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, to be held in the spring of 2025, between March 21 and June 21, is organized and produced by Ideias Emergentes in partnership with dozens of local agents.

A key element of the municipality’s strategy within the UNESCO Creative Cities Network, the Triennial promises to be a transformative and disruptive event based on its main objective: to promote a design culture in the city and the region. It also aims to become a key event in the national design calendar, contributing to the dissemination and discussion associated with design, innovation and creativity in all its disciplines and territories, reinforcing the territory as a space for innovation.

The Covilhã Design Triennial is thus an event that brings together and debates the best practices, at a global level, of the mediation capacity that Design allows between the productive and service sectors and the geographical spaces in which they operate.

It is also a place that showcases the best regional examples of Design, contributing to the recognition of local communities and their national and global dissemination. It involves and associates the different players in the city and region, demonstrating the potential for linking their different skills: regional and local administration, universities, associations, professionals – designers and craftspeople – and service, agricultural and manufacturing activities.

Finally, it will be able to involve the community in general, attracting them to the culture of Design, as this is the fundamental factor for the discipline to be operative in creating value for the city and the region, contributing to their perception as spaces of opportunity for creatives and entrepreneurs who value quality of life over and above the economic dimension of their activities.