Barcelona Design Week 2026 puts design processes in the spotlight
Under the theme PRO-TEST, the festival brings 140 activities across Barcelona and surrounding cities, exploring how prototypes, experimentation and creative exchange can turn ideas into tangible alternatives.
Barcelona Design Week 2026 is underway, bringing together exhibitions, installations, talks, workshops and open studios for its 21st edition. Running until October 25, the festival involves close to 100 brands, institutions and other design-sector participants, with a programme that connects professional practice, education, business and public life.
Curated by Alessandro Manetti, this year’s edition centres on PRO-TEST: a theme combining prototyping and testing with the critical and constructive possibilities of protest. Against a backdrop of artificial intelligence, climate pressures and technological concentration, the programme examines how design can question established models and develop alternatives through practical experimentation. Its focus is the stage before a proposal becomes a finished product: when ideas remain open to revision, materials are tested and decisions can still change.
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Barcelona Design Week – Highlights:
Underground BDW opens up the development process
One of the Barcelona Design Week 2026 programme’s central platforms is Underground BDW, the experimental exhibition returning for its third edition at Parking Gallery by LCI Barcelona. Bringing together 30 exhibitors from eight countries, it gives visibility to prototypes and ongoing investigations, including approaches to technology, manufacturing and consumption.
LAMAQUINA and Ceràmica Cumella present the intersection of robotic fabrication and craft knowledge through their work on ceramic components for the cross of the Sagrada Família. The project connects digital production with the material expertise involved in an architectural commission.
Artist and designer Mathilde Pellé approaches experimentation through subtraction, examining how removing material and reducing possessions can challenge assumptions about what people need. Roca contributes a view into the development of Meridian, revealing the trials, modifications and decisions behind a product.
Technology is also examined through the Sónar+D space. Quantum Compass, by the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, and Divine Device, by Lola Liñán, explore relationships with complex technologies, raising questions about the trust, intimacy and decision-making authority placed in them. Underground BDW forms part of the Barcelona 2026 World Capital of Architecture programme.
A programme embedded in the city
Beyond its official venue at Disseny Hub Barcelona, the festival extends across 16 Associated Venues and 65 spaces belonging to companies, studios and organisations. Activities also reach surrounding municipalities, including Sabadell, Terrassa and Esplugues de Llobregat.
This network accommodates different scales of design practice. NTT DATA’s programme examines artificial intelligence through screenings and conversations, while Service Design Disrupted addresses changes within service design. WMF explores connections between design, technical knowledge and haute cuisine through gastronomic experiences. Architecture, materials and interiors feature at Cosentino City Barcelona, while Kave’s The Journey considers experimentation and iteration across design, manufacturing and retail.
The programme also moves into everyday commercial spaces through Persianes que fan barri. Spanning Barcelona’s ten districts and involving 185 shops, the initiative uses artistic interventions on shop shutters to connect urban art, neighbourhood identity and local economic activity.
International voices and emerging practices
The OFF BDW programme brings audiences into contact with designers, brands and their working environments. RS Barcelona’s programme features Luca Nichetto, while Teixidors welcomes Bethan Laura Wood, introducing perspectives on furniture, textiles, colour and contemporary craft. Other activities include access to Nobodinoz’s studio in Gràcia and the presentation of a new collection by Lázaro Rosa-Violán for ECOcero. Together, these encounters provide opportunities to explore the processes and exchanges behind commercial design.
Education is another strand of the festival. An exhibition marking Elisava’s 65th anniversary highlights the school’s contribution to design, while Talks Next Gen Design connects emerging practitioners with the professional community. The talks are linked to Young Designers for Next Generation Europe, an international initiative involving platforms and festivals in Barcelona, Skopje, Belgrade, Vienna and Amsterdam.
Barcelona Design Week 2026: different ways into design
Across its main programme, OFF activities and collaborating spaces, Barcelona Design Week combines specialist discussions with formats accessible to a broader public. Urban routes, performances, workshops and installations offer different entry points into the discipline. The programme gives its PRO-TEST theme a practical setting: a distributed platform where visitors can encounter how design is developed, questioned and applied across objects, technologies, businesses and shared urban spaces.
