The 11th LEXUS DESIGN AWARD came to a grand conclusion with the 4 Winning Designs being showcased at Milan Design Week. All winners wonderfully captured Lexus’ brand ethos of “Design for a Better Tomorrow”, with the Fog-X by Pavels Hedström also winning the ‘Your Choice Award’. The LEXUS DESIGN AWARD was envisioned to be a platform that helps the next generation of creatives to realize their ideas for a better future. Through a combination of industry mentorship and providing award grants to build prototypes, the LEXUS DESIGN AWARD helps transform nascent ideas and concepts into tangible solutions. These tangible prototypes were exhibited to the public between April 18th and 23rd at Milan Design Week.
LEXUS DESIGN AWARD 2023 Winners Exhibition – Milan Design Week
Print Clay Humidifier by Jiaming Liu
Designed to highlight terracotta’s ability to disperse moisture into the atmosphere, the Print Clay Humidifier is a clever, non-electric product that easily humidifies while also uplifting spaces with its elegant design. Designer Jiaming Liu also experimented with using ‘recycled ceramic waste’ as a material choice to realize the humidifier’s design. “Having so many visitors, I was a little bit nervous in the beginning, but in the end, I could enjoy meeting and talking to visitors to show my idea,” Jiaming said. “I would like to have my own design studio and bring this project into the market in the future. I also have a lot of ideas that I would like to develop… so I will follow my passion and explore my creativity to build a Better Tomorrow through design.”
Touch the Valley by Temporary Office
Touch the Valley is a 3D puzzle designed for people with visual impairments. The puzzle consists of topographic pieces that can be assembled by matching adjacent contouring pieces. By piecing together the puzzle, individuals can gain a better understanding of the physical world through touch. The tactile experience encourages sensory perception and provides a unique opportunity for individuals to explore and interact with their environment. “Everything of this LEXUS DESIGN AWARD journey was challenging but also super rewarding for us. Having a timeframe pushes us out from our comfort zone. Hearing mentors’ feedback helps us a lot to keep sharpening our focus and clarify our priorities,” said the design duo Temporary Office. “As a next step for the project Touch the Valley, we would like to try a different type of landscape like Mt.Fuji, Monument Valley, or different national parks in the US…. We would like to see this puzzle in every home in the future since this is such an accessible product.”
Zero Bag by Kyeongho Park & Yejin Heo
The Zero Bag is a sustainable alternative to traditional plastic packaging for clothing and food items. It is made from water-soluble alginate plastic and features a paper detergent inner lining. The bag can be washed along with its contents, and the detergent helps to clean the items before use. Once washed, the bag disintegrates in water, reducing waste and environmental impact. “We were so happy and excited to be here and to showcase our project at Milan Design Week. This is my first time participating in such a global exhibition and it’s like a dream,” designers Kyeongho and Yejin mentioned. “Having received many questions from visitors, now we know which aspects of this project interest visitors and we feel that our explanations are getting better. We would like to keep developing this Zero Bag project and look for a potential partner such as a chemical company so that we can explore materials.”
Fog-X by Pavels Hedström
The Fog-X is a jacket that’s designed to help provide drinking water in arid environments by collecting atmospheric moisture or catching fog. The jacket comes with a “sail-like expandable antenna which captures fog droplets” and leads them into a water container that people can drink out of. To make the Fog-X more effective, it’s supplemented by a smartphone app that guides the user to optimal locations for harvesting fog. “I was super excited to showcase my project at Milan Design Week, meeting many people, receiving feedback. I feel like that they started to consider the issues that I addressed through the project which was exactly what I had intended,” Pavels mentioned. “The project Fog-X involves many different fields from architecture, fashion, materials and technologies… everything into one project, which means I can still explore a lot of possibilities and I feel that a lot of new doors opened in front of myself now.”
Declared the unanimous winner from the LEXUS DESIGN AWARD’s roster of four leading projects, the Fog-X by Pavels Hedström was awarded the coveted ‘Your Choice Award’. Introduced this year, the ‘Your Choice Award’ allowed people from across the world to vote for their favorite project that best represented the award program’s ethos of ‘Design for a Better Tomorrow’. “I’m very privileged to be chosen as this year’s Your Choice Award. It has been a fantastic journey. I couldn’t imagine a more honorable way of ending this journey and continuing the next one.” said Pavels. The Your Choice Award Winner, along with the three other winning designs were displayed for the thousands of attendees at Milan Design Week, giving them the perfect stepping stone into the creative industry, and their ideas the large platform it deserves!
Celebrating its 11th edition, the LEXUS DESIGN AWARD was established to provide a platform for emerging creatives to invest their ideas and creativity in creating a ‘Better Tomorrow’. Aimed at finding unique solutions to global environmental and social problems, the program offers a unique opportunity for the next generation of creators to thrive under the guidance of leading industrial mentors, with Lexus providing grants to bring their innovative designs to life. This year, the award program introduces the “Your Choice Award”, where the public can vote for their favorite design. Check out the list of candidates below and don’t forget to cast your vote!
In the latter half of last year, Lexus announced the 2023 edition of its award program, focusing on key principles of “Anticipate, Innovate, and Captivate, while seamlessly enhancing the happiness of all” and promoting design through a unique mentorship approach. Industry mentors Marjan van Aubel (Solar Designer, Marjan van Aubel Studio), Joe Doucet (Founder, Joe Doucet x Partners), Yuri Suzuki (Artist and Designer/Partner, Pentagram), and Sumayya Vally (Architect/Principal, Counterspace) collaborate with winners, who present their designs to a distinguished jury panel featuring Paola Antonelli (Senior Curator for the Department of Architecture and Design at MoMA), Karim Rashid (Designer, Karim Rashid Inc.), and Simon Humphries (Chief Branding Officer, Toyota Motor Corporation). Winners are awarded up to 3 million Japanese yen to bring their ideas to life, with the four winning designs exhibited at Milan Design Week from April 17th to 23rd. With the Your Choice Award, YOU get to vote for your favorite design too!
The Fog-X is a unique piece of clothing that not only provides warmth but also doubles as a water harvester. Originally designed as a backpack, the Fog-X was transformed into a jacket during mentorship sessions due to its smaller and more versatile nature. The jacket’s design helps it collect atmospheric moisture, making it an ideal solution for arid environments where water is scarce. To maximize its water-catching abilities, the Fog-X comes with an app that guides the user to optimal locations for harvesting fog. The transforms into a fog-catcher, which collects micro-droplets of water from the wind, providing a clean source of drinking water even in the driest of deserts.
