Barcelona Design Week 2025 hosts some activities by Elisava in collaboration with USM, Amics de La Rambla and IKEA

The 20th edition of Barcelona Design Week (BDW), from 7 to 17 October, aims to bring creativity closer to the public and all economic sectors in the city, as well as to mobilize the creative sector to project Barcelona’s vitality to the rest of the world. With the slogan “Creative resilience,” it will feature a large number of activities, such as exhibitions, installations, showrooms, conferences, and routes, among others.

Below are the main activities of BDW 2025 organized by or with the participation of Elisava:

Exhibition of various projects designed by students of the Bachelor in Design and Innovation (Mention in Product Design) who develop and propose new functionalities based on the modular designs of the USM furniture brand, seeking a balance between the technical and the poetic, highlighting USM’s versatility and respecting its modular logic. The result is original, free, creative, and non-industrialized ideas that reinterpret this design classic.

Thursday, October 16 (from 6.30 p.m. to 8.30 p.m.)
Fundació Mies Van der Rohe (Av. Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia, 7)

Credits:

Students: Matteo Guida, Guillem Álamo, Luis Doornekamp, Laura Bonnin, Carla Roura, Irene Navarro and Laia Muñoz
Mentored by: Luis Elsava and German Ortiz
In collaboration with: USM

Screening of an unreleased audiovisual piece on the representation of women in fiction films set in the product design sector, based on research by Guim Espelt. Followed by a discussion between Guim Espelt, from Elisava Research, Ana Mir, from Emiliana Design Studio, and María Ruedas, a student at Elisava. On behalf of USM, presentation of furniture with a screen produced by Leica.

Saturday, October 11 (from 11 a.m. to 1.30 p.m.)
En linea Barcelona (C/ Còrsega, 284)

Credits:

Speakers: Guim Espelt, Ana Mir and Maria Ruedas
In collaboration with: USM and Leica

Exhibition featuring objects that serve as small souvenirs seeking to define the city of Barcelona and its culture through craftsmanship, with the aim of bringing closer, sharing and communicating the value of the artisan as a key element between design and industry. Project carried out by students on the Bachelor in Design and Innovation at Elisava in collaboration with the company Amics de la Rambla and directed by Luis Eslava and Guim Espelt, professors at Elisava.

Inauguration: Wednesday, October 8 (6.30 p.m.)
Exhibition: From October 8 to 17
Palau Moja (C/ Portaferrissa, 1)

Credits:

Students: Arnau Amado, Daniel Aviñó, Jara Lucía Beso, Tristan Cardinal, Dorothy-Nora Castellblanque, Leonor Castro, Carmen Adriana Clotet, Anna Contreras, Laia Durall, Jökull Ellertsson, Júlia Feixa, Oihana Gómez de Segura, Kitty Lucy Hiscox, Eugenia López, Ivet López, Gustav Lyager Poilsen, Cristina Riera, Laura Sanz, Ruth Soler, Núria Tió and Júlia Vilas
Mentored by: Luis Elsava and Guim Espelt
In collaboration with: Amics de la Rambla

Underground BDW is a hybrid between a fair and a collective exhibition in an unconventional space, a parking gallery, which brings together innovative and experimental proposals aligned with the preservation and construction of a more sustainable and humane future.

Exhibition: From October 15 to 17
Parking Gallery by LCI Barcelona (C/ Àlaba, 124)

Credits:

Students: TBC
Mentored by: Salva Fabregas and Sergi Bogunya
In collaboration with: IKEA

Multidisciplinary exhibition exploring the hidden material lives of everyday discarded objects found across the city—cracked tiles, plastic tubes, broken furniture, and more. Engaging with themes of sustainability, memory, and urban design, this showcase offers a sensory, reflective space to contemplate the characters within everyday things and see beyond the binarism of use or waste. It is organized by Jannis Schaefer, alumni of the Master in Design through New Materials, along with Alex Johnstone.

Exhibition: From October 10 to November 1
La Galeria by Lastcrit (C/ Méndez Núñez, 7)

Credits:

Organized by: Jannis Schaefer and Alex Johnstone

After passing through Milan Design Week, this exhibition returns to its city of origin to offer a perspective on creativity and light design. This new edition focuses on self-produced projects: unique pieces or small series created for specific commissions or conceived directly for an end user. Today, designers, artists, architects, and engineers can develop and produce their creations directly from the office, the workshop, or even from home, and distribute them without intermediaries. A direct relationship between creator and user that redefines the way we conceive, make, and share design. Stefano Colli, profesor at Elisava, is the curator of the exhibition, which has several pieces conceived by Elisava faculty members and alumni.

Exhibition: From October 7 to February 8
DHub Barcelona (Pl. de les Glòries Catalanes, 38)

Credits:

Curator: Stefano Colli
Pieces’ authors: Josep Novell, Josep Puig, Maio, Luis Eslava, Goula Figuera, estudio ACTO, Toni Palleja, Julia Esqué, Curro Claret, Jordi Canudas, Emili Padros, Jorge Pensi, Pere Canals, Jordi Font, Christophe, SSOP, Fango, Max Milá, Gonzalo Milá, Martí Guixe, Claudia Fernández Astorga, Gabriela Cholvis Muñoz, Martí Capdevila Muntadas, Matteo Guida and Luis Doornekamp, Joshua Linacisoro, Pere Itchart, Borja Suqué
In collaboration with: Simon