"The widely celebrated Architecture & Design Film Festival (ADFF:STIR) returns to the National Centre for the Performing Arts, Mumbai, from January 9 – 11, 2026, broader in scope and deeper in intent. Celebrating the many worlds of architecture, design, art and their intersections with the cinematic realm, the festival is set to bring together diverse stories and perspectives through an expanded multifaceted programme, superseding its debut South Asia edition in 2025. This year, alongside a curated selection of international films, a cinematic pavilion park, a comprehensive public programme and special projects, innovative interventions such as an immersive product gallery called LIVinSET, culinary experiences and a POP-UP Shop are planned to engage audiences and foster cross-disciplinary conversations.
Following a successful South Asian debut in 2025, STIR brings the celebrated Architecture & Design Film Festival (ADFF) back to Mumbai, returning to the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA), from January 9 – 11, 2026. Launched in 2009 by New York-based architect and film enthusiast Kyle Bergman, ADFF held its first official edition in Waitsfield, Vermont, and has since become the world’s largest film festival dedicated to architecture and design that celebrates the intersection of architecture, design and artistic storytelling. The event bridges cinema and other creative worlds, highlighting the intrinsic role of storytelling and worldbuilding in both. The spirit of the festival—vibrant, participatory and cross-disciplinary—remains unchanged, with this edition set to expand in scale, ambition and impact. Four dynamic pillars—the Films, ~log(ue) Programme, the Pavilion Park and Special Projects—guide the international event, fostering a space for meaningful engagement amongst the wider creative community and enthusiasts alike.
As the festival’s co-organisers, STIR—an award-winning global media house and curatorial agency—hopes to expand on its pivotal role of cultural dissemination by fostering collaborations within the creative industries in South Asia and beyond. ADFF:STIR Mumbai edition ii invites several notable names to build on the spirit of exchange and a multivalent roster of programming, bigger and more diverse in scale, offering something for everyone in the audience. Expanding on the vision of the event as a fertile ground for interdisciplinary contamination, Aric Chen, director of the Zaha Hadid Foundation, is curating the Pavilion Park, presented by Jaquar, under the theme Mumbai Transcripts, encouraging participation and engagement from creatives from the region and beyond. This year’s ~log(ue) Programme is supported by JSW and the patronage of Mrs Sangita Jindal and Tarini Jindal Handa, aiming to stage creative encounters between the public and influential creatives. Vitally, interventions that aim to engage audiences in innovative formats add to the dynamic nature of the festival.
Bigger and more diverse in scale in its sophomore year, STIR will also present LIVinSET, an immersive product gallery envisioned as a film set where varied aspects of life unfold performatively; culinary experiences that bridge the art of gastronomy with design to foster a sense of community and culture; and a dedicated POP-UP inspired by the museum shops for visitors to take a tangible form of the festival back with them, featuring books, curios, collectibles, merchandise and more.
The Films
The heart of the festival remains the films, presenting novel perspectives that document, challenge and reimagine the built world and its relationship with people and our planet. The films, with each rendering new ways of seeing, provide valuable insight into the human/other-than-human aspects. The films shall seek to frame perspectives that redefine the creative forces that shape our world, shedding light on the lived realities, shared concerns and diverse aspirations of people in contemporary times. As with last year, the films—including documentaries, docu-fiction and speculative futures—position a plurality of voices, with a focus on perspectives not often depicted in mainstream discourse, including voices from the Global South, women and queer filmmakers, parables on the climate crisis and fearless storytelling highlighting the built world and the everyday.
KEY FILMS: Changing Lanes (a story about bike lanes, democracy and neighbourhood activism); Identity: A Czech Graphic Design Love Story; We The Others (exploring the Campana Brothers’ philosophy of inclusion and design); Eames: The Architect and the Painter; and Frank Gehry: Building Justice, to name a few. The festival will also screen a slew of films on art and design in 3D. These include Anselm and Pina—two films by the auteur German director Wim Wenders centering the lives of the artist Anselm Kiefer and choreographer Pina Bausch respectively. A portrait of Louis Kahn’s Salk Institute—as part of the Cathedrals of Culture series, highlighting similar monuments of architecture globally—will also be screened in 3D. A screening of Berlin Philharmonic in 3D, also in the Cathedrals of Culture series, will be screened at the festival premiere night on January 08, offering guests an immersive experience.
