And then there were six. The Design Museum in London revealed the Category Winners for Designs of the Year 2015. The museum's international competition and exhibition are popular for showcasing an array of distinctive projects that can undoubtedly attract broader public attention to contemporary design, but also prove the relevancy of design and its potential impact in society.
The competition jury sifted through submissions from international design stars, emerging startups, and students. After selecting 76 nominees total this past February, the jury picked one winner for each category: Architecture, Digital, Fashion, Graphic, Product and Transport. (The Furniture category appears to have been omitted.) This year's winners include ads of deformed vegetables for an anti-food waste campaign, a monolithic eco-designed university building, Google's self-driving car, and microchips engineered to operate like human organs.
↓ ARCHITECTURE: UC INNOVATION CENTER – ANACLETO ANGELINI
Designed by ELEMENTAL
↓ GRAPHICS: INGLORIOUS FRUITS & VEGETABLES
Designed by Marcel for Intermarché
↓ TRANSPORT: GOOGLE SELF-DRIVING-CAR
Designed by YooJung Ahn, Jared Gross and Philipp Haban
↓ PRODUCT: HUMAN ORGANS-ON-CHIPS
Designed by Donald Ingber and Dan Dongeun Huh
DIGITAL: THE OCEAN CLEANUP
Designed by Boyan Slat, Jan de Sonneville PhD and Erwin Zwart
↓ FASHION: THOMAS TAIT AW13/14
Designed by Thomas Tait
Next month, one of the Category Winners will be crowned with the overall Design of the Year 2015 title. In the meantime, all of this year's nominees are being exhibited at the Design Museum until March 31, 2016. Design Museum visitors can take part in the competition by picking their favorite designs through the Visitor Vote.
The 2015 Designs of the Year jury: Anish Kapoor, Artist (Chair); Hilary Alexander, Writer and stylist; Alexis Georgacopoulos, Director of Ecole cantonale d'art de Lausanne; Farshid Moussavi, Architect and Professor at Harvard University Graduate School of Design; and Richard Woolley, Studio Director, Land Rover Design Research & Special Vehicle Operations
Learn a little more about each category winner here.
1 Comment
I love to exploit the meaning of architecture... is it just buildings?
BUT...
The minute when we define architecture as being part of such a broad category of disciplines, is the minute we fail at mastering what we set out to be as professionals. It's okay to branch out and do "other things," but don't call yourself an Architect... Being an Architect is about mastering how to create habitable spaces FIRST, and then branching out and designing furniture, clothing, and what have you second.
Many theoreticians and other pundits in academia have developed the argument that they are trying to "push" the boundaries of design because we have already "mastered" the craft of building in the traditional sense. I question that argument. Few have actually "mastered" the art/science of building... yes there are masters, but there are very few of them who are really knowledgeable about building beyond just knowing how to stick two pieces of sheetrock on studs. Even if the argument is about society's mastery rather than the individual mastery of the craft, I believe it is only useful to present such arguments once that particular person, making that argument, has mastered what he wants to change rather than relying on the expertise of others to fill in the blanks.
The above projects are interesting pieces of art. They rely on architectural discourse to position them within the context of Architecture. But they are not Architecture.
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