“Grounded Futures?!…" as a theme of 2026 INTDW, proposes a critical repositioning of design at a moment when visual saturation, technological acceleration, and ecological instability redefine the conditions of practice. To design the future, therefore, is to understand the layers from which forms and calls for action arise. Grounded Futures tends to present these layers — beyond the surface, formation, fragmentation, deconstructing the visible, memory as matter; and movement as evolution.

Beyond the surface insists on the restoration of depth to perception. Surface is not dismissed, but interrogated as a mediator between inside and outside, structure and representation. The layer of formation — represents the processes through which form emerges while fragmentation is about fractured urban fabrics, hybrid identities, and discontinuous histories. Fragments carry memory, conflict, and multiplicity. Grounded Futures exposes the hidden frameworks shaping design. Visibility itself is a constructed condition; design must critically engage the systems that produce it. The theme acknowledges the layer of memory as not nostalgic ornamentation but active agency grounding the future layered with persistence. Finally, movement and evolution are recognized as intrinsic to any grounded condition.

“Grounded Futures ?!…" is not about prediction, but about positioning – consciously, critically, and collectively. It invites designers to interrogate what lies beneath appearance: the systems that shape visibility and the evolving conditions that demand transformation.