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.