The 29th Biennial of Design – BIO 29 will take place between 19 November 2026 and 4 April 2027. It is organised by the Museum of Architecture and Design (MAO) in collaboration with the Centre for Creativity (CzK). Under the title Soft Fields, BIO 29 examines how knowledge enclosed within research, industrial and infrastructural environments can be opened, redirected and redistributed through design practice.

The Production Platform supports new design-research projects developed in Slovenia in collaboration with local expertise, institutional partners, industry actors, and communities. It offers a flexible structure for collaboration, site visits and knowledge sharing, emphasising situated experimentation and collective learning. Within BIO 29, the Production Platform supports projects developed across three of the Biennale’s four frameworks: Experimental Practices, Extended Transmissions, and Afterclass.

We invite local and regional designers and interdisciplinary practitioners, working individually or collectively, to apply. Selected projects may involve online collaboration as well as on-site participation at the Museum of Architecture and Design (MAO) in Ljubljana between March and November 2026. The platform offers a flexible structure for collaboration, site visits, project and product development, prototyping, and knowledge exchange, emphasising situated experimentation and collective learning. Applications are open until 26 February 2026.

POINTS OF DEPARTURE

Applicants are invited to select a specific case in Slovenia as the point of departure for their application proposal. To support this process, the curatorial frame introduces five Fields as points of departure and sources of inspiration for exploring the potential of design practices within Soft Fields. Engage with one of the following fields: Eco-technical Entanglements, Industrial Cycles, Bordered Infrastructures, Maintenance, or Experience Regimes.

Eco-technical Entanglements


We invite designers who are especially interested in working with [mis]translations: where living systems and technical systems co-develop through data, tools and management practices, and where ecological processes and technical measurements diverge, overlap, or are reshaped through design.

Eco-technical Entanglements invites designers to explore how ecological and technical systems shape conditions through observation, measurement, modelling and material intervention. This includes environmental monitoring, sensors, satellite images, data platforms, or tools used in forestry, agriculture, cities and climate research. Design engages with how living environments become data, services, tools and decisions, and how those shape environments, bodies and materials in return. In Slovenia, this can relate to forests and wood production, rivers and karst systems, biodiversity monitoring, smart urban and rural projects, and climate or energy infrastructures.

Industrial Cycles


We invite designers who are especially interested in working with [mis]alignments: where natural cycles, local and global processes, and industrial timing and design practices fall out of sync, come into sync, or are deliberately re-aligned, and where new design lines are made possible.

Industrial Cycles invites designers to work with the rhythms, repetitions and patterns of production. It looks at how materials, energy and labour move through cycles of extraction, manufacturing, circulation, use and disposal. Design engages with industrial fragmentation, factories, machines and standards, and with the tensions between local values and global supply chains. In Slovenia, this can relate to local factories and production lines, manufacturing or design outsourcing phenomena, post-industrial towns’ futures, growing service-based industries, AI, alternative materials development, recycled materials applications, or industrial heritage.

Bordered Infrastructures


We invite designers who are especially interested in working with [mis]configurations: where flows of bodies, goods and data are blocked, filtered or channelled through borders, black boxes and thresholds, and where these controls are reinforced, bypassed or re-designed through technical, legal and spatial interventions.

Bordered Infrastructures invites designers to navigate physical borders and trade routes, encrypted devices, proprietary technologies, patents and other forms of enclosure. Design engages with infrastructures of mobility, control and access across political, ecological and industrial landscapes. In Slovenia, this can relate to Schengen borders and trade corridors, the Port of Koper and logistics zones, markets, data facilities, communication networks, energy and transport infrastructures, as well as closed industrial processes or technological black boxes. Designers are invited to work with these systems as material: their rules, restrictions, interfaces and points of friction.

Maintenance


We invite designers who are especially interested in working with [mis]continuities: where systems, tools, knowledge, practices and values are sustained or allowed to decay, and where design can help shape, question or redirect what continues, what is discontinued and what is reintroduced through practices of care, upkeep and ethical responsibility.

Maintenance invites designers to focus on repair and ongoing work as design practices that support ways of living and continuation. It looks at how systems continue to function through upkeep, stewardship and collective agency. Design engages with public services, environmental protection, toxicity, human rights, workers’ memory, and heritage or everyday infrastructures. In Slovenia, this can relate to caves and fragile ecosystems, forests and water systems, archives and heritage sites, transport, housing or public space. Designers are invited to work with these systems as material: their routines, protocols, forms of ownership and living labour, and the tensions between preservation, use and change.

Experience Regimes


We invite designers who are especially interested in working with [mis]framings: where emotions, perception, attention and identity are shaped, measured and monetised through platforms and media systems, and where these regimes are reinforced, redirected or disrupted through design.

Experience Regimes invites designers to explore branding, advertising, simulation and slop, vibe engineering, touristic hotspots, world-building and digital services that shape how places, products and identities are perceived and engaged with. Design navigates interfaces, bots, images and narratives that organise attention and turn perception into value. In Slovenia, this can relate to tourism, short-term rental and place branding, digital services, gaming and CGI industries, social media, and cultural or commercial platforms. Designers are invited to work with these systems as material: their languages, visual communications, algorithms and automated feedback loops, emotional scripts, and the frictions between physical and virtual expressions.

The Designers’ Proposals should be:

• Strongly grounded in a real case in Slovenia as a context for research, collaboration, design experimentation, production and/or activation.