Month: August 2026

NEXT GEN DESIGN BARCELONA RESIDENCY 

October 19 – 22, 2026 | Fab Lab Barcelona ***Closed activity 

“YOUNG CREATIVES RESIDENCE” with Fab Lab Barcelona as host, content partner and mentors 

The 10 young designers, winners of the Next Gen Design Open Call, will participate in a residency programme organized by the Barcelona Creativity & Design Foundation at Fab Lab Barcelona. Based on inspirational talks on sustainability and circular economy and on an immersive approach, the participating designers will work in teams of two in a 3,5 days programme delivered across 4 calendar days to identify opportunities, define concepts and materialize them into prototype outcomes that provide responses to a proposed challenge.

NEXT GEN DESIGN TOURING EXHIBITION 

October 22 – 24, 2026 | Parking Gallery by LCI Barcelona, Barcelona
Thursday 22, from 7:00-10:00pm (VIP Opening – By invitation)

Friday 23, from 4:00-9:00pm

Saturday 24, from 12:00am-9:00pm 

***Free admission upon registration.

“FUTURES WORTH LIVING” The 50 selected projects from the second edition of the Next Gen Design competition are showcased at Underground BDW, presenting a broad spectrum of creativity, innovation and visionary thinking from Europe’s next generation of changemakers. Rooted in the principles of circular design, each project responds to global challenges with clarity, creativity, hope and conviction—from reclaiming data sovereignty and designing for co-creation and repairability to reimagining healthcare and food systems, and developing more-than-human approaches to our shared environment.

The exhibition is structured around nine key themes that reflect the priorities and aspirations of this emerging generation: Designing Care; Matter Matters; More Than Human; Food Futures; Spaces We Share; Trust, Signals and Noise; Everyday Life, Reconsidered; Undesigning; and Learning To See.

The exhibition tours leading design festivals in Belgrade, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Vienna and Skopje, with the support of the European Commission as part of the New European Bauhaus initiative.

NEXT GEN DESIGN EDU TALKS 

October 22, 2026 | IAAC | From 1:00 to 2:00pm  

Free admission upon registration. 

Edu Talk 1 – Design Like a Renegade: Designing from Belief, Not a Brief

by Emile Smeenk, founder of Nature Nomads and CoolBricks

Edu Talk 2 – The Art of Validation. Why every great idea needs a prototype

By Juan Umbert Rosselló,CEO and Co-Founder of Makeat, a food design and innovation studio focused on rethinking how food systems are conceived, produced and experienced.

14 – 25 October 2026
BARCELONA DESIGN WEEK

This October, Barcelona Design Week celebrates its 21st edition. From 14 to 25 October, Barcelona will once again become a meeting point for creativity and design. Under the theme PRO-TEST, this year’s edition will focus on the value of process, experimentation and design’s ability to transform ideas into real proposals.

PRO-TEST is rooted in two essential stages of the design process: prototyping and testing. These are the moments when ideas move beyond the abstract and begin to engage with reality—with materials, uses, needs and the people they are intended to serve.

The concept highlights a space for exploration where proposals are tested, questioned, reviewed and allowed to evolve. A process that helps us understand what works, what needs to be reconsidered and what can ultimately become a meaningful solution.

PRO-TEST also suggests another way of responding to uncertainty: not only through criticism, but by proposing, experimenting and building visible, tangible alternatives that remain open to change.

BDW 2026 will explore design as a practice capable of turning questions into processes, intuitions into prototypes and alternatives into evidence. An edition dedicated to ideas that are willing to be challenged and to the creative processes that can help us imagine and build more liveable futures.