See, touch and play your way around Concéntrico 2026, where architecture engages all the senses

Concéntrico 2026 launched in Logroño on a scorching hot summer’s day (18 June) – yet the crowds braved the 30-degree-plus temperatures, arriving in droves to stroll through its 22 installations and meet their creators, an international mix of architecture and design studios, who were present to discuss their concepts and issues around urban space and public access – the architecture festival's core concern. The growing engagement the festival gets from both visitors and locals every year (this, its 12 edition since it was founded in 2015, being the biggest ever) is a mark of success for any design fair.

The achievement feels all the more notable when when you factor in that this is not Venice, London or New York; Logroño is the capital of La Rioja, a small town of 150,000 core inhabitants, amid countryside just south of the Basque Country (the nearest airport is a 1.5-hour drive away).

Explore the 22 installations at Concéntrico 2026

The status of Concéntrico 2026 is particularly thanks to the drive and fortitude of a single man – its director, Javier Peña Ibañez. Tirelessly working with local authorities, sponsors, schools, creative councils and architecture and design practices across the world, the Logroño-born architect founded and runs the festival every year, his ambition fuelling its success.

'Concéntrico emerged from the desire to make architecture accessible again, not as an abstract discipline but as something real, physical and collective,' he told us in an interview previewing the festival, earlier in the month. 'One thing that still defines the festival today is that everything happens at a 1:1 scale. There are no models or speculative renderings; the projects are built directly in the city. People can enter them, touch them, play with them, ignore them or completely reinvent how they are used.'

Now, the festival takes over sites across town – from locations in established parks and sports grounds to in-between or neglected sites awaiting redevelopment, and even the ruins of existing structures. Every studio (or group of architects) is assigned a site each, proceeding to craft a pavilion or intervention, which are then erected for the town to explore and to instigate global conversation. This year's installations tick all the boxes – they are open and playful, colourful and thought-provoking. Importantly, they are available and accessible to all, and Logroño embraces them.

2026 participants, AAU Anastas' Elias and Yousef Anastas, highlight this accessibility and communal spirit as a key driver to the festival's success: 'What we really appreciated about Concéntrico is how unpretentious it feels. It feels connected to the city and its inhabitants. The installations have in common that they are all defined by their relationship to their surroundings- sometimes harmonious, challenging, unexpected, contradictory, or useful. It is the collectiveness of all these interventions that ultimately becomes Concéntrico. Together, they transform the experience of the city in a way that no single project could achieve on its own. Achieving this is both brilliant and incredibly difficult, so credit to the organisers for making it happen.'

Concéntrico 2026 trends

Concéntrico 2026's contributors include 2026 Pritzker Prize winner Smiljan Radić Clarke, AAU Anastas, 2050+, Future Firm, DC DF, PPAA and Taelon7 (whose past work includes the new Accra pavilion Limbo Engawa). We explored their efforts – and more – to bring you the trends and highlights of what the architecture world is thinking and feeling through the festival's output.

Architecture and the senses

Do you think architecture can be predominantly experienced through the eyes? Think again. In Concéntrico 2026, smell, touch and hearing played a key part, with installations expanding creatively to include all senses through a number of designs – making engaging with architecture through one's senses a big trend in this year's iteration.

The aforementioned team – AAU Anastas – are among them; their piece, Cathedral for One, explores not only building with stone – one of the studio's key fascinations at the moment – but also offers an intimate cocoon made of marble where visitors can enter and listen to an audio piece by Hania Rani. More aural delights across the festival include Sounds of Architecture Records' Concéntrico vinyl (the architectural label is producing an album dedicated to Logroño by recording sounds of the city).

A mature garden developed by IC 98 and Suomi/Koivisto Architects over a year in the ruins of a dilapidated house offers both blissful calm and a joyful blend of smells, from various floral and herb mixes throughout.

Meanwhile, while many of the designs on show invite the touch – Terroir by Boltshauser Architekten and Garbizu Collar, made of earth, is a key one – few bring the warmth and sense of participation quite the same way as Dancing on Architecture's El Plano Latente, which invites passersby to dance around it, proposing walking as urban choreography, and will eventually be set aflame to celebrate the summer solstice.

Nature and climate

No surprises that climate is at the forefront of the participating architects' minds. This is expressed through several projects focusing on nature and gardens – such as the IC 98 and Suomi/Koivisto Architects scheme mentioned above. The library garden by Sahra Hersi also touches on gardening but from a different angle - urging the local community to take part, but centred, undoubtedly, on nature and planting.

Hersi said at the opening: 'We workshoped with the local residents to see what community garden means to them. Some thought of it as a balcony, a garden for their mother, a play garden. So, I developed this idea of the shed. Some of the flora, the birds, the bees and the fish that were present in all of the gardens [in the workshop] were imagined here. There will be a seed library. The idea is that this space will be a space for people to come and get free seeds, and then the seeds will be spread out across the city or the town.'

Natural materials abound too. Apart from Terroir, there is also Raumlabor's Hot, Cool, Soft, which utilises a natural fabric roof to create its own climate zone within the dense city centre. Shade, Breeze, Cooling by Noof Group looks at similar issues, addressing the thermal vulnerability of public spaces by crafting a cool mini garden with its own micro-climate.

Play

Walking through and sitting are available and indeed necessary at most of the exhibits, a part of what makes Concéntrico a highly participatory, bodily festival. A strong group among the installations actively encourage pay within the displays too.

Smiljan Radic Clarke's Circus piece places the visitor into a miniature, typical circus tent, where a film showing performers doing their acts encourages guests to feel part of the activity. At Summer Shapes Memories by the Ebro River, boats on rollers invite visitors to climb on and imitate a boat ride in its waters – a typical summer memory of many of the local inhabitants in the region.

Frontones Danzantes (Dancing Pelota Walls) by 2050+ revives the collective spirit of Basque pelota, offering the space for contemporary players to take part and make their own games. A similar spirit appears at Sidelined: A Game To Rethink Togetherness by Amanda Pinatih and Gabriel Fontana, who use a series of exercises with local students to highlight the inclusive nature of sport.

Taelon7's Juergen Benson-Strohmayer, whose installation offers rest and respite to shoppers on a busy street, says of the festival's tactile and dynamic nature: 'Concéntrico is special because of the opportunity to realise something physical with a lot of interaction and engagement on the ground all the way from the production, engaging with the teams, the landscapes of Rioja but also, then in the setting up and then the city, how people work with and interact with the structures that we built. I have heard it's always different.'

More Concéntrico 2026 highlights

Standalone pieces across town took over anything from car parks and regular pavements to the plaza outside the Rafael Moneo-designed city hall. Looking beyond trends, these are some of the Concéntrico 2026 highlights.

Los Sabados by TŁO

Resonancia by PPAA

La Serrana de San Barnabe by Matilde Cassani Studio

Temblores de Superficie. Vino Y Smithson by Bear

Escalera de la Gigueña by Future Firm

Transtation by Parabase

Bayn by Farisalo-Saimi

Concéntrico 2026 runs 18-23 June 2026 in Logroño, Spain

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