Covilhã Internacional Design Triennale
The Covilhã Design Triennial is an initiative of the Municipality of Covilhã under the UNESCO Creative City Action Plan in the area of Design, a status it obtained in 2021. The first edition of the triennial, dedicated to textiles, ran from March to June 2025 and was conceived and produced by Ideias Emergentes, the promoter of Contextile, the Biennial of Contemporary Textile Art in Guimarães.
With the main objective of contributing to the development of a design culture in the city and region, which reinforces the territory as a space for innovation with a special focus on the creative use of industrial heritage and the quality of the landscape, the Triennale centred on the concept of ‘Bioregional Design’.
The event allowed us to reflect on ways of utilising regional resources that go beyond the criteria of economic efficiency and seek to provide environmental and social responses appropriate to each context, creating regions of excellence in the balance between the dynamism of activities, the preservation of a living urban and industrial heritage and the maintenance of a qualified and biodiverse landscape.
It also showcased regional examples of design, helping to recognise local communities and publicise them nationally and globally, involving and associating the different players in the city and region, demonstrating the potential for articulating their different skills: regional and local administration, universities, associations, professionals – designers and craftspeople – and service, agricultural and manufacturing activities.
The initial edition, centred on Textile and Clothing Design, with a focus on woollens but without excluding other materials and sectors, was based on the idea that Design has a transformative power in the life of the city and the surrounding countryside, which is based on the ability to envisage a new role for the industrial heritage and landscape present, based on repositioning the textile sector in the value chain, strengthening relations between production sectors, the ability to rearticulate wider regional and cross-border relations in systems of design and production relations, broadening the areas and products offered by the textile sector and creating ways of enjoying and getting to know the city and the region.
The proposed theme, “Textile Landscapes”, was based on the idea of a landscape under construction, taking advantage of the past, analysing the present and inventing a new collective future, which goes beyond the productionist paradigm but offers viable activities in a context where, in addition to economic sustainability, social inclusion and balanced and diverse ecosystems are sought, in a changing landscape that is stimulating in sensory terms.
21 MAR – 21 JUN 2025
Photographies from João Pedro Azevedo and Mário Palumpo