On June the 5th, the 13th edition of the Barcelona Design Week will open its doors with a program that includes more than 130 exhibitions, workshops, installations, markets, presentations, inaugurations, conferences, documentaries and parties, among other activities. We recommend some of the most outstanding activities.

This year the week opens with a very special guest: Humberto Campana, who with his brother Fernando, created undoubtedly one of the most recognizable and prestigious international design studios. He will talk about his way of understanding design from Campana studio through his works, in which the idea of transformation and reinvention always emerges, which is precisely the central theme of the edition of this year: ‘Re-evaluate’. Humberto Campana will be presented by journalist and curator Ana Domínguez Siemens.

At the Disseny Hub, they will also open the doors on June 5, coinciding with the inaugural day, the exhibition “The best design of the year”, one of the most awaited areas of the Barcelona Design Week – a sample with 500 pieces of the winners and finalists of the different prizes granted by the FAD associations in the different creative disciplines, and “BASICS: A walk to question us”, a space that, at the hand of BCD, invites us to rethink society today to bring it to a more sustainable model based on criticism and collective consciousness. Finally, as of June 9, it will also be open to the public “Design or work”, organized by the Barcelona Design Museum and which includes the transformations of graphic design from 1980 to 2003.

An indispensable meeting point between the business sector and the design to share knowledge and be inspired by experts and professionals from various fields that will participate in two conferences and a workshop organized by BCD. In line with the theme of the BDW’18, ‘Revalorizar’, two of the UN Sustainable Development Goals of Agenda 2030 are the main topics of debate and reflection: on the one hand, promoting consumption and the Responsible production, and on the other, to build more inclusive, secure, resilient and sustainable cities and communities.

The prizes of the FAD associations will be presented in the different creative disciplines: on June 6, the FASHION Prizes for the most important proposals of the year in fashion; on 7 June, the FAD Architecture and Interior Design Awards, on its 60th anniversary; on June 8, the ADG Laus Visual Communication Awards; on June 12, the ArtsFAD Prizes are awarded to the artistic creation and, finally, on June 14, the BDW will be closed with the ADI Awards for industrial design and design culture.

The FAD returns with a new “General Essay”, the activity that, through design, addresses every year a topic of social concern. The General Essay ’18 will reflect on the emotional ties that people have towards things in the current consumer society. It will focus on two main activities: a prologue to the essay as a session of conferences on June 7, and “The rebellion of objects”, a horse-riding event, a still life of objects and the public exhibition, which will take place in Hangar on June 9.

In the framework of the General Essay, the artist and experimental designer Mau Morgó will create an installation in Plaça Universitat to invite us to reflect on our links with technology and one of its consequences, the generation of waste: “To rethink the domestic experience of the future, we have designed a place that is progressing in time, where discarded technology and electronic waste are found with the archetypal structures that we have been building for thousands of years. These waste will be so accessible that we will begin to build with technology to flee the technology.”

The Disseny Hub Barcelona will be the venue for the first edition of Tastadisseny, a day of Design and Gastronomy, two worlds that are closely related and that are fed back together. A market with tastings, workshops, performances and other activities that revolve around food reuse and new trends in this field. The installation “RR201” created by Andreu Carulla for the Celler de Can Roca and its ambitious project to get a restaurant without waste through the use of design will also be the protagonist.

The BDW’18 extends throughout the city, with special prominence in two neighbourhoods that stand out for its creative potential. On Saturday, June 9, the event will be with Poblenou District Design, which highlights the screening of a selection of films from the Milano Design Film Festival; the “International Pavilion: Italy”, a Palo Alto, which will host the exhibitions “Ferri Taglienti” and “Grado Zero”, and the presentation of the installation “Àgora urbana“ around the chimney of the old Can Saladrigas factory, a tribute to one of the elements most characteristic of the architectural heritage. On the other hand, on June 11, among the other activities Gràcia District Disseny will open the doors of some of the most relevant design and architecture studios in Barcelona.

A new event that brings together companies seeking talent, schools that promote it and young people who have a lot to offer is “LATENT. Talent’s Day” will take place on June 13 at the Disseny Hub. During a whole day – that will include group workshops to discover skills and spaces of supply and demand – young people, schools and companies will work together to solve a challenge and know the capacities and mutual motivations.

The Museum of Design organizes a new edition of “Design in Family”, one program of activities aimed at families with children up to 12 years, an invitation to participate in a fun day in which games and workshops are combined to be shared, as well as exhibitions aimed at all audiences. It will be at the Disseny Hub Barcelona on June 9 and 10, from 11 to 18 hours uninterruptedly.