Created in 1914 and based in New York, AIGA is the world’s oldest professional association for design. Each year it organises a competition known as ‘365: AIGA Annual Design Competitions’, which undoubtedly figures among the word’s top events in terms of design. This year, 2,500 pieces were submitted from all over the world, of which 126 were selected. Among this year’s winners is the Roca Barcelona Gallery showroom, a project developed by boolab for the agency Tiempo BBDO. Along with the other winners, the project will be entered in the AIGA archives, included in the association’s yearbook and will feature in the exhibition that will open next 29 September in New York before travelling the United States throughout 2011.
Roca Barcelona Gallery was also among the 108 elite pieces selected for inclusion in the XI Anuario de Creatividad Española (11th Spanish Creativity Yearbook) of the Club de Creativos, was honoured with a Silver LAUS Award (see note below) and also won a Silver award (category: Design) at the recently debuted PIAF advertising festival (Prague).

Inaugurated in September 2009, the Roca Barcelona Gallery is intended as a corporate showroom for the company Roca (the world’s leading bathroom brand) to present its products, history and brand values. The gallery occupies 2,400 square metres, in a three-storey building designed and built by Carlos Ferrater’s Office of Architecture in Barcelona – OAB. Roca’s advertising agency, Tiempo BBDO, was responsible from the beginning in defining the contents of the space and bringing them to life. To develop the creative concepts and contents for the gallery, Tiempo BBDO called in boolab and proposed working on the challenge collaboratively. We spent four months developing all the audiovisual content for the Gallery’s interior, including interactive tables, projections, videowalls and installations. The director in charge of the project was Paul Freeth, a multi-disciplinary visual artist from England who now is represented by boolab.