By Design and by Disaster Conference 2026 - BY DESIGN AND BY DISASTER

21 to 23 of May 2026
BASIS Vinschgau-Venosta, South Tyrol, Italy

More disasters since we began a decade ago. What to do now, and how?

Lisa Baumgarten proposes critical design pedagogies. Bianca Elzenbaumer (Brave New Alps, La Foresta) provides outlooks on transformative design practices in troubled times with a historical take. Manuel Grebenjak (radius) offers capacity building and strategies for social movement actors (📖 Tipping Points – Strategies Within the Climate Movement Ecosystem). Miriam Lang (Universidad Andina Simón Bolivar) lays out systemic emancipatory transformations beyond the development paradigm with a trans-local perspective from Latin America (Pacto Ecosocial Del Sur). Teacher-researchers, students and alumni of the Master in Eco-Social Design take a critical look at the development, achievements and shortcomings of eco-social design and discuss future trajectories in a world that looks drastically different from 10 years ago. Ivan Txaparro (resonar lab) will move us with radical storytelling and live music into resonant futures together with Vera Nois from Argentina. Plus short talks, paper presentations, hands-on workshops, walks, good food, bonfire, party and whatever we make out of it together. → About our Solidarity-Ticketing and registration.

To stay up-to-date you can subscribe to the By Design and by Disaster newsletter and follow our blog and social media channels (FB, IG, LI, mastodon). Please help spread the word. Here you can get an impression of past conferences: 2025 – 2024 – 2023 – 2022 – 2021 – 2020b – 2020a – 2019 – 2018 – 2017 – 2016 – 2015 – 2013

Call for 7×7 talks → open unitil 31 March 2026

With the academic year 2015-16, the Master in Eco-Social Design started at the Free University of Bolzano. This beginning occurred after a bumpy yet enriching course of preparations that included the first By Design or by Disaster Conference in 2013. The conference kicked off our series of annual events and provided us the opportunity to connect with other transformation-engaged actors locally and trans-locally, including several other practice-orientated degree programmes focusing on socio-ecological transformation (Transformation Design, Social Design, Transformation Studies, Social Design or similar study courses, including likewise engaged programmes coming from art, architecture, social work and innovation). We added an asterisk after design* to include all such programmes and practitioners. In these overwhelming times of crisis, conflict and collapse, the urgency for joining forces to support each other, to reflect, learn, strategise and act together becomes even greater.

»Preguntando caminamos«

Principle of the Zapatista movement

It is time to ask pressing questions and to collaborate on answers: How to respond to the turn to the far-right and other authoritarian tendencies? What to do in the light of probable collapse scenarios and ongoing conflicts, crises and catastrophes? What counters the disempowering feelings of delusion and political depression? How to co-create collective empowerment, mutual care and nourish movements? How to prepare (for) social tipping points and be prepared (for) opening windows of opportunities? How to create trans-local and global solidarity in movements (joint struggles) and in re/production (along supply chains)? Who are our partners and allies? How to build upon and interconnect what and who is already there to gain overarching traction? Why has our practice been defined the way it has, and how must we change it? What is our history, and what should be our future? What have we relied on that we no longer can?

With these and other traversal questions, we propose three tracks plus one for open space and free time.

What can and needs to be done now? In …

… Learning and Teaching (Track 1)

… Practices and Projects (Track 2)

… Strategies and Structures (Track 3)

Open Space and Free Time

During DDcon26 we reserve one slot of the three days for tackling emergent topics, questions, itchiness and new inspirations. Here participants will have space to offer interactive sessions, open discussion and everything that matters. Plus a round of sharing.

Extravagant action

The third day, Saturday, is for extravagant activities such as excursions, walking workshops, visiting local actors, …

Call do hands-on workshops and short talks coming soon

Solidarity-Ticketing

Additionally, to the 3-day programme, all tickets include lunches, coffee breaks and snacks, a concert and a party. Registration is required and binding because we need to plan based on the number of visitors to prevent scarcity and waste.
* drinks and additional food options cost extra.

Early Bird Registration → until 30th of April

250€ Supporter Ticket → For those, who can afford, and for folks it with funding or institutional reimbursement. Choosing this helps subsidise reduced tickets and support the conference as a whole.

150€ Regular Ticket

50 € Reduced Ticket → For people with limited financial means (excluding presenters of the academic track). The reduced ticket includes indoor camping and breakfast from Thursday to Saturday for the first 100 people who register.

Late Registration → from 1st of May until 12th of May

350€ Supporter Ticket

250€ Regular Ticket

75 € Reduced Ticket

Registration → conftool.com/dod2026

**“… preparing [for] opportunities that are not currently on the agenda.”**

Sentence taken from Neupert-Doppler’s book “Grasping the opportunity. A political philosophy of Kairós” (2019) ~ Slightly modified by putting brackets around [for] to express that we not only need to recognize and grasp opportunities when they show up, but also prepare the conditions which make them more likely to emerge.

Image based on an artwork by Annika Tretter of the course of Peter Senoner IG: @AnnikaEileenTretter