Tracks and formats
UnBoxed 2026 delves into the theme 'Learning on the Edge' through three specific tracks: thinking, touching, and talking. Each track explores in its own way different practices that change the way students learn.
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We also offer different sharing formats. Whether you would like to host an experience or demonstration, discuss a practice through a fishbowl discussion, or spark a conversation with an elevator pitch - we have the stage for you!
UnBoxed 2026 theme
Learning on
the Edge
Across Design Factories, learning has always taken place at the edge of what is known, predictable, or comfortable. That is where the real work gets done.
This year, the Design Factory Global Network turns 15. It is a moment not just to celebrate, but to examine ourselves honestly: what are we actually doing at these edges, and what have we learned from it?
UnBoxed 2026 invites practitioners, educators, and researchers to share the practices, tools, methods, and learning setups you have tried in edge conditions. What worked? What failed? What surprised you? Whether you have radically reinvented an established practice or quietly moved the needle in your own context, the network has something to learn from your experience.
UnBoxed 2026 tracks
Thinking,
Touching, &
Talking
Track 1. Thinking
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Challenging and expanding how learners make sense of the world
This track focuses on practices that challenge habitual ways of thinking and invite learners to engage with uncertain, unfamiliar, or contested territory. We welcome contributions that help learners think beyond the obvious, question assumptions and dominant narratives, explore desirable or undesirable futures, or sit with complexity and ambiguity rather than resolving it prematurely.
For example:
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How do you create the conditions for genuine speculative thinking?
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How do you help students question assumptions they don't even know they hold?
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What happens when you bring undesirable or preposterous futures into the classroom and what do students do with them?
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How do you use data, simulation, or AI-generated scenarios to help students engage with futures they cannot yet imagine?
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What happens when algorithms or models surface patterns that challenge students' assumptions?
This track works well for practices that challenge how students think, not just what they think about.
Track 2. Touching
​Making, building, and being present as ways of learning
This track explores tangible, embodied, and material learning in a world increasingly shaped by digital tools and AI. We invite contributions that use physical making, on-site research, or face-to-face collaboration as core learning experiences - not supplements to the "real" work, but the focal point of the exercise.
For example:
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How do you design a making or prototyping experience that advances thinking rather than just producing an artefact?
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How do you bring learners into direct contact with real contexts, materials, or communities?
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What does it look like to combine digital and physical processes in ways that are more than the sum of their parts?
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How do you design learning experiences with digital fabrication tools, robotic systems, or mixed-reality environments that make thinking tangible?
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What does it mean to "make" something when the boundary between physical and digital is blurred?
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This track works well for practices where learning happens through doing, making, or being somewhere.
Track 3. Talking
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Designing dialogue where differences matter
This track focuses on facilitated dialogue in learning environments where people bring different perspectives, disciplines, values, or experiences to the table. We welcome contributions that design for productive conversations, from inner dialogues to conflict resolutions.
For example:
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How do you create the conditions for students to speak up, disagree, or say something they are not sure about?
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What practices help groups navigate genuine conflict or value differences rather than smoothing them over?
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How do you support inner reflection and sense-making alongside group dialogue, and why does it matter?
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How do you use digital tools to support reflection, make group dynamics visible, or help participants notice things they wouldn't otherwise?
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What does technology-mediated dialogue make possible, and what does it hinder?
This track works well for practices where the quality of conversation is itself the learning.
Experiences,
Fishbowls, &
Pitches
UnBoxed 2026 formats
Host an experience or demonstration
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Show, try, and reflect together
Contributors host a 20-minute hands-on experience or demonstration of (a part of) a practice, tool, method, or learning setup. Participants actively take part rather than just watch. The session is followed by a 10-minute Q&A.
This format works well for practices that are best understood by trying them.
Discuss through a fishbowl conversation
Reflect on practice through conversation
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A 20-minute fishbowl conversation focuses on a specific practice, challenge, or open question. A small group starts the discussion in the inner circle while others observe. At any point, someone from the outside can step in, prompting another participant to step out, keeping the conversation fluid and open.
This format works well for practices or questions that benefit from multiple perspectives.
Share with an elevator pitch
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Spark conversations in three minutes
A lightweight way to share a practice, experiment, or question with the broader conference. Contributors give a 3-minute pitch introducing their work, followed by open, free-flowing conversation.
This format works well for early-stage experiments, provocations, or practices you want to test on an audience.