Jaquar Pavilion Park
ADFF:STIR Mumbai announces ten winning practices whose visionary proposals will bring the Jaquar Pavilion Park to life at the NCPA, Mumbai, in January 2026.
Supported by Jaquar, the second edition of the festival’s acclaimed Pavilion Park, themed under Mumbai Transcripts, opens January 9 – 11, 2026, set to choreograph space, movement and urban encounters. Among the four dynamic pillars of the festival—the Films, the Pavilion Park, the ~log(ue) Programme and Special Projects—the Pavilion Park stands out as a living, participatory exposition that extends the festival’s ethos beyond the screen and into space itself.
Conceived as a platform for architectural experimentation and public engagement, the Pavilion Park will transform the NCPA lawns into an open-air stage for spatial propositions—temporary structures that shall invite reflection, interaction and play. Curated by Aric Chen, director of the Zaha Hadid Foundation, the 2026 edition builds upon the curatorial theme Mumbai Transcripts (drawing from Bernard Tschumi’s The Manhattan Transcripts) to explore how space, movement and event intertwine in the contemporary metropolis.
“In many ways, architecture brings fiction and reality together. You are able to shape experiences and narratives through the spaces that you create. With these pavilions—able to articulate ideas in ways often not possible outside the pavilion format—we hope that it encourages visitors to become actors, protagonists and audiences in their own storylines.” – Aric Chen, Curator and jury chair, Jaquar Pavilion Park 2026
As one of ADFF:STIR’s most anticipated features, the Pavilion Park this year has grown into an even more plural and democratic field of expression, with 52 architects, designers and artists responding to the curatorial brief and submitting proposals. From these, ten proposals have been selected for realisation by a distinguished international jury comprising Hans Ulrich Obrist (artistic director, Serpentine Galleries, London), Lesley Lokko OBE (founder, African Futures Institute and curator of the Venice Architecture Biennale 2023), Raj Rewal (founder, Raj Rewal Associates), Ma Yansong (founder, MAD Architects), and Martha Thorne (former executive director, Pritzker Architecture Prize).
Each of the pavilions selected to be realised—currently under development through a deeply collaborative process between participants, the jury and STIR, facilitated through regular deliberations—seeks to serve as a spatial provocation. Designed as cinematic fragments across materials and scales, they contribute to a collective narrative about Mumbai, its rhythms, its ruptures and its continually evolving urban identity, while speaking to broader global discourse on cities and place. Some of the ten diverse voices in architecture, design and the arts selected to give shape to the Pavilion Park are: Abin Design Studio, Field Architects, Studio Sangath, Reddymade, UHA Global, SJK Architects, Bose Krishnamachari, NORTH, Mathew and Ghosh Architects, Anagram Architects.
Reimagined through Chen’s lens (drawing from Bernard Tschumi’s The Manhattan Transcripts), the pavilions are set to trace the dynamic interplay between space, movement and event, evoking how architecture can frame new social relations and ways of being together. Much like a playground or a choreography, the installations invite audiences to engage physically and emotionally—whether walking through, resting within or performing alongside them.
Beyond the festival’s three-day run, STIR is committed to giving these works a continued public life. Each pavilion is designed for relocation and reinstallation, guided by the framework of Recycle, Repurpose, Renovate, Donate, Acquire. This approach reinforces the festival’s circular design ethos, one where temporary structures contribute to lasting cultural exchange and sustainability in practice.
~log(ue) Programme supported by JSW
In line with the festival’s objective to foster cross-disciplinary discourse among professionals from the creative industries and general audiences alike, ~log(ue) 2026, presented in partnership with JSW, builds on its refreshing spin on talks and public programming. Bridging people (‘log’ in Hindi) and discourse (~logues) to stage creative encounters between the public and top creatives from the worlds of architecture, art, design, fashion, craft, technology, films and more, the conversations are set to carry the same ethos with renewed agency.
