IDW 2026 | 9 - 13 February 2026 | BE+LONGING
The goal of the yearly International Design Workshop week is to trigger the creative and critical design attitude among master's students in (Interior) Architecture, Product Development, Urbanism & Spatial Planning, Heritage Studies and Visual Arts. An interdisciplinary group of 15 to 20 master students engage in an intense one-week critical design adventure, guided by an international tutor (duo).
IDW 2026 - BE+LONGING
In a world marked by constant change, migration, fragmentation, and hyper-connectivity, the question of where and how we belong has become more urgent than ever. Belonging is about more than identity - it is about relationships, rituals, language, care, and the spaces we inhabit, claim, and share.
BE+LONGING invites us to explore the complex relationship between being and longing - to ask not only where we belong, but what we long for. To belong is to feel seen, rooted, included. But it also requires us to reckon with systems of exclusion, histories of displacement, and the deep human desire for connection.
IDW 2026 encourages designers to see longing not as a lack, but as a generative force. To treat belonging not as a static state, but as an ongoing process - a becoming. Let’s design spaces, futures, and imaginaries where everyone can belong.
- Organised by the Faculty of Design Sciences (University of Antwerp) in collaboration with the Royal Academy of Fine Arts.
- You will be assigned to the workshop of your choice. The workshops will be announced in the course of November.
Good to know
Workshop groups
The IDW week is a mandatory workshop week for all master’s students of the Faculty of Design Sciences and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp. As a participant, you will join this wider group and work in an interdisciplinary team of local and international students, guided by an international tutor. You will be able to choose from approximately 16 different workshops (the final selection will be announced in December), each accommodating around 20 students.
Schedule
The winter school is an intensive, full-time workshop week running from Monday to Friday, with activities scheduled from morning until evening (exact times depending on the tutors’ planning).
Target group
Master's students Design Sciences (architecture, interior architecture, product design, urban planning, heritage studies) and Art.
Campus
IDW 2026 will take place at Campus Mutsaard, Mutsaardstraat 31, 2000 Antwerp. This campus is located in the city centre.
Micro-credential and study credits (ECTS)
Successful completion of the winter school can be awarded with 3 credits according to the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS).
Credits will be awarded by the University of Antwerp on the base of 100 % (active) participation during the course.
To include the credits in the curriculum at the home institution, participants need an agreement with the responsible person at their university. A certificate will be awarded at the end of the programme. All certificates of completion are issued as a micro-credential.
Learning outcomes
- The student is able to realise in group, from a conceptual approach, an original design/design research that offers a qualitative answer to the question.
- The student can develop a personal vision and introduce this into the group process.
- The student can think and act interdisciplinary.
- The student can adopt a critical attitude with respect to prevailing visions in the domain, "thinking outside the box”.
- The student can translate civic engagement in design solutions and vice versa.
- The student is aware of his/her own (cultural) frame of reference and his/her own world view, and (s)he can relate this to other views or perspectives.
- The student can understand extended speech and lectures, spoken in another language than his/her mother tongue (English) and related to his/her field of study. (S)he can subsequently deduce the main rationale of the argument.
- The student can report in a consistent manner and based on arguments about the process of the workshop week, both in words and pictures.