Print Clay Humidifier by Jiaming Liu
The Print Clay Humidifier is an inventive and sustainable non-electric humidifier that uses recycled ceramic waste as a raw material. Jiaming Liu’s fresh perspective helps recycle ceramic objects and pieces while retaining their evaporative properties, aiming to expand the use of ceramic recycling to bring the realization of a resource-recycling society. The humidifier is 3D-printed and uses the water-wicking properties of clay to deliver moisture into the air. Liu tested different combinations of ceramic powders and various iterations of the humidifier’s design. “I found that the petal structure combined with the rotating shape increased the material’s performance,” he mentioned, also highlighting how the product was designed to seamlessly balance aesthetics and function.
Touch the Valley by Temporary Office
Touch the Valley is a 3D puzzle game specifically designed for visually-impaired individuals. The puzzle consists of topographic pieces that can be assembled by matching adjacent contouring pieces, providing a tactile experience that encourages sensory perception and allows individuals to explore and interact with their environment. Temporary Office, the design duo behind the game, consulted with vision rehabilitation training specialists and the visually impaired community to refine the puzzle, resulting in the addition of magnetic haptic feedback, elevational grooves, smoother edges, and potentially extruded patterns to enhance the user’s experience. The goal of the puzzle is to create a joyful and immersive process of play and exploration without overwhelming cognitive load.
Zero Bag by Kyeongho Park & Yejin Heo
A unique combination of container and detergent, the Zero Bag boasts of a cradle-to-grave approach that allows the plastic packaging of a product to disintegrate once it serves its purposes. Designed to be used to package clothes, food, or any other item that would typically require plastic packaging, the Zero Bag is made from water-soluble alginate plastic, with a paper detergent lining. When you receive your items wrapped in a Zero Bag, simply wash them with the bag and the bag will dissolve in the water, leaving you with zero waste. The detergent/soap helps to clean the contents of the bag before consumption or use. The bag is versatile and can be used for both clothes and food, with a simple swap of the inner lining for a food-safe soap or baking soda. The Park and Heo’s aim is to also strengthen the waterproof abilities of the bag so it can sustain the journey from manufacturing to retail to consumer. The Zero Bag is a game-changer in the world of sustainable packaging and is sure to make a positive impact on the environment.
Now in its 11th year, the LEXUS DESIGN AWARD was envisioned as a platform to help next-generation creators invest their ideas and creativity in building a ‘Better Tomorrow’. Given the environmental and social issues concerning the upcoming generation of creators, the award program follows a unique format that allows them to grow and flourish under leading industrial mentors, with Lexus providing grants to help bring the game-changing design entries to life. The award program also announced a new “Your Choice Award” that allows people to vote for their favorite design. View the participants below!
In the latter half of last year, Lexus announced the 2023 edition of its award program with the theme echoing the Lexus brand’s key principles – “Anticipate, Innovate, and Captivate, while seamlessly enhancing the happiness of all”. Through the award program, Lexus extends its culture of design and innovation by fostering an ideal atmosphere for design to flourish, enabling the transformation of concepts into tangible and meaningful solutions. Winners of Lexus’ design competitions are awarded a grant of up to 3 million Japanese yen to help bring their ideas to life.
Judging and mentoring the participants’ designs form a core part of what makes the LEXUS DESIGN AWARD so special. This year, the esteemed jury panel included Paola Antonelli (Senior Curator for the Department of Architecture and Design at MoMA), Karim Rashid (Designer, Karim Rashid Inc.), and Simon Humphries (Chief Branding Officer, Toyota Motor Corporation), while four internationally renowned designers joined the mentoring platform – Marjan van Aubel (Solar Designer, Marjan van Aubel Studio), Joe Doucet (Founder, Joe Doucet x Partners), Yuri Suzuki (Artist and Designer/Partner, Pentagram), and Sumayya Vally (Architect/ Principal, Counterspace). The award’s procedure, however, went through a few changes with Lexus choosing four winners instead of a single Grand Prix Winner. All four winners went through the mentoring stage prior to their announcement in February, followed by a Prototype Development Phase in collaboration with the mentors. The finalized prototypes are now being showcased between April 17th and 23rd at the Milan Design Week, with the introduction of a new Your Choice Award. That’s where you, the reader, come in!
The LEXUS DESIGN AWARD is giving YOU the opportunity to cast your vote for your favorite design too… after all, it’s only a Better Tomorrow when everyone gets to share their opinion, right?! The new “Your Choice Award” is being launched during Milan Design Week (April 17-23) and Lexus invites the public from around the world to vote online for their favorite prototype that best represents Design for a Better Tomorrow.
A jacket with a rather novel added function, the Fog-X also turns into a water harvester. With a design that helps collect atmospheric moisture, the Fog-X provides the user with drinking water in arid environments where water is scarce. The idea for the Fog-X originally started out as a water-harvesting backpack but transitioned into a jacket during the mentorship sessions. The jacket is smaller, lighter, and a little more ubiquitous, making it an ideal pick. To effectively use the Fog-X’s water-catching abilities, it comes with a smartphone app that guides the user to optimal locations for harvesting fog. Once pitched, the jacket helps collect micro-droplets of water from the wind, providing a clean source of drinking water in even the driest of deserts.
Print Clay Humidifier by Jiaming Liu
Clay’s properties as a natural evaporative cooler have been known for millennia, although what the Print Clay Humidifier does is rather inventive. The humidifier explores ‘recycled ceramic waste’ as a raw material, instead of regular clay. Ceramics and fired terracotta objects are notoriously non-biodegradable (it’s why pottery from civilizations dating back thousands of years have still survived under the ground), but Jiaming Liu’s fresh perspective helps recycle ceramic objects and pieces while retaining their evaporative properties. “The aim of this project is to expand the use of ceramic recycling to bring the realization of a resource-recycling society,” says Liu. The Print Clay Humidifier is a 3D-printed sustainable non-electric humidifier that uses the water-wicking properties of clay to deliver moisture into the air. During the mentorship process, Liu tested different combinations of ceramic powders, along with various iterations of the humidifier’s design. “I found that the petal structure combined with the rotating shape increased the material’s performance,” he mentioned, also highlighting how the product was designed to seamlessly balance aesthetics and function.
