Design awards and recognition

The Elisava community celebrates an end of the year full of awards and recognition for students and lecturers, who have been recognised for their innovative nature and impact on society in national and international design contests and competitions. From the James Dyson Award to Elisava's ei! Awards, the award-winning projects address environmental, technological and human problems from the perspective of design and engineering, and consolidate Elisava’s position as one of the leading centres in the training of creative and committed designers and engineers.

In the case of undergraduate student projects, a group of Elisava students won the James Dyson Award 2024 for design. Marcel Rovira, Anna Martin and Mariona Figueras, from the bachelor’s degree in Industrial Design Engineering, were recognised for the development of "Atom H2", a solution that converts excess renewable energy into hydrogen and stores it safely in solid state to be able to guarantee a reliable supply in the future, thus solving the problem of intermittent energy supply.

Also from the bachelor’s degree in Industrial Design Engineering, Adam Peig and Mauro Barrera won second prize in the 12th edition of the Roca One Day Design Challenge - a competition for young design professionals under the age of thirty - with the project "CAPT". CAPT is an innovative system for capturing environmental moisture, which can be reused to fill a discharge tank and thus optimise the use of water in toilets.

Outstanding awards in the Catalan field

In the bachelor’s degree in Design and Innovation, Pablo Navarlaz won the Brut! Prize for his final year project "Frecuencias divergentes" (Diverging frequencies), which addresses visual impairment and its consequences in the daily life of those affected. This final project approaches this problem from a broad perspective, moving away from standardisation and normalisation. The result is a typographic, parametric and multivariable product, which can adapt to various vision disorders. In the context of the Brut! Prize, Navarlaz gave a talk on his project at the Blanc! Campus at the end of October.

Continuing with the bachelor’s degree in Design and Innovation, an alumni from the 2022-2023 class, Carlos Álvarez, has won the gaudeamusPROJECTA award for his final year project “Ultra Materiam. La interpretación gráfica de la identidad: más allá de la materia (Ultra Materium. The graphic interpretation of identity: beyond matter.” This final project emerged from the philosophical legacy of the Voyager mission, which sent a disc encoding humanity's identity to the far reaches of space. With this idea in mind, Álvarez reflects on how a person's identity can be compressed, and explores new ways of representing complex and abstract data related to the complexity of human psychology. The gaudeamusPROJECTA awards not only recognise the authors of the projects, but also the tutors and the educational centres from which the award-winning works emerged.

Regarding the bachelor’s degree in Industrial Design Engineering, the ERT-Mobility team, with Elisabet Albinyana at the head, won the CIAC Talent Award in the Logistics category in the framework of the Automotive Talent Show 2024.

International competitions and National Design Award

Regarding master's degree and postgraduate programmes, in the Pentawards three silver and two bronze awards were given in the Student Concepts category to various projects by students on the master's degree in Packaging Design. These awards also gave Elisava the distinction of Educator of the Yearfor the best educational centre of the year; recognition that the school has received in two consecutive editions. For this reason, Elisava is in #1 position in the Pentawards Student Top 10 League ranking, ahead of educational centres such as the Art Center College of Design (#4) or the Pratt Institute (#9).

An initiative by students María Aguirre and Clara Juià from the master’s degree in Interior Design for Hotels, Bars and Restaurants should also be mentioned. Their project "Hissant les veles" (Hoisting the sails) won the “Un Salt para la Ciutat” (A jump for the city) design competition, an initiative that is already in its tenth edition as part of the Barcelona Jumping Nations Cup 2024 at CSIO. The obstacle designed by these two students was included in the course that the world's best riders had to face when they came together in the Catalan capital for this competition.

Cris Busquets, lecturer on the master's degree in Design and Management of User Experience (UX) and Digital Services, has won the National Design Award 2024 in the Young Design Professionals category. Busquets won the award as a contemporary and international inspiration for a new generation of digital designers who has contributed clearly to transforming the world of communication by having an undeniable global impact, and to a social and professional commitment in some of the most important initiatives in global scale, and for her ability to overcome biases and conventions within the design profession. Her work includes collaborations with such relevant companies as X, the company responsible for Wordpress Automattic, Holaluz and many others.

Elisava awards for its students’ best final year projects

Finally, the ei! Awards should be mentioned. These awards are organised by Elisava and are now in their 13th edition, to recognise the best final year projects in the 2023-2024 class. The winning projects, selected by a jury of experts in the sector, stood out for their innovation, viability and social and environmental relevance. The winning projects include "Frequencias divergentes" (Divergent frequencies) by Pablo Navarlaz in Graphic Design, "USM Lighting System" by Xosé Lois in Product Design, and "Marisa" by Marta Pou in Interactive Experience Design, all recognised for their creativity and potential impact.

These awards recognised several final projects from the degree in Industrial Design Engineering. These include "Phygital Human Bone 2.0" by Mario Fradera, "Prodapt" by Aitana Ballerini and Manel Martínez, and "Redesign and Optimisation of a Triple Clamp using Generative Design" by Clàudia Clavé. In addition to the category awards, the Audience Award went to Ona Boix’s "Diàleg" project, while Andie Puentes and Alícia Roca were recognised as the students with the best academic records in the bachelor’s degrees in Design and in Industrial Design Engineering, respectively. The ie! Awards thus reaffirm Elisava’s commitment to promoting emerging talent and research in design and engineering.

In addition, the Elisava Masters Awards have once again recognised the excellence and creativity of the best final master's and postgraduate projects. This was the case of "Passer-by" (Graphic Design category) by Bruna Sade and Kohana Kato, from the master's degree in Editorial Design; "Kodak - Photographs in danger of extinction" (Communication category) by Lisanne Torra, Lidia Flores, Manuela Forero and Paloma González, from the master's degree in Creative Direction and Communication; "Pompeii House" (Space Design category) by Silvia Borrego and Anthony Flores, from the master's degree in Interior Design; "Sea Glass" (Product and Services Design category) by Paolina-Iuna Kuhr, from the master’s degree in Design through New Materials; and "CACA by ACA" by Elisabeth Català, Rene Cal, Francisca de la Cerda, Meme Doreste and Javiera Luengo, from the postgraduate course in Design and Communication Strategies, which won the Audience Award.