Rules

jumpthegap®, Roca’s international design competition, has always had a forward-looking approach, seeking to promote the creativity and talent of students and professionals to devise creative, innovative and radical products through a multidisciplinary and intercultural vision.

However, the concept of the future has now changed. We are currently facing different challenges as individuals and as a society. Some of them are unexpected, such as those caused by the pandemic. Others are of growing and vital importance, such as preserving the planet we live on, supporting its diversity, or fighting poverty and hunger…

jumpthegap® has also evolved to adapt and promote actions and proposals that respond more directly to these challenges, searching for ideas and solutions for today, with a truly social, inclusive and sustainable approach. Not only because climate change and the global pandemic will transversely affect the entire planet, but because there are other major challenges that society will have to face in the next few years, which are contained in the 2030 agenda proposed by the United Nations.

jumpthegap® is committed to supporting new generations of designers and architects, and offers them an international platform to develop and showcase their talent. Now, more than ever, we believe that this talent can show real, innovative solutions to share with society and allow us to build a better future.

Aim of the contest

jumpthegap®aims to be one of the major agents proposing solutions to the challenges included in the 2030 agenda, thanks to the participation of professionals from the architecture and design sectors in the competition.

For this reason, the 2021 edition will not end with the awards ceremony, but will continue during 2022 with panel discussions and analyses, as its ideas and solutions provide inspiration for some of the challenges facing our planet and our society.

The bathroom, in the broadest sense, becomes the centralizing space for different human uses and needs, both physical and emotional, which define us and position us in the world.

In this sense, we ask participants to design a product or service that:

  • responds to any of the topics listed in the categories below, providing enough added value when compared with existing solutions
  • relies on currently available materials and technologies
  • is aligned with one or more Sustainable Development Goals included in the 2030 agenda

Categories

The 10th edition of the competition establishes four categories:

Wellness & Health

Designs that enhance the need for balance and harmony between our bodies, our mind and our environment. Proposals that help deliver a whole new level of comfort and peace of mind for our users and clients. A smart and responsible use of new technologies and materials to achieve significant improvements in the interactions between humans and their environment:

+ Hygiene and cleanability

+ Wellbeing

+ Health monitoring

+ Augmented senses

+ Sensitive interfaces

+ Emotional and spiritual

+ Physical and digital

+ Playful and useful

+ Work and leisure

 

[Un]neutral design

Designs that ingeniously and meaningfully address the bodily diversity and the wide range of capacities displayed by human beings. Proposals that facilitate independent living through new creative personal aid features. A search for adaptive designs that lead to comfortable and convenient solutions. A reconfiguration of traditional bathroom equipment and organisation to push for unrestricted use of the space by a wider range of human beings:

+ Gender + Ethnic + Age inclusive

+ Multigenerational household

+ Reduced mobility and strength

+ Impaired eyesight/hearing

+ Memory loss and cognitive diversity

+ Newborns and kids

 

Water & energy

Designs that promote a transformation in the face of rising demands and constraints as a consequence of population growth and climate change. Projects that promote a smart and conscious use of planetary resources. Technological leaps that break the assumption of the planet as an unlimited resource, and reformulate paradigms through:

+ Degrowth and decarbonisation

+ Clean energy

+ Circular design

+ Water saving

+ Microgeneration

  

Crisis & emergency

Designs that tackle a context of permanent crisis and emergency, through agile, feasible and replicable materials and technologies. Proposals that identify adequate product/service solutions in any geographical market. A series of equipment with low installation costs, low operating costs, low maintenance demands and low sensitivity to harsh environments, that promote:

+ Flexible systems

+ Decentralized solutions

+ Autonomous water, energy and sanitation networks

+ Sanitation and health in natural disasters

+ On time reaction to humanitarian emergencies

+ Health crisis

Participants must choose a category in which to submit their project.

Main values and Attitudes of the Contest

Values

The 10th edition of the competition establishes global values for any design proposal:

DIVERSITY + SUSTAINABILITY x TIMELESSNESS x ADAPTABILITY 

These values are the foundation of the 10th edition of jumpthegap®, which maintains a strong social and environmental commitment, while promoting designs that are conscious of their transformative power, which generate an impact in the short term and expand their quality in the long term, with the capacity to develop and materialize at different scales and in different contexts.