With the patronage of Mrs Sangita Jindal and Tarini Jindal Handa, several distinct mediums of engagement within the ~log(ue) programme are planned: ~monolog(ue)s or theatrical performances; ~dialog(ue)s, bringing together two different positions through livewire conversations; and ~multilog(ue)s or discussions and debates between panelists from the creative fields stitched together by spontaneous moderating. Additionally, ~analog(ue) sessions with workshops, performances, readings and special sessions will give audiences a break from the screen and halls, while ~prolog(ue)s and ~epilog(ue)s from renowned filmmakers, speakers and performers will bookend the film screenings. The programme is geared to unsettle preconceived notions on how creative cultures function through engaging sessions that make the medium the message.
A special segment of the ~log(ue) programme on Saturday, January 10, 2026, is in collaboration with Mumbai Gallery Weekend and India Art Fair, presenting artist talks and a curator-led walkthrough.
Key participants: Aric Chen (director, Zaha Hadid Foundation); Raj Rewal (Founder, Raj Rewal Associates); Ma Yansong (founder, MAD Architects); Rhael ‘LionHeart’ Cape (multi-disciplinary artist, poet, director and presenter); Subodh Gupta (artist); Mithu Sen (artist); Paul Goldberger (Pulitzer Prize-winning Architecture critic and writer); Lara Lesmes and Fredrik Hellberg (Director, Space Popular); Kulapat Yantrasast (Founder, WHY Architecture); Tasneem Zakaria Mehta (director, BDL Museum); Tarini Malik (Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Royal Academy of Arts); Ekow Eshun (British curator, writer, and broadcaster); Nyrika Holkar (Executive Director of Godrej & Boyce); Rahul Kadri (architect); Kabir Khan (Filmmaker), Terence Lewis (Indian dancer & choreographer), and more.
“At ~log(ue), we explore the energy that arises when people and perspectives meet. Through an expanded range of formats and collaborative exchanges spanning talks, debates, crits, workshops, games and performances, we urge audiences to step into creative cultures rather than stand at their edges. We’ve shaped a space where ideas don’t just circulate, but collide and transform." – Samta Nadeem, festival curator and curatorial director, STIR
Special Projects
The Special Projects at ADFF:STIR are designed to be a dynamic layer that offers yet another medium with which to unite creativity, communities and publics. This year will see a commissioned installation by British Fashion Designer and Artist Samuel Ross MBE, unveiling his creative practice for the first time in India, DIASPORA PASSAGE 0100A.
ADFF:STIR is strengthened through a network of meaningful partnerships and collaborations, bringing together a distinguished community of leaders across design, culture, industry and hospitality.
Bold Industrial Abstractions
Diaspora Passage 01001A - Samuel Ross - Mumbai,
India British-Caribbean artist and designer Samuel Ross MBE will debut the site-specific pavilion in Mumbai, in partnership with the British Council, STIR and Friedman Benda New York.
Wielding colour, asymmetry and democratic materials to express states of vigilance, flux, and cultural alchemy, Ross binds shared experiences and meaning by contorting industrial materials, expressing perpetuity in form, and delivering spiritually inspired contemplations through the visual-physical allegory DIASPORA PASSAGE 01001A, a pronounced physical structure granting respite.
About The Architecture & Design Film Festival, NY
Founded in 2009, the Architecture & Design Film Festival celebrates the creative spirit that drives architecture and design. Through a curated selection of films, events and panel discussions, ADFF creates an opportunity to educate, entertain and engage all types of people who are excited about architecture and design. It has grown into the world’s largest film festival devoted to the subject, with an annual festival in New York and satellite events around the world.
About STIR
STIR is a global media house and curatorial agency committed to STIRring creative minds—from architecture, design and new media arts. 2019 marked the birth of STIRworld.com—a global digital magazine that publishes daily thought-provoking content contributed by writers from all over the world—ranging from critical case studies, opinion pieces and columns, to original editorial series. In 2021, STIR launched STIRpad.com—a destination for designers, galleries and brands to share new collections, collaborations, exhibitions and announcements. Driven by its motto to constantly #thinkNEXT, the publication pushes the boundaries of creative discourse.
Visit the ADFF:STIR Mumbai website for more information, ticket releases, detailed programme and other updates on the festival.
Date 6.1.2-026