Toban Shadlyn

Barcelona Design Week

Born from work that began during a Fall studio course in the Master in Strategic Design program at Elisava School of Design evolved into a broader effort. What began as a course project quickly evolved into a sustained commitment beyond the academic program. Following the studio, the students and myself continued working together, pursuing grant opportunities, and building relationships with public institutions and industry partners.

As part of our research and ongoing stakeholder engagement during the project, we established dialogues with the curation team of Barcelona Design Week. Given the region’s escalating drought crisis, we proposed centering this year’s Design Week theme around water, a proposal that was ultimately adopted.

As a result, we were invited to present a series of exhibitions, talk,  and public engagements, each exploring a distinct facet of humans relationship with water. 

These exhibitions invited public engagement, sparked meaningful dialogue, and opened new pathways for research and collaboration. The community response—rich in reflection, curiosity, and even emotion—underscored the resonance of the work.

To read about the course research and design projects that supported this work ︎︎︎ Designing with Drought

A presentation grounded in historical to present-day research, and calling for the necessary reframing of water not as a resource at humanity’s disposal, but as a living system of which humans are a part. The talk invited a shift in perspective: "water isn’t ours; water is us."

A street installation inviting visitors to engage in a future Barcelona without water, prompting reflection and creating messages – in the form of postcards – to themselves and their relationship with water.   

As part of the opening conference of Barcelona Design Week 2024 at the Design Hub, Bet of the Future invited visitors to engage with a series of speculative objects from a not-so-distant future. This interactive installation explored four future-oriented mindsets, each represented through provocative artifacts designed to challenge our current assumptions and habits. By encouraging reflection on how our mental models shape objects, interactions, and relationships, and their broader ecological consequences the exhibition opened up new dialogues around water use across diverse communities and stakeholders.

References

H20h! Linkedin post

Amor Sec Linkedin post

Bet of the Future Linkedin post

Master of Strategic Design in Complexity, Designing with Drought studio course 2023,Elisava School of Design and Engineering, Barcelona Spain