Following 9 global editions with over 26,000 participants from 150 countries, jumpthegap® returns, inviting the brightest talents in architecture and design to come up with creative solutions for the bathroom space. This 10th edition marks a new stage in the development of Roca’s international design contest, driven by the crucial challenges we face today both as individuals and as a society.

Starting in 2021 and going forward, jumpthegap® will challenge architects and designers from all over the world to create solutions for the bathroom space that address and advance the goals set out by the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. An evolution from the more conceptual and futuristic follows last year’s special edition devoted to the new COVID-19 realities.

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“The concept of ‘future’ has changed”, says Marc Viardot, Roca Group’s Corporate Marketing and Design Director. “There are new challenges brought about by the pandemic, while others are of growing and vital importance, such as preserving the planet, supporting its diversity, or fighting inequalities. jumpthegap® has evolved to respond more directly to these issues, searching for ideas that are technologically feasible, provide added value to innovation and show diversity, sustainability, timelessness and adaptability – values which have always been a part of Roca’s DNA”, he adds.

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The competition, which is organised in collaboration with BcD Barcelona Design centre, is now divided into four new categories: Wellness & Health, designs that deliver new levels of comfort and peace of mind for users and clients, promoting balance and harmony; [Un]neutral design, projects that ingeniously and meaningfully address the bodily diversity and the wide range of capacities displayed by human beings, facilitating independent living through new creative personal aid features; Water & Energy, projects that promote a smart and conscious use of planetary resources; and Crisis & Emergency, designs that tackle a context of permanent crisis and emergency with the help of flexible, feasible and replicable materials and technologies.

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The projects will be assessed by a jury of renowned professionals led by Japanese architect and 2014 Pritzker Prize winner Shigeru Ban (Jury President), and which also includes Somi Kim, Senior Director, Healthcare Solutions at Johnson & Johnson (J&J) Design; Paul Priestman, Designer, Chairman of PriestmanGoode; Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin, Founders of Formafantasma design studio; Deborah Seward, Director of United Nations Regional Information Centre in Belgium; Mariana Amatullo, President of Cumulus International Association of Universities and Colleges of Art, Design and Media; Isabel Roig, Executive Director of BcD Barcelona Design centre and President of World Design Weeks; and Marc Viardot, Roca Group’s Corporate Marketing and Design Director.

Key dates and prizes

Participants are invited to submit their designs at jumpthegap® between 3 May and 3 June, either individually or in groups of two. Following a preselection by representatives of the Roca Design Centre and the Roca Global Innovation Hub, the jury will then review submissions in two rounds, from 16 to 27 June and from 28 June to 4 July.

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The winners will be revealed in a virtual ceremony on 6 July, where there will be a total of 13 prizes awarded: four prizes of €2,000 for the winner of each category, eight prizes of €500 for the 1st and 2nd runner up of each category, and a grand prize of €5,000 for the ‘Best of the Best’ project, selected from the four winners.

The 10th edition of jumpthegap®, however, will not end at the awards ceremony. It will continue well into 2022 with a series of public roundtables and debates that will explore innovative solutions for a more sustainable future, and in which this year’s finalists and winners will have the possibility to discuss their groundbreaking projects.

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