Attitudes

At the same time jumpthegap® promotes the active positioning of the designer to face present and future challenges.  

RADICAL - OPEN – HYBRID - ENGAGED 

A designer who assumes the complexity of the context, proposing resources that combine ethics, society, the environment and technology through open and radical attitudes, that resort to multiple and hybrid formats and platforms.  

Participants

The contest is open to professionals and students from the disciplines of architecture, design and any related field, of legal age from every country in the world, and has two participation options:

  • Individual projects: formed by a single person.
  • Group projects: formed by two people. 

Each person or group may participate in one project only.

Judges, their families, their studios or design teams may not compete. The same applies to employees of companies that form part of the Roca Group.

Winners of any of Roca’s previous design contest editions are allowed to participate.  

Registration

Registration for the contest is free of charge and open from 3rd  May 2021 online at www.jumpthegap.net, accessible through the registration page.

All participants must submit their application to take part in the contest on 6th September 2021.

By registering for the contest, participants confirm that they accept these rules.

Any incomplete or incorrect information or any registration application that does not fulfill the required conditions will be considered as null and void.

Presentation of project

Each project cannot be submitted to more than one category.

Projects must be absolutely anonymous: they cannot contain any names or personal details about the author/s, as all this information has been already provided through the registration. All texts included in the project must be written in English.

The competing project must be submitted in:

  • One pdf file, containing not more than 2 x A3 size pages.
  • The maximum size of the pdf file will be 1.5 MB.
  • The first page must include the title of the project, a text with the description of the project, and the main images.

The text must not have more than 600 words, divided into three sections:

  • WHAT? What is the project about? For whom?
  • HOW? Brief description (How it works, materials...)
  • WHY? What Sustainable Development Goal of the United Nations agenda 2030 are you offering a solution to and why will it be relevant in the future?

Any background information or additional details of the project should be placed on the second page.

Participants certify that the design is their own, original work and that it has never been published before. Designs must not have received any award, nor have been presented to any other competition at the time that they are entered for the jumpthegap® contest.

The organizers will not, without the written agreement of the participant, alter or amend in any way, the project submitted.

Submission date

The submission date was initially 3rd May and 3rd June, but due to the Covid obstacles Roca decided to extend the submission date to 3rd May and 6th September. Thus, the final submission date is 6th September. Note that all participants who were registered to the contest before the submission date extension have been notified of such extension by email and those who had already submitted the project have been can modify and/or update their project until the extended submission date.

The projects must be submitted to the contest website between 3rd May and 6th September.

Prizes

There are 4 prizes of 2.000€ for the winner of each category.

There are 8 prizes of 500€ for the 1st and 2nd runner up of each category.

There is 1 prize of 5.000€ for the best of the best project, selected from the winners of each of the 4 categories

All taxes on the prize are the sole responsibility of the winner, regardless of his/her jurisdiction. The winner may be responsible for taxes that are applicable according to Personal Income Tax, Non-resident Income Tax and according to the provisions of international treaties.

Consequently, the winner, by accepting these legal bases, is aware of the tax consequences of any kind that might result from claiming the prize and Roca takes no responsibility for such cause.

Additionally, winners and finalists will receive a jumpthegap® official digital diploma and a digital label to be used on communication channels.

If at any time before the payment of the prizes, the organization of the contest learns that any of the awarded projects does not comply with any of the conditions established in these legal bases, (i.e. because it is not an original project or for other reasons) the concerned project will be disqualified and the following runner-up will move up one position in the winner's rankings. If any of the prizes cannot be awarded because there are not enough substitute winners, such prize will be declared void.

Jury

The jury is made up of the following professionals:

  • President:  Shigeru Ban, Architect founder of Shigeru Ban Architects
  • Somi Kim, Senior Director, Healthcare Solutions at Johnson & Johnson (J&J) Design
  •  Paul Priestman, Designer, Chairman of PriestmanGoode
  • Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin_Forma Fantasma 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 Barcelona Design Centre & President of World Design Weeks
  • Marc Viardot, Corporate Marketing and Design Director Roca Group

Selection process

From 7th September to 15th September 2021, a pre-selection committee made up of representatives of the Roca Design Centre and the Roca Global Innovation Hub will select 24 projects (6 projects per category) from the entries received, which will be presented to the juries.

