The program for the new edition of Barcelona Design Week 2022, the annual event on design and creativity in Barcelona, ​​starts next Thursday and will last until the 22nd of June. The program presentation was attended by the organizers and the First Deputy Mayor of Barcelona City Council, Jaume Collboni, who stated that “Barcelona Design Week is one of the most important events in the city. The design is part of the DNA of our city, connects with the idea of ​​creative Barcelona that we are promoting from the City Council all over the world”. Collboni emphasized that “it is a city event, and we want it to be for the whole city. I would like to thank the effort to expand the program, with a focus on emerging talent and young people, and connect it with the challenges of the future. Festivals like these help us not only to showcase the city's creative class, but also to provide solutions through design to our lives.”. 

The Executive Director of the Barcelona Design Center and Barcelona Design Week, Isabel Roig, who led the event, emphasized that “the BDW is a proposal from design to connect with the city. 130 activities will fill the city with exhibitions, installations, debates, conferences, awards, experiences and more. This year is the European Year of Young People, and the BDW is especially aimed at them" she said. She recalled that" one of the objectives of the BDW is to bring design closer to the general public” 

Wayfindings:the experience

Mariana Eidler, a member of the BDW'22 Advisory Committee, spoke about this year's theme of the festival, Wayfindings: Guidelines for creating new presents: "Wayfindings is a proposal for all of us to choose those paths to go where we want. If what we want to generate is a big change, if we unite - small people - we can generate big changes ”and explained the Wayfindings installation: the experience, curated by tactica.bcn, ​​the central space of this edition of the BDW where design will be visible as a service to society, and where pedestrians and participants will be able to enjoy exhibition micro-experiences, performative actions by various design schools in Barcelona and the "Greenhouse of ideas", an ephemeral space inflatable where different talks and debates will take place by the designers, Puto Modernos; the communicator and creative, Francesca Tur; the doctor of philosophy and connector of philosophy, art and technoscience, Laura Benitez; Simon's design director, Salvi Plaja; the Roca Galleries Global Manager, Raquel Gil, or the musician and architect, Ramon Faura; among many others. 

Joan Achon, Founder of The Others, has presented the graphic campaign for this edition. 

As every year, the Disseny Hub Barcelona will once again be the setting for the FAD, ADI and ADG Laus Awards and will host the exhibition "The Best Design of the Year", a sample of the 500 most outstanding products and projects of the year in industrial design, graphic design and visual communication, architecture and interior design. This year the exhibition has three thematic tours in line with the principles of the New European Bauhaus: Beauty, Sustainability and Inclusiveness, as well as a focus on technological innovation, as explained by the director of the FAD, Mònica Bonafonte. 

Also on display will be the exhibition ‘Ukraine. Real Life Design. Ukrainian collective exhibition’ ’or NØA, the Artificial Intelligence Assistant created by NTT Data to welcome visitors.

On the other hand, IKEA's urban installation La Casa de Pensar, an ephemeral creative space where professionals and citizens come together to generate ideas for people's future, arrives in Barcelona on the occasion of Barcelona Design Week. It is a collaborative project between the Madrid Design Festival, Barcelona Design Week and the Valencia World Design Capital, who together with IKEA have forged alliances to reflect and redesign the city of the future for the longest-lived society in the world. history. At the IKEA ‘La Casa de Pensar’, three teams of professionals and students from design schools in Barcelona, ​​Madrid and Valencia will meet to create innovative ideas that improve aspects such as loneliness, mobility and social integration. A group of experts will select two finalist ideas to make a prototype and exhibit them during the World Design Capital Valencia 2022 in September. That is why during the presentation a connection was made with Xavier Calvo, Director of Valencia World Design Capital 2022, who said that “Barcelona is also the capital of design. We are happy to make this historic sisterhood a reality with Madrid Design Festival and Barcelona Design Week in the Next Gen:Seniors project. In September we are waiting for you in Valencia to show not only the conclusions, but the winning prototype”.

Food Design Week is back

After the success of the last edition, Food Design Week is back. From 7 to 14 June, the city is full of food design, and 30 gastronomic spaces in Barcelona will host experiences, special menus, workshops and activities. Through 6 routes, Food Design Week aims to show how food design brings experiential value to restaurants, while solving problems such as food waste.

Once again, OFF BDW gathers more than 80 activities related to creativity, design and innovation: exhibitions, showrooms, conferences, workshops or fashion shows.

Finally, the closing of the BDW will be an Open Night with the participation of 10 showrooms at the Turó Parc area.

The BDW is sponsored by Cervezas Alhambra, Roca, Simon, Escofet, Faro Barcelona and Kave Home.