IE School of Architecture & Design Explores Care as Design Practice at Madrid Design Festival 2026
An interdisciplinary program advancing ecological inquiry, life-centered design, and socially engaged pedagogy through craft, innovation, and everyday practice.
Madrid, 19 January 2026 - Throughout February, professors, researchers, and students from IE School of Architecture & Design will participate in Madrid Design Festival (MDF26) with events taking place in Madrid and Segovia. The School’s contribution centers care as both a material and ethical practice, positioning design not only as a tool for making, but as a way of listening, repairing, and sustaining relationships.
Curated by Clara Llamas, Academic Director of the Bachelor in Design at IE University, the program includes workshops, exhibitions, conversations, and site-specific interventions that activate campuses and cultural venues as place-based laboratories for experimentation, dialogue, and community engagement. "Design is often associated with producing objects, but it is also about repairing, listening, and creating connections," said Clara Llamas. "Design means caring for people, materials, memory, territory, and relationships. Through our projects, we show how design can sustain communities, activate collective memory, and create meaningful bonds between people, materials, and places."
A central strand of the school’s presence explores the relationship between technology and creativity, and the role of material intelligence in the digital world. In Digital to Hands — Re:Crafting Tradition (Feb 10, IE Tower), led by Gianluca Pugliese with IE University student Marion Vincey, participants merge 3D printing with traditional ceramic techniques to examine how digital fabrication can coexist with embodied, manual knowledge. The Repair Agency: Exercises in the Art of Repair (Feb 13, ILE), led by Pablo Calderón with Priscilla Suárez Bock, reframes repair as a design methodology rooted in sustainability, patience and attention, inviting participants to reflect on consumption, care and value.
Questions of authorship, memory and artificial intelligence emerge in Pencil vs Prompt: Investigating hand-drawn and AI-generated representations of cherished memories (Feb 17, ILE), led by Grazielle Bruscato and Antonio Daniele, Academic Director of the Master in Design for Immersive Experiences and XR at IE University. The conversation continues in Craft and Care in the Age of Automation (Feb 19, IE Tower), where Antonio Daniele, alongside innovative practitioners Déborah López (PAREID) and Joana Burd, examines hybrid human–AI practices and the future of digital craft.
Material and ecological inquiries expand through two exhibitions at the IE Creative Campus in Segovia. Formigário Sonoro (Feb 13–20) by Joana Burd is a sound installation translating ant colony activity into human-audible frequencies, foregrounding interspecies interdependence. Where Care Grows Wild (Feb 13–28) by Taryn Mead explores biomaterials, ritual and life cycles as tools for reflecting on time, memory and ecological care.
Mead will also lead two open workshops Crafting Nature-Entangled Rituals (Feb 28, IE Creative Campus Segovia), welcoming both children and adults to craft personal ritual objects, reinforcing the school’s commitment to intergenerational learning and public participation.
Student research and experimentation take center stage in CM Plastik Loves Wood (Feb 20, ILE), presenting sustainable material projects developed in class in collaboration with industry partners under the supervision of Héctor Serrano, Miguel Leiro, Eli Gutiérrez, and Pablo Alabau.
The program also highlights the social and territorial dimensions of design. Doing and Caring: Unlocking Possible Futures (Feb 19, ILE), led by Clara Llamas alongside Jo Muñoz and Diego Peris (Todo por la Praxis), and Juliane Trummer (Mormedi) examines the shift of design from object production to relational practice, exploring how strategic design, activism and education can foster collective agency and care-driven futures.
Crafts with Purpose: Designing for the Periphery (Feb 20, ILE), featuring Kaleb Cárdenas, Manu Rapoport (Designo Patagonia) and Grazielle Bruscato, reflects on design practices beyond urban centers. Architecture Meets Life (Feb 18, IE Tower), a public conversation with acclaimed architect Tatiana Bilbao connects architecture to everyday life and social responsibility.
Finally, Hacer barrio/Building Community (Feb 28, Segovia), led by Romina Canna and Pablo Calderón together with IE university Sofia Ennok, Nina Grandguillaume, and Paolo Millan Vivian transforms a collective walk into an emotional mapping exercise, embedding design practice within local histories and community knowledge.
Images: (on the cover) IE University students presenting their projects at Madrid Design Festival 2025, photo©Jorquera. Poster of The Repair Agency by Priscilla Suárez Bock. Drawing of project by Tatiana Bilbao."Formigario Sonoro" by Joana Burd, photo©Liege Ferreira