A virtual architecture exhibition for unbuilt, speculative, and unfinished ideas.

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English

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Basic Information

FORMAT:

Fully online / virtual exhibition, Participants create and exhibit their own worlds inside MEs

SUBMISSION:

World code of the MEs world, containing the submitted work

APPLICATION DEADLINE:

March 15, 2026

WINNERS ANNOUNCEMENT:

March 25, 2026

EXHIBITION PERIOD:

Scheduled for April 2026

Who can apply?

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Eligible Works

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Concept & Statement

UNBUILD — Architecture Before It Is Absorbed by Systems

We live in a time when technologies demand to be used, and human autonomy in thinking and creation is slowly being eroded.

We live in a time when countless complex and realistic conditions — social issues, institutions, ethics, economic systems, and technologies — are imposed as the very premise of design.

In such an environment, to practice architecture is increasingly becoming an act of producing correct, precise, and explainable answers to predefined questions.

But architectural imagination was never meant to begin there.

To question given conditions themselves. To creatively dismantle them. To construct forms that claim a desired future. To express criticism and discomfort that language cannot fully contain — through space.

UNBUILD Architecture does not mean unfinished work, nor unrealized projects. It refers to architecture as a form of pure and autonomous thought, before it is absorbed into systems of utility, efficiency, function, or correctness. It embraces trials, divergences, failures, and speculative constructions — a creative attitude grounded in imagination and oriented toward the future.

About the UNBUILD Virtual Exhibition

UNBUILD Virtual Exhibition is a platform for sharing architectural proposals that embody this spirit.

Here, ideas are not confined to drawings or panels.

They are experienced as navigable environments.

We do not use virtual space as a substitute for physical exhibitions.

"We build it as a networked space for ideas to circulate —

where they are exchanged, transformed, multiplied, and connected across borders,

giving rise to new questions and new forms of creation.

This is a place for architecture that has not yet been built.

And a place to begin reclaiming architecture as a practice of free imagination.

Jury

Akira Wakita — Media Artist and Professor, Faculty of Environment and Information Studies, Keio University

Akira Wakita pursues new forms of expression where art and science coexist, with a focus on approaching the essential nature of things through form and structure. His major exhibitions include Dragon Rain (Kennin-ji Temple / Zen Night Walk Kyoto, 2024), Over Billions of Years (Moerenuma Park / Sapporo International Art Festival, 2024), For Alan and Keith (Nakamura Keith Haring Museum / Hokuto Art Program ed.1, 2022), and Akira Wakita – Photons (Museum of Light, Kiyoharu Art Colony, 2018).

He has also presented an 8K audiovisual installation created in collaboration with musician Tetsuya Komuro at the Ars Electronica Festival (2016), followed by live performances at MUTEK and the Red Bull Music Festival (2017). Other notable projects include The Takahashi Collection: Faces and Abstraction – with the Kiyoharu Shirakaba Museum Collection (2018).

More information: https://akirawakita.com/

Rebecca Merlic — digital artist, architect, and experimental filmmaker

Rebecca Merlic *1989 (HR/AT/DE) is a European digital artist, architect, and experimental filmmaker based in Vienna. Teaching experience includes the University of Applied Arts Vienna and the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. She studied at the Atsushi KITAGAWARA Lab at Tokyo University of the Arts. Her work is strongly influenced by alternative ways of being in society, transgression of socioeconomic conventions, and new forms of artistic and architectural production using emerging technologies.

She is the recipient of the Marianne von Willemer Prize for Digital Media (2020), the DKB VR Art Prize (2023), Content Vienna, the Theodor Körner Prize for Art and Science (2023), and the Omosiroi Award from Knowledge Capital Osaka. Recently her work was MSU Museum for contemporary art Zagreb, National Museum Oslo and the Expo in Osaka.

More information: https://rebeccamerlic.com/work

Kisaki Matsumoto — Design Director, nendo, Inc.

Trained in Industrial and Speculative Design at RISD. Leveraging a cross-disciplinary career and global experience spanning Japan, the U.S., and East Africa, Kisaki pursues a unique design approach rooted in empathy. She is currently leading international projects with a mission to enrich the world through the essence of "Made in Japan.”

More information : https://www.nendo.jp/about/

a_haru — Founder | Creative Director (CEO)

Creative Director building MEs — a Mind Environment System where your creative process is woven into virtual worlds. They studied Industrial Design and Computational Art at RISD and were selected for Forbes Japan 30 Under 30 in 2023. They design interfaces for introspection, play, and unexpected dialogue between inner worlds.

More information : https://www.o-me.io/

About MEs

If you have any questions or issues, please contact us via Discord.

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