IAF and dpr-barcelona announce the 2026 LINA Writing Award recipients
We are delighted to announce that Gjiltinë Isufi (Kosovo) and Fiachra McCarthy (Ireland) have been selected for the LINA Writing Award 2026.
The IAF and dpr-barcelona are delighted to announce that Belgium-based duo Gjiltinë Isufi (Kosovo) and Fiachra McCarthy (Ireland) have been selected for the LINA Writing Award 2026 for their publication In Deep Trouble: The Trepça Mine, a new work commissioned by the IAF and produced in collaboration with dpr-barcelona.
Collectively, we seek to promote emerging voices that will enrich the panorama of architectural thinking, and we were very inspired by the extensive talent evident in the range of ideas presented in the 2026 submissions from all over Europe. We selected emerging creatives Isufi and McCarthy for the depth of their unique and inspiring proposal, and we look forward to immersing them in a collaborative environment to develop their creative work within the LINA Architecture Programme.
Isufi and McCarthy’s forthcoming publication, In Deep Trouble: The Trepça Mine, will explore and uncover an underground working mine in Kosovo through workers’ stories. Lived narratives and additional on-site research through interviews, drawing and photography will inform their creative process and the textual output. In Isufi and McCarthy's words:
“Between a mythological hell and a space for social upheaval, the subterranean has long held its status as a symbol of the uncanny. The mine, in particular, often oscillates between hosting proletarian resistance and accommodating practices of exploitation. The Trepça Mine in Kosovo, still active today, presents a laboratory of such spatial, socio-political, and environmental struggles. In Deep Trouble descends 850 meters underground to encounter the crowded corridors of miners’ strikes, lunch breaks in extreme microclimates, and mineral bodies which make their way above ground to fuel distant circuits.”
This is the fourth annual Writing Award supported through the LINA Architecture Programme. The award recipients are selected through a competitive process, based on the originality and creative strength of their submitted proposals and their interest in writing and communicating architecture in a critical way. Projects that explore pressing environmental concerns in the built environment from creative and interdisciplinary angles are particularly valued for this award.
The IAF and dpr-barcelona will publish this book later in 2026, making the writers' words and ideas heard within the European architecture community. We will also support the writers’ development through the process of working with professional editors, copy-editors, designers and publishers, actively discussing how books are conceived, produced and promoted and how to ensure they are tools for discussion and spaces of encounter.
The IAF and dpr-barcelona look forward to sharing Isufi and McCarthy’s work with you and adding to the existing published LINA Writing Award suite available from The Library Project in Ireland and dpr-barcelona in Spain:
Curating Ecologies on Architecture by Patrícia Coelho (commissioned by IAF, 2024)
Tender and Toxic Tales by Juri Velt (commissioned by dpr-barcelona, 2024)
Previous publications also include the now sold-out 2023 LINA Writing Award publications Shallow Time: The Burren by Tom Cookson and Atlas of Urban Mythologies by Sergios Strigklogiannis and Francesca Cocchiara.
About the authors
Gjiltinë is an architect and researcher from Kosovo, based in Brussels, Belgium. As a recipient of the FWO Fellowship, she is currently conducting a PhD at KU Leuven with the project ‘In Space We Read Trauma: Disclosing Microhistories in Kosovo, 1980-1999’. The project focuses on the development of a methodological framework for spatially investigating traumatic experiences. In doing so, her project wants to foster a spatial turn in Trauma Studies, which is a field largely marked by language-based discourses, and to simultaneously disclose undocumented microhistories in Kosovo. Gjiltinë is also teaching at KU Leuven on the intersection of trauma and space. Her recent work will be part of the Aarhus Works + Words Biennale (2026), and her earlier works have been exhibited at Architecture at the Edge in Galway (2025), published in the ADH Journal (2025), nominated for the EUmies YTAA (2023), presented at the Manifesta Biennial (2022), and awarded the Laureate Prize at KU Leuven (2022).
Fiachra is an architect and artist working between Belgium and Ireland. He studied architecture at TU Dublin and at KU Leuven in Brussels, with additional academic exchanges at HSLU in Lucerne, and UIC in Barcelona. His practice operates at the intersection of art, architecture, and scenography. His research-driven approach mainly explores spatial narratives and alternative forms of heritage documentation. Working between Ireland and Belgium, Fiachra’s projects often blur disciplinary boundaries, combining architectural thinking with performative and installation-based practices. He is the co-founder of the Brussels-based art and scenography duo, F//AAT, whose work investigates objects, rituals, and storytelling as a tool to activate spaces. His recent projects include exhibiting New Geneva at Architecture at the Edge, Galway (2025), scenography and pavilion design for Aeair Festival, Leuven (2025), and co-creating Mangé with GIFTSHOP, Ghent (2025). Previous works include a solo exhibition by F//AAT at VONK, Hasselt (2024), and a collective exhibition by Studio for Orbanism at deSingel, Antwerp (2021). His work has also been featured in The Architectural Review (2022) and Negotiating Ungers 3 (2024).
About LINA: Learning, Interacting and Networking in Architecture
The European platform LINA is a network connecting relevant institutions with emerging practitioners and thinkers who work at the intersection of architecture and other fields related to spatial culture. It aims to promote up-and-coming talent. LINA’s goal is to steer design and building processes towards regenerative practices and principles of de-growth in line with the values of the European Green Deal.
Now in its fourth year, the LINA network currently comprises 34 LINA Member institutions across 27 countries. This growing alliance of museums, universities, research networks, foundations, triennials, biennials, and other European and Mediterranean organisations carries out a series of events taking place all over Europe.
Emerging spatial practitioners, thinkers, and creatives (architects, landscape architects, urban planners, designers, engineers, researchers, artists, curators, and other creative professionals at the start of their careers) are invited to take part in the annual Open Call with their architecture projects, ideas, or practices. LINA Fellows are selected through the annual LINA Open Call and invited to co-create the LINA Architecture Programme with LINA Members.
The platform is co-financed by the European Union and is coordinated by the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Ljubljana.
About the LINA Writing Award
As LINA Member organisations, the Irish Architecture Foundation (IAF) and architecture research and publishing practice dpr-barcelona are collaborating on the LINA Writing Award between 2023 and 2029. Through the annual LINA Open Call, emerging writers are selected each year for a writing award and publication. The LINA Writing Award encourages the creation of architecture-related writing, offering emerging writers the opportunity to publish their work with the support of the IAF and dpr-barcelona. The award supports inventive writing that fosters a genuine sharing of knowledge.
The next LINA Open Call
If you are an emerging professional and interested in participating in the LINA Architecture Programme, the next LINA Open Call will be announced on the LINA website in May 2026. LINA offers successful applicants potential opportunities for collaboration with LINA member organisations across Europe, including the IAF and dpr-barcelona.
Lead image: Detail of drawings by Gjiltinë Isufi (Kosovo) and Fiachra McCarthy