Touch the Valley by Temporary Office
Touch the Valley is a 3D puzzle that’s designed for visually-impaired people. The puzzle comprises three-dimensional topographic pieces that can be assembled by matching adjacent contouring pieces. By piecing together the puzzle, individuals can gain a better understanding of the physical world through touch. The tactile experience encourages sensory perception and provides a unique opportunity for individuals to explore and interact with their environment. Under the advice of their mentors, the design duo Temporary Office reached out to vision rehabilitation training specialists and the visually impaired community to help refine their puzzle game. The result saw a few additions to the puzzle in the form of magnetic haptic feedback, elevational grooves, smoother edges, and potentially extruded patterns in the hope that users can joyfully immerse themselves in the process of play and exploration without too much cognitive load.
Zero Bag by Kyeongho Park & Yejin Heo
The Zero Bag is part-container, part-detergent, designed with a zero-waste cradle-to-grave approach. Made to serve as packaging for clothes, food, or anything else that you’d otherwise use plastic for, the Zero Bag comes manufactured from water-soluble alginate plastic, with a paper detergent inner lining. After receiving the clothes or fruits/vegetables wrapped in a Zero Bag, wash them with the bag and the bag disintegrates into the water, while the detergent/soap helps clean the contents of the bag before consumption/wearing. In the end, the bag dissolves into water, leaving you with ‘zero bag’! While the bag first started out as packaging for clothes, it’s through the mentorship sessions that designers Kyeongho Park & Yejin Heo also realized the bags could hold food too, with a simple swap of the inner detergent lining for a food-safe soap or baking soda. The designers’ aim is to also strengthen the waterproof abilities of the bag so it can sustain the journey from manufacturing to retail to consumer.
Every year, the LEXUS DESIGN AWARD invites students and up-and-coming designers to envision a ‘Brighter Future’ for the people and the planet. Free to participate in, the award’s unique format and mentorship program allow designers to grow and flourish under leading industrial mentors, with Lexus providing grants to help bring the game-changing design entries to life.
Earlier this month, Lexus announced the 11th edition of the LEXUS DESIGN AWARD. Through the award, Lexus hopes to seek innovative ideas that contribute to a thriving and better future for all through the power of design and technology. The theme for the award echoes the Lexus brand’s three key principles – “Anticipate, Innovate and Captivate, while seamlessly enhancing the happiness of all”. Creating the perfect environment for a design to grow, Lexus helps engineer ideas into real, impactful solutions. The brand’s strong association with design and innovation helps it accelerate ideas to achieve their full potential, and the brand even offers winners a grant of up to 3 million Japanese Yen or $25,000 USD to help prototype their ideas.
Mentorship remains core to the award, while also being its distinct differentiator. It isn’t too often that you see award programs that are invested in helping designers grow while giving them industry expertise to perfect their game-changing ideas. The award’s format is unique in that regard too. Entries go through one round of selection before an elite panel of judges selects 4 winners. The winners then go through a 3-month long course with internationally-recognized mentors who take the conceptual entries and help refine them for the real world. Each winner will also be allocated a research and development budget of up to 3 million Japanese yen as a design grant to cover not only prototype construction but also other relevant expenses involved in refining their concept and design and supporting the individual’s creative development. In the spring of 2023, the four winners will reveal their progress to judges and mentors by presenting their finished work for review.
“Over the past decade, environmental and other issues have ballooned along with the need for solutions. With the LEXUS DESIGN AWARD we have welcomed and recognized emerging creators of foresight and creative brilliance who apply the power of design to the challenges of building a better tomorrow for all. I eagerly await the fresh talent and impactful ideas that debut at LEXUS DESIGN AWARD 2023”, said Simon
Humphries, Head of Toyota & Lexus Global Design.
Rewind Motion-tracking Device by Poh Yun Ru (2022 Grand Prix Winner)
The idea for Rewind came to Poh Yun Ru after seeing her grandmother struggle with remembering how to perform basic day-to-day tasks as a result of dementia and failing memory. Designed to evoke memories, Rewind uses motion-tracking to guide seniors with dementia in re-enacting familiar gestures. Based loosely on the phrase that ‘practice makes perfect’, Rewind allows its user to engage in activities that would otherwise come intuitively. By creating a platform that allows them to constantly practice these activities (and even receive haptic feedback as a result), Rewind helps rebuild the neural pathways that get weak with age.
Portable Solar Distiller by Henry Glogau (2021 Grand Prix Winner)
The Portable Solar Distiller provides clean drinking water by filtering polluted water or overly saline seawater using sunlight. Merging local resource production with community architecture, this low-tech solution also serves as a shaded gathering place. Its large canopy serves a dual purpose – harvesting sunlight to help purify water through evaporation and acting as a community center for people to gather under during the day or even at night. The Portable Solar Distiller’s open-source schematic can easily be tweaked and implemented by anyone, allowing the design solution to have a wider reach and impact. The Portable Solar Distiller is designed in a way that can be carried, opened out, and assembled anywhere. Almost like a beach umbrella, it provides shade for groups of people, while having the added benefit of being able to purify water.
Open Source Communities by BellTower (2020 Grand Prix Winner)
A vast number of Kenyans suffer from a combination of problems like water shortage, diseases caused by consumption of unfiltered/unfit water, having to walk miles to get water on a daily basis, or alternatively having to pay high rates for local water distribution. “In Nairobi, high-tech coexists with urban poverty”, say the team at BellTower, who designed the Open Source Communities project which creates a new format of community-building that relies on efficient allocation of resources that help the lower-income communities get access to basic necessities like water. The project creates a centralized water-reservoir – a structure that sits between hundreds of homes, providing water to every single one of them. The structure’s innovative format allows it to harvest and conserve rainwater, while actively filtering it of dirt, microorganisms, and other impurities. During the monsoons, surplus water helps generate money for the communities too, allowing them to get an extra source of income while bridging the vast resource gap. However, the best part about the Open Source Communities is that it exists as a public-utility template. Its open-source nature gives it unlimited flexibility, allowing it to be modified to fit in practically any scenario.
Algorithmic Lace by Lisa Marks (2019 Grand Prix Winner)
Bringing Algorithms and Attire together in a beautifully crafted garment with a noble purpose, Algorithmic Lace uses advanced three-dimensional modeling to handcraft bespoke bras for breast cancer survivors who have undergone mastectomy surgery. Algorithms have a long-standing love-affair with the textile industry, as one of the first machines to use algorithms was the Jacquard Loom back in the 1800s. The loom was controlled by a series of punched cards, which contained information that the loom read. Different cards had different algorithms and by switching the cards in the loom, you could tell it to alternate between complex textile weaves like brocade, damask and matelassé. Algorithmic Lace builds on that rich history, by using lines of code to create bras that are custom-built for their wearers. These garments are made specifically to functionally suit women who’ve undergone surgery, and the algorithmic pattern helps create a well-fitted, comfortable brassiere that’s also incredibly aesthetic to look at, empowering the wearer with confidence, along with their new lease of life.
