parts of their work? How do spreadsheets, notes, sketches, and internal communications become instruments of design thinking? What visual languages emerge from the unpolished, the incomplete, the unresolved?

Failed Competitions and Forgotten Projects: What can be learned from what didn’t make it? How do we archive and represent these moments? How do they inform future practice? What narratives and insights emerge from projects that remain hidden in drawers or lost in digital folders? How do these shape the documents that are produced in design practices?

Emotional Labor and Professional Identity: How do architects navigate the pressure to stay relevant, fashionable even, or “hot”? What instruments and practices help them reflect on or intervene in these dynamics? How do these dynamics shape their sense of identity and influence their innovative decisions? And how do they find their way into the drawings, models,…

Controversies and Confessions: What are the tensions, contradictions, or ethical dilemmas that remain unspoken in architectural practice? How do architects confront or conceal these issues, and what do such moments reveal about the profession’ s values, responsibilities, and vulnerabilities? How does this lead to the production of new drawings, models…

And, obviously how all of this contributes to intriguing architectural projects. Submissions should therefor reflect on these critical practices through concrete examples, staying close to the methods, documents, and outcomes of this work, with a clear focus on the observational, explorative and creative media nourishing the practice and informing design. Contributions can range from case studies and reflective essays to visual narratives and experimental documentation. Please feel free to engage freely in the modalities of your contribution, while paying attention to explain and situate your approach.

The editorial committee will review submissions based on short abstracts. After the selection process, extended abstracts will be published online as part of the conference proceedings (unreviewed). After the conference, selected contributors and possibly additional guests will provide their complete contributions subjected to a double-blind peer-review, to be published in the upcoming journal issue: Practice in Research #7 – Un-Disclosed Practices. Unreviewed contributions may also be included upon invitation, with review statuses clearly identified.

Calendar

16th of December 2025: call for contributions.

14th of February 2026: submission of short abstracts.

6th of March 2026: notification of acceptance (conference).

24th of April 2026: submission of extended abstracts.

20th of May 2026: conference in Belgium.

9th of June 2026: invitation for publication.

7th of August 2026: submission of full articles for peer review.

25th of September 2026: double-blind peer review available.

30th of October 2026: submission of final articles.

27th of November 2026: publication of PiR#07.