Authors of the 24 preselected projects will be requested to send during the next 48h of the preselection announcement:

  • A copy of their ID card
  • A copy of their studies degree or enrolment

The jury will receive a “virtual dossier” with the 24 preselected projects to judge.

The juries’ first selections will be performed on-line from 20th September to 30th September.

They will choose the winner and the 1st and 2nd runners up for each category.

The juries’ second selection, to choose the best of the best, will be performed on-line from 1st October to 7th October 2021.

Jury criteria

All submissions will be assessed anonymously. When making their assessments, the judges will take into account the following criteria and requirements:

1- INNOVATION AND ORIGINALITY - 30%

Proposals must show an alternative to other existing elements and set new standards for the world to follow.

Projects presented must be original and never have been published before. Designs must not have received any award, nor have been presented to any other competition at the time they are submitted to the jumpthegap® contest.

2- FEASABILITY - 30%

All proposals must be feasible to realize with materials and technologies currently available in the public domain.

3. ALIGNMENT WITH SDG 20%

The proposals must be aligned with the UN 2030 agenda and must clearly explain which SDG(s) are affected or benefitted by the design. 

4- VALUES and ATTITUDES- 10%

Proposals must consider the values and attitudes defined as fundamental in the competition.

5- PRESENTATION- 10%

The overall idea must be clearly explained and must include good-quality images. High quality of the deliverables is essential.

Intellectual and industrial property rights

Participants certify that the design is their own, original work and that it has never been published before. Designs must not have received any award, nor have been presented to any other competition at the time they are submitted to the jumpthegap® contest. Participants must enjoy the unrestricted exercise of the intellectual and property rights over their respective proposals.

All intellectual property rights, as well as possible industrial property rights over the projects submitted, belong exclusively to their authors.However, by submitting their project to the contest, the Participants grant the company Roca Sanitario, S.A. (hereinafter Roca) a priority right to the exploitation of the projects for 6 months provided that an agreement is reached with the author of such project in this sense.

Participants are responsible for the protection of their submissions by either copyright, design or patent applications, prior to submitting them to the competition.

All participants (including the winner/s and finalists) assign to Roca and Barcelona Centre de Disseny the rights of reproduction and publication of the paper projects submitted to the contest, for all countries in the world and for the maximum period permitted by law in each one of such countries for the sole and only purpose of promoting the projects in publications of general interest and/or specialized magazines, as well as on the websites, editions and publications of Roca and/or Barcelona Design Centre and also on the contest website. Roca will be entitled to assign to third parties, without the previous written consent of the authors, the right of reproduction and publication of the projects submitted by the authors to the contest for the territorial and temporal scope they deem necessary, for the sole and only purpose of promoting the authors paper projects worldwide.

Exceptionally, participants other than the winner/s and finalists who do not wish to publish their work, must request this in written form to Roca, before 23rd July 2020.

Personal data

By enrolling in this competition, the participants expressly agree to the facts described hereunder:

  • Their personal details will be included in a file owned by Roca Sanitario, S.A with registered office in Avenida Diagonal 513, 08029, Barcelona, Spain, which is responsible for processing this file, the purpose of which is to manage and coordinate their participation in the competition, as well as the delivery of the prize to the winner.
  • For the purpose of promoting these projects in publications of general interest, specialised magazines, Roca's websites, and also on the competition's website, Roca Sanitario, S.A. shall share the rights of reproduction, distribution and communication of the projects submitted in this competition, with all the companies that form part of Roca Group, for the maximum period of time permitted by the applicable law in each country.
  • For the sole purpose of promoting these projects worldwide, all of the companies that form part of Roca Group shall have the right to cede to third parties, without prior consent of the authors, the reproduction and publication of the projects submitted by the participants,for the maximum period of time permitted by the applicable law in each country. 

Participants may exercise their rights of access, rectification, cancellation and opposition in writing to Roca Sanitario, S.A. (lopd@roca.net).

Exercising the rights of cancellation and opposition shall result in the participant’s registration in the competition being withdrawn, as the details are required for managing participation in the event.

By enrolling in this competition, participants accept these terms and conditions.

For more information, please contact us: jumpthegap@roca.net.