The 2022 LEXUS DESIGN AWARD comes to a conclusion with its jury finally unveiling their pick for the Grand Prix Winner. A motion-tracking device to help rehabilitate the elderly and stimulate their memories, Rewind by Poh Yun Ru was deemed as the project that best encompassed the LEXUS DESIGN AWARD’s theme of “Design for a Better Tomorrow”. It surpassed 1725 other entries from 57 countries and regions to reach the top spot.
Rewind was selected from a roster of 6 finalists, which were picked for their ability to articulate the Lexus brand’s three core principles: Anticipate, Innovate, and Captivate, and Enhance Happiness. Poh Yun Ru and the other finalists then spent 3 months developing their original proposals and creating prototypes under the highly skilled guidance of Sam Baron, Joe Doucet, Yosuke Hayano, and Sabine Marcelis – this year’s team of mentors for the LEXUS DESIGN AWARD. The finalists were then judged by LEXUS DESIGN AWARD’s elite jury panel, featuring Paola Antonelli, Anupama Kundoo, Bruce Mau, and Simon Humphries. In a new addition to the award program, the finalists also met one-on-one with the judges, receiving not only direct feedback on their work, but also career advice and tips for improvement.
The idea for Rewind came to Poh Yun Ru after seeing her grandmother struggle with remembering how to perform basic day-to-day tasks as a result of dementia and failing memory. Designed to evoke memories, Rewind uses motion-tracking to guide seniors with dementia in re-enacting familiar gestures. Based loosely on the phrase that ‘practice makes perfect’, Rewind allows its user to engage in activities that would otherwise come intuitively. By creating a platform that allows them to constantly practice these activities (and even receive haptic feedback as a result), Rewind helps rebuild the neural pathways that get weak with age.
At the root of the Rewind experience is a handheld IoT device that acts almost like an input device. Actions like ironing, pouring, spice-griding, stirring, etc. are displayed on a screen, and users are required to mimic them with the handheld device in their hands. This is made easier because it’s much safer for the elderly to work with a purpose-built device than an actual iron or a heavy pestle and mortar. Sensors within the handheld device measure how users interact with it, and through this process of copying and repeating these actions, elders are re-familiarized with common physical actions and interactions, allowing their minds and bodies to get used to them. These functions helped inform the Rewind’s design. The device was made to be minimal with no complex buttons or controls, intuitive to grasp and use, and incredibly tactile, with a pattern running along its grip that made it easy to hold and maneuver.
Upon winning the 2022 LEXUS DESIGN AWARD, Poh Yun Ru commented: “I feel immensely grateful that Rewind is now a step closer to improving the lives of more people. This couldn’t have happened without the unwavering support of my mentors, my team of dedicated engineers, programmers, healthcare experts, and users. This opportunity from Lexus Design Award to turn a project into a real-world product felt nothing short of amazing, and I feel heartened to have met and learned from the Grand Prix of Lexus Design Award 2022 so many passionate designers from around the world. It has been such a rewarding and inspiring journey, and I am excited to continue designing for a better world and a better tomorrow for all.”
I’ve noticed something rather interesting over the past couple of years. The purpose of a design, any design, is to see itself evolve in a way that benefits users as well as the designer that had the idea in the first place. A well-designed product isn’t something that can exist in isolation with a ribbon pinned to it… yet most award programs do just that. They look at products, identify a few of them which look promising, give them a certificate or trophy, and move on to the next product… and the process repeats itself year after year. Most award programs don’t incubate great ideas into wonderful products… they just identify them and put them on a website for others to see, and that’s something I’ve come to identify with a lot of awards, but not the Lexus Design Award.
Imagine having great designers gather around your idea and nourish it into something truly fruitful. Imagine having all the resources you need to prototype your idea into something that WORKS… not on paper, in reality. Imagine spending 3 months under the wing of industry-leading mentors who help guide you through the design process. The Lexus Design Award isn’t really like other awards… it’s part award, part internship, part incubator, and part institute. When you apply for the Lexus Design Award, you’re enrolling yourself into a 3-month course with internationally-recognized mentors like Joe Doucet (Founder, Joe Doucet x Partners), Mariam Kamara (Principal Architect, Atelier Masomi), Sputniko! (Associate Professor of Design at the Tokyo University of the Arts), and Sabine Marcelis (Founder, Studio Sabine Marcelis. Out of all the award participants, 6 Finalists are chosen to be a part of this mentorship experience. During this time, the mentors work with you ON your project (sort of like the most personalized internship ever), taking your rough concept to fruition, while Lexus incubates the product with as much as 3 million Japanese Yen or $25,000 dedicated to prototyping the projects to a working proof-of-concept.
The Lexus Design Award’s core objective has always been to foster great ideas and great talent. Creating the perfect environment for a design to grow, Lexus helps engineer ideas into real, impactful solutions for a better future. The awards are free for all, focusing on young talent looking to find their footing in the industry, and offering them the ability to take their nascent ideas to new heights, with advice from established professional mentors. At the end of the mentorship phase, a Grand Prix finalist is chosen by the award’s esteemed judging panel comprising of Paola Antonelli (Senior Curator at MoMA), Greg Lynn (Architect and CEO Piaggio Fast Forward), Dong Gong (Founder & Design Principal of Vector Architects), and Simon Humphries (Head of Toyota and Lexus Global Design).
Entries for the 2021 edition of the Lexus Design Award are now open, with the theme echoing Lexus’ brand principle – “Anticipate, Innovate and Captivate for a better tomorrow”. Head to the Discover Lexus website to submit your own designs for a chance to collaborate with world-class mentors and incubate your ideas into reality, or scroll down to check out some of the past winners of the Lexus Design Award as inspiration!
Submit Your Designs Now for Lexus Design Award 2021. Last Date for Submissions: October 11th, 2020.
Lexus Design Award Past Winners
Lexus first launched this annual international award in 2013 to nurture up-and-coming designers and help them realize their vision around the future of design.
Open Source Communities by BellTower (2020 Grand Prix Winner)
A vast number of Kenyans suffer from a combination of problems like water shortage, diseases caused by consumption of unfiltered/unfit water, having to walk miles to get water on a daily basis, or alternatively having to pay high rates for local water distribution. “In Nairobi, high-tech coexists with urban poverty”, say the team at BellTower, who designed the Open Source Communities project which creates a new format of community-building that relies on efficient allocation of resources that help the lower-income communities get access to basic necessities like water. The project creates a centralized water-reservoir – a structure that sits between hundreds of homes, providing water to every single one of them. The structure’s innovative format allows it to harvest and conserve rainwater, while actively filtering it of dirt, microorganisms, and other impurities. During the monsoons, surplus water helps generate money for the communities too, allowing them to get an extra source of income while bridging the vast resource gap. However, the best part about the Open Source Communities is that it exists as a public-utility template. Its open-source nature gives it unlimited flexibility, allowing it to be modified to fit in practically any scenario.
Algorithmic Lace by Lisa Marks (2019 Grand Prix Winner)
Bringing Algorithms and Attire together in a beautifully crafted garment with a noble purpose, Algorithmic Lace uses advanced three-dimensional modeling to handcraft bespoke bras for breast cancer survivors who have undergone mastectomy surgery. Algorithms have a long-standing love-affair with the textile industry, as one of the first machines to use algorithms was the Jacquard Loom back in the 1800s. The loom was controlled by a series of punched cards, which contained information that the loom read. Different cards had different algorithms into it and by switching the cards in the loom, you could tell it to alternate between complex textile weaves like brocade, damask and matelassé. Algorithmic Lace builds on that rich history, by using lines of code to create bras that are custom-built for their wearers. These garments are made specifically to functionally suit women who’ve undergone surgery, and the algorithmic pattern helps create a well-fitted, comfortable brassiere that’s also incredibly aesthetic to look at, empowering the wearer with confidence, along with their new lease of life.
Pixel by Hiroto Yoshizoe (2017 Grand Prix Winner)
There’s sheer magic in how the Pixel can actually take what you see and reduce its resolution to a handful of pixels… creating an illusion of being in a low-res world. At its heart is a uniquely crafted module that takes light as an input, and through repeated internal reflection, turns inputted images into square outputs. Imagine how the mirrors on a periscope work, taking an image from the top and carrying them down to the viewfinder below… this module does something similar, but with a different result. Stack enough of these modules together and you get the Pixel, a dynamic wall that instantly pixelates anything behind it. The Pixel relies on a powerful light source, and in this case, uses a projector. Project an image on it and the modules average out the light entering them, instantly pixelating the image and giving us a new perspective on the way we see light and shadows!
Agar Plasticity by AMAM (2016 Grand Prix Winner)
As its name suggests, the Agar Plasticity project uses Agar, a gelatinous marine algal material, as a replacement for plastics, creating a naturally occurring alternative to one of nature’s largest pollutants. Perfectly encapsulating the Lexus theme of ‘designing for a better tomorrow’, the project envisions a use of Agar as an alternative to the plastics found in packaging. Given that packaging for a product is often discarded immediately after purchase, Agar Plasticity hopes to create a solution that is eco-friendlier. Agar itself is derived from nature, and when treated a certain way, can be molded into containers, trays, and films that can replace single-use plastics. When discarded, the Agar can easily degrade in water or land, turning into nutrition for microorganisms and helping reduce waste. Japan-based design-trio AMAM is currently working to get larger institutions and corporations to look into the use of Agar as a safe plastic-alternative.
Inaho by Hideki Yoshimoto and Yoshinaka Ono (2013 Grand Prix Winner)
Yet another example of how lighting can be more of an experience, Inaho captures the tranquil beauty of watching rice-plants sway in the breeze. Created by Japanese duo Hideki Yoshimoto and Yoshinaka Ono, Inaho captures a strong Japanese cultural element, creating something that’s not just eye-catching but also rooted in history. The lights come mounted on tall, flexible metal rods, which gently lean towards people as they approach it. The interactive element doesn’t just make the Inaho interesting in a tactile sense, it also creates a wonderful series of moving highlights and shadows as the rice-plant-inspired lamps lean in your direction as you approach them, prompting you to move closer. The word Inaho literally translates to ‘a ear of rice’ in Japanese.
Submissions are being accepted until October 11th, 2020.
I’ve noticed something rather interesting over the past couple of years. The purpose of a design, any design, is to see itself evolve in a way that benefits users as well as the designer that had the idea in the first place. A well-designed product isn’t something that can exist in isolation with a ribbon pinned to it… yet most award programs do just that. They look at products, identify a few of them which look promising, give them a certificate or trophy, and move on to the next product… and the process repeats itself year after year. Most award programs don’t incubate great ideas into wonderful products… they just identify them and put them on a website for others to see, and that’s something I’ve come to identify with a lot of awards, but not the Lexus Design Award.
Imagine having great designers gather around your idea and nourish it into something truly fruitful. Imagine having all the resources you need to prototype your idea into something that WORKS… not on paper, in reality. Imagine spending 3 months under the wing of industry-leading mentors who help guide you through the design process. The Lexus Design Award isn’t really like other awards… it’s part award, part internship, part incubator, and part institute. When you apply for the Lexus Design Award, you’re enrolling yourself into a 3-month course with internationally-recognized mentors like Joe Doucet (Founder, Joe Doucet x Partners), Mariam Kamara (Principal Architect, Atelier Masomi), Sputniko! (Associate Professor of Design at the Tokyo University of the Arts), and Sabine Marcelis (Founder, Studio Sabine Marcelis. Out of all the award participants, 6 Finalists are chosen to be a part of this mentorship experience. During this time, the mentors work with you ON your project (sort of like the most personalized internship ever), taking your rough concept to fruition, while Lexus incubates the product with as much as 3 million Japanese Yen or $25,000 dedicated to prototyping the projects to a working proof-of-concept.
The Lexus Design Award’s core objective has always been to foster great ideas and great talent. Creating the perfect environment for a design to grow, Lexus helps engineer ideas into real, impactful solutions for a better future. The awards are free for all, focusing on young talent looking to find their footing in the industry, and offering them the ability to take their nascent ideas to new heights, with advice from established professional mentors. At the end of the mentorship phase, a Grand Prix finalist is chosen by the award’s esteemed judging panel comprising of Paola Antonelli (Senior Curator at MoMA), Greg Lynn (Architect and CEO Piaggio Fast Forward), Dong Gong (Founder & Design Principal of Vector Architects), and Simon Humphries (Head of Toyota and Lexus Global Design).
Entries for the 2021 edition of the Lexus Design Award are now open, with the theme echoing Lexus’ brand principle – “Anticipate, Innovate and Captivate for a better tomorrow”. Head to the Discover Lexus website to submit your own designs for a chance to collaborate with world-class mentors and incubate your ideas into reality, or scroll down to check out some of the past winners of the Lexus Design Award as inspiration!
Submit Your Designs Now for Lexus Design Award 2021. Last Date for Submissions: October 11th, 2020.
Lexus Design Award Past Winners
Lexus first launched this annual international award in 2013 to nurture up-and-coming designers and help them realize their vision around the future of design.
Open Source Communities by BellTower (2020 Grand Prix Winner)
A vast number of Kenyans suffer from a combination of problems like water shortage, diseases caused by consumption of unfiltered/unfit water, having to walk miles to get water on a daily basis, or alternatively having to pay high rates for local water distribution. “In Nairobi, high-tech coexists with urban poverty”, say the team at BellTower, who designed the Open Source Communities project which creates a new format of community-building that relies on efficient allocation of resources that help the lower-income communities get access to basic necessities like water. The project creates a centralized water-reservoir – a structure that sits between hundreds of homes, providing water to every single one of them. The structure’s innovative format allows it to harvest and conserve rainwater, while actively filtering it of dirt, microorganisms, and other impurities. During the monsoons, surplus water helps generate money for the communities too, allowing them to get an extra source of income while bridging the vast resource gap. However, the best part about the Open Source Communities is that it exists as a public-utility template. Its open-source nature gives it unlimited flexibility, allowing it to be modified to fit in practically any scenario.
Algorithmic Lace by Lisa Marks (2019 Grand Prix Winner)
Bringing Algorithms and Attire together in a beautifully crafted garment with a noble purpose, Algorithmic Lace uses advanced three-dimensional modeling to handcraft bespoke bras for breast cancer survivors who have undergone mastectomy surgery. Algorithms have a long-standing love-affair with the textile industry, as one of the first machines to use algorithms was the Jacquard Loom back in the 1800s. The loom was controlled by a series of punched cards, which contained information that the loom read. Different cards had different algorithms into it and by switching the cards in the loom, you could tell it to alternate between complex textile weaves like brocade, damask and matelassé. Algorithmic Lace builds on that rich history, by using lines of code to create bras that are custom-built for their wearers. These garments are made specifically to functionally suit women who’ve undergone surgery, and the algorithmic pattern helps create a well-fitted, comfortable brassiere that’s also incredibly aesthetic to look at, empowering the wearer with confidence, along with their new lease of life.
Pixel by Hiroto Yoshizoe (2017 Grand Prix Winner)
There’s sheer magic in how the Pixel can actually take what you see and reduce its resolution to a handful of pixels… creating an illusion of being in a low-res world. At its heart is a uniquely crafted module that takes light as an input, and through repeated internal reflection, turns inputted images into square outputs. Imagine how the mirrors on a periscope work, taking an image from the top and carrying them down to the viewfinder below… this module does something similar, but with a different result. Stack enough of these modules together and you get the Pixel, a dynamic wall that instantly pixelates anything behind it. The Pixel relies on a powerful light source, and in this case, uses a projector. Project an image on it and the modules average out the light entering them, instantly pixelating the image and giving us a new perspective on the way we see light and shadows!
Agar Plasticity by AMAM (2016 Grand Prix Winner)
As its name suggests, the Agar Plasticity project uses Agar, a gelatinous marine algal material, as a replacement for plastics, creating a naturally occurring alternative to one of nature’s largest pollutants. Perfectly encapsulating the Lexus theme of ‘designing for a better tomorrow’, the project envisions a use of Agar as an alternative to the plastics found in packaging. Given that packaging for a product is often discarded immediately after purchase, Agar Plasticity hopes to create a solution that is eco-friendlier. Agar itself is derived from nature, and when treated a certain way, can be molded into containers, trays, and films that can replace single-use plastics. When discarded, the Agar can easily degrade in water or land, turning into nutrition for microorganisms and helping reduce waste. Japan-based design-trio AMAM is currently working to get larger institutions and corporations to look into the use of Agar as a safe plastic-alternative.
Inaho by Hideki Yoshimoto and Yoshinaka Ono (2013 Grand Prix Winner)
Yet another example of how lighting can be more of an experience, Inaho captures the tranquil beauty of watching rice-plants sway in the breeze. Created by Japanese duo Hideki Yoshimoto and Yoshinaka Ono, Inaho captures a strong Japanese cultural element, creating something that’s not just eye-catching but also rooted in history. The lights come mounted on tall, flexible metal rods, which gently lean towards people as they approach it. The interactive element doesn’t just make the Inaho interesting in a tactile sense, it also creates a wonderful series of moving highlights and shadows as the rice-plant-inspired lamps lean in your direction as you approach them, prompting you to move closer. The word Inaho literally translates to ‘a ear of rice’ in Japanese.
Submissions are being accepted until October 11th, 2020.
Earlier today, Lexus Design Awards announced their winner for the 2020 edition of their award program. The winning project, Open Source Communities by Kenya-based BellTower design, captured the jury’s hearts for being innovative, well-structured, extremely detailed, and having a widespread impact by providing low-income communities with clean water. The Open Source Communities project was one of 6 projects to make it to the finalist phase of the Lexus Design Awards, resonating the award’s theme of “Designing for a better tomorrow”. The Lexus Design Award’s unique format helps seek out such revolutionary ideas and enables them to grow and evolve into full-fledged designs that benefit humanity. The Awards program sees thousands of entries from multiple countries every year, out of which 6 promising projects enter the finalist-phase. The LDA appoints 4 world-class design mentors; Philippe Malouin, Bethan Gray, Joe Doucet, and Shohei Shigematsu who help guide and coach the participants, taking their ideas to the next stage, and Lexus even helps with funding of prototypes, spending up to 3 million yen. A panel of 4 elite judges; Jeanne Gang, John Maeda, Paola Antonelli, and Simon Humphries, chosen by Lexus then reviews the 6 finalist projects, selecting the Grand Prix winner for the year. This year, the Open Source Communities project won the Lexus Design Award for its ability to create an open-source public-utility template that could potentially help millions of households and neighborhoods harvest, purify, and store water. “By addressing the way that the project will come into being and be sustained economically, the designers broaden our thinking about what design is and could be. While the project is an apparatus to collect and store rainwater for safe drinking, it is also a financial game plan for empowering a community”, added LDA judge Jeanne Gang.
It says a lot when 40% of an entire country relies on water from ‘unimproved water sources’ like ponds, lakes, and rivers, and illegally constructed pipeways. A vast number of Kenyans suffer from a combination of problems like water shortage, diseases caused by consumption of unfiltered/unfit water, having to walk miles to get water on a daily basis, or alternatively having to pay high rates for local water distribution. Something as fundamental as access to clean water is difficult to come by and results in major economical and medical hardships, not to mention the vast chunk of your day going in fetching water.
This skewed distribution of something as simple as water comes from Kenya’s great wealth divide. “In Nairobi high-tech coexists with urban poverty. As a major UN center, Nairobi attracts a global elite”, say the team at BellTower, who designed the Open Source Communities project which was declared the Grand Prix winner of the Lexus Design Award 2020. Open Source Communities, which was one of six finalists selected to compete last January, creates a new format of community-building that relies on efficient allocation of resources that help the communities get access to basic necessities like water. The project creates a centralized water-reservoir – a structure that sits between hundreds of homes, providing water to every single one of them. The structure’s innovative format allows it to harvest and conserve water, while actively filtering it of dirt, microorganisms, and other impurities. During the monsoons, surplus water helps generate money for the communities too, allowing them to get an extra source of income while bridging the vast resource gap.
At the heart of the Open Source Communities is its water resource center – a sustainably built, community-owned structure that helps provide clean water to all residents. The center is made entirely from locally available materials like bamboo and recycled plastic composite bricks, and is entirely pre-fabricated, allowing for quick on-site assembly. The center’s iconic design comes from its split-roof which helps harvest water as well as effectively provide shade and ventilation. The slanting outer roof provides shade as well as helps harvest water, while a mechanically tilting inner roof effectively controls shade and ventilation inside the resource center. Both roofs can be fitted with solar panels too, giving them an additional benefit of being able to harvest clean energy. The water resource center is replenished for the most part of the year by Kenya’s monsoons. The monsoon season is split into two parts, supplying the country with 1000ml of rainfall per year. These resource centers collect the rain, passing it through filtration systems that make them safe for consumption and daily use. People living within the community get access to water whenever they need (using foot-operated taps that minimize contact), and any excess water can be sold at a profit, giving the community an extra source of income during the monsoons. The resource centers are owned by the communities too, in the form of a monthly payment that gives them full ownership of the facility in less than a year. The benefits of the water resource center go well beyond supplying communities with clean water and a source of income. They keep people healthier too, while allowing them to save money as well as time. At the end of the day, an empowered community leads to a stronger workforce, happier people, a healthier economy, and lower inequalities.
The Open Source Communities project was designed by Kenya-based BellTower, a group of five members with diverse talents and a common goal… to create a system that helps bridge the resource gap and uplift lives. The best part about the Open Source Communities is that it exists as a public-utility template. Its open-source nature gives it unlimited flexibility, allowing it to be modified to fit in practically any scenario… thus truly echoing the Lexus Design Award’s ethos of “Designing for a better tomorrow”.
BellTower from Kenya is the Grand Prix winner of the Lexus Design Award 2020. BellTower’s entry, entitled “Open Source Communities”, was selected for the coveted award from among 2,042 total submissions from 79 countries. Judging criteria for this 8th edition of the Award were based on the three key principles of the Lexus brand: Anticipate, Innovate and Captivate in the quest for a Better Tomorrow.
The winning design “Open Source Communities” addresses challenges often found in developing countries by using smart open-source planning to design affordable communities with sustainable clean water resources.
Accepting the award, John Brian Kamau said ” It was a great honor for us as BellTower, to be one of the 6 finalists and then win the Grand Prix of Lexus Design Award 2020. Our journey began with many challenges. However, we persevered to showcase our ambitious concept. Our experience has taught us invaluable lifelong lessons. All our future designs will be aligned with the key principles we learned as part of the Lexus family.”
Announcing the panel’s decision, program judge and Studio Gang Founding Principal Jeanne Gang said, “At different moments in time, design has celebrated bold aesthetics, extreme functionality, and even humor and wit. But today, with our world plagued by the enormous issues of climate change and social inequality, there is a design imperative for systemic design solutions. The Grand-Prix winner expands our definition of design to include systems of finance for community projects and engages the critical role clean drinking water plays in citizens’ability to thrive. By addressing the way that the project will come into being and be sustained economically, the designers broaden our thinking about what design is and could be. While the project is an apparatus to collect and store rainwater for safe drinking, it is also a financial game plan for empowering a community.”
The Lexus Design Award 2020 Finalists
Feltscape by Théophile Peju & Salvatore Cicero
Think of the Feltscape as an isolation chamber that imitates the feeling of being within a womb. Designed by UK-based Théophile Peju & Salvatore Cicero, the Feltscape is a ‘breathing cloud’ made of felt and recycled bio-plastic with an innovative robotic fabrication process. Equipped with sensors and kinetic mechanisms, the Feltscape can sense a user’s breathing patterns, allowing the isolation chamber’s smart membrane to react to its user’s breath. Creating a perfect atmosphere for reflection, meditation, and an escape from the immediate world, Feltscape provides a cocoon-like isolation experience that helps slowly and surely calm people down. Its organic design reflects inspiration from cocoons too!
Pursewit by Aqsa Ajmal
The Pursewit is uniquely positioned to help the visually impaired not just be independent, but also develop vocational skills that help them make a living. Designed by Pakistan-based designer, Aqsa Ajmal, after her friend lost her vision in an accident, the Pursewit makes sewing more accessible with a design that’s built around ease-of-use with an approach that’s immediately intuitive and with a relatively shallow learning curve. The design scales the form of the sewing machine down, making it less cumbersome while also being simpler and safer. Ajmal hopes that the Pursewit will go beyond just helping the visually impaired be more independent by sewing or fixing their clothes, by also allowing them to take on a skill set that helps them earn a daily wage and be financially independent too.
Biocraft by Sutherlin Santo
Biocraft attempts at transforming mundane objects into living ones that interact with the environment. Originally named Bio.Scales, the Biocraft is a revolutionary material that combines natural biopolymers with emerging technology to create a new material that possesses capabilities like being able to extract CO2 from the air, rid the ambient environment of pollutants, or even disseminate nutrients into the atmosphere. Created by Paul and Garrett Sutherlin Santo from Los Angeles, Biocraft hopes to eventually replace materials like thermoplastics, eventually creating regular products that don’t just exist to solve a problem, but rather serve a higher purpose by being ‘living entities’ that have a positive impact on human health and the environment.
Flash Pak by Yaokun Wu
Akin to having a fire-extinguisher mounted on the walls of buildings, Flash Pak by Yaokun Wu of China aims at providing flood-prone areas with instant access to life-jackets. Designed to be attached to lamp-poles in areas susceptible to flash floods, the FlashPak sits in its protective housing at regular times, but in the event of a flood, naturally rises to the surface thanks to the life-jacket’s innate buoyancy. Floods, now an unfortunately common by-product of climate change, displaces millions each year, resulting in thousands of deaths annually. Solutions like the Flash Pak can turn a lamp-post (or any regular post) into a potential life-saving zone, giving people instant access to life-saving jackets during times of need. New jackets can easily be placed back in their housing once the flood subsides, and the Flash Pak’s automatic deployment during a flash flood makes it an incredibly effective, life-changing solution.
L.I.C.K. by Irina Samoilova
A quirky example of biomimicry, the L.I.C.K. by Irina Samoilova from Russia is a portable body cleaner that takes inspiration from the way felines clean themselves. The L.I.C.K. is modeled on a cat’s tongue, with a soft cleaning surface with unique papillae that helps people who are unable to have a bath to clean themselves. Designed for people with no immediate access to water, or with injuries/bandages/casts that require being kept away from water, the L.I.C.K. provides a unique tactile experience that helps keep the body clean. Designed to work just the way a cat’s tongue does, the L.I.C.K. can simply be run across the body while its specially designed papillae and U-shaped cavities help lift dirt off the body (while feeling great to the touch too!)
Open Source Communities by BellTower
What if architecture, like software, could be open-sourced so that people can collectively develop something better together? The Open Source Communities, a Grand Prix finalist from Kenya-based BellTower, hopes to create universally available open-source home-design plans that can be used to design communities in developing and underdeveloped countries. These open-sourced homes can help provide a safe and secure haven for people in developing areas, while helping designers leverage the power of open-source planning to effectively allocate resources, allowing communities to even be sustainable, energy-efficient, and eco-friendly by design!
The Grand Prix trophy was designed by Hideki Yoshimoto.
The words “Design” and “Better” are bound pretty closely together. There is no design if it isn’t making a situation or an experience better, solving a problem, enriching a life, or transforming an industry. Designers are always striving to make the future better than the past, and the LEXUS DESIGN AWARD is committed to rewarding designs and designers that are pushing the boundaries to imagine and ideate for a better future for humanity as well as for the planet. In fact, “Design for a Better Tomorrow” is the underlying theme of the Lexus Design Award 2020. Currently in its 8th year, this year’s Lexus Design Award looks at solutions that have a uniquely positive impact on society, humanity, and in the process, to reward a new generation of designers for their impactful ideas. The Lexus Design Award’s core objective has always been to foster great ideas and great talent. Creating the perfect environment for a design to grow, Lexus helps engineer ideas into real, impactful solutions. The brand’s strong association with design and with innovation helps it accelerate ideas to achieve their full potential. Apart from accelerating, developing, and promoting design projects, the Lexus Design Award helps kickstart design careers too, with exclusive mentorships from international design stalwarts, funding for prototypes (up to 3 million Japanese Yen or $25,000) and the opportunity to have your work judged by the biggest figures in design in the final Grand Prix competition. Past Judges include architects Sir David Adjaye and Shigeru Ban, famed curator Aric Chen, and artist-designer Jaime Hayon. This year, the Grand Prix winner will be announced on September 1st on the Lexus Design Award website.
The award process for the Lexus Design Award is pretty unique too. After the entry submission phase, 6 Grand Prix finalists are selected to be mentored at the brand space INTERSECT BY LEXUS in New York by a panel of globally renowned creators with established design practices and decades of experience in the field. This year Joe Doucet (Founder, Joe Doucet x Partners), Bethan Gray (Creative Director, Bethan Gray Design), Philippe Malouin (Director, Philippe Maluin Studio), and Shohei Shigematsu (Partner-Director OMA New York) served as mentors. Mentors help define and refine ideas, turning them into world-class products which are then prototyped and incubated by the Lexus Design Award. The projects and their refined prototypes are then presented and judged by an esteemed panel of judges in a virtual Grand Prix selection event in August. Winners, apart from being able to showcase the award in their resume, also benefit from having been mentored by world-class designers, having their design taken from concept to finished prototype, being judged by design and tech icons like John Maeda (technologist & author of The Laws Of Simplicity), Jeanne Gang (award-winning architect), Paola Antonelli (Senior Curator at MoMA), and Simon Humphries (Head of Toyota and Lexus Global Design), and having their work gain unparalleled exposure through the programme.
Entries for the 2020 Lexus Design Award came from as many as 79 countries, spanning across the categories of Industrial Design, Architecture, Technology/Engineering, Interior Design, and Fashion Design. As the participants currently go through their prototyping phase, here’s a look at the 6 Grand Prix finalist designs.
Biocraft attempts at transforming mundane objects into living ones that interact with the environment. Originally named Bio.Scales, the Biocraft is a revolutionary material that combines natural biopolymers with emerging technology to create a new material that possesses capabilities like being able to extract CO2 from the air, rid the ambient environment of pollutants, or even disseminate nutrients into the atmosphere. Created by Paul and Garrett Sutherlin Santo from Los Angeles, Biocraft hopes to eventually replace materials like thermoplastics, eventually creating regular products that don’t just exist to solve a problem, but rather serve a higher purpose by being ‘living entities’ that have a positive impact on human health and the environment.
Feltscape by Théophile Peju & Salvatore Cicero
Think of the Feltscape as an isolation chamber that imitates the feeling of being within a womb. Designed by UK-based Théophile Peju & Salvatore Cicero, the Feltscape is a ‘breathing cloud’ made of felt and recycled bio-plastic with an innovative robotic fabrication process. Equipped with sensors and kinetic mechanisms, the Feltscape can sense a user’s breathing patterns, allowing the isolation chamber’s smart membrane to react to its user’s breath. Creating a perfect atmosphere for reflection, meditation, and an escape from the immediate world, Feltscape provides a cocoon-like isolation experience that helps slowly and surely calm people down. Its organic design reflects inspiration from cocoons too!
Flash Pak by Yaokun Wu
Akin to having a fire-extinguisher mounted on the walls of buildings, Flash Pak by Yaokun Wu of China aims at providing flood-prone areas with instant access to life-jackets. Designed to be attached to lamp-poles in areas susceptible to flash floods, the FlashPak sits in its protective housing at regular times, but in the event of a flood, naturally rises to the surface thanks to the life-jacket’s innate buoyancy. Floods, now an unfortunately common by-product of climate change, displaces millions each year, resulting in thousands of deaths annually. Solutions like the Flash Pak can turn a lamp-post (or any regular post) into a potential life-saving zone, giving people instant access to life-saving jackets during times of need. New jackets can easily be placed back in their housing once the flood subsides, and the Flash Pak’s automatic deployment during a flash flood makes it an incredibly effective, life-changing solution.
L.I.C.K. by Irina Samoilova
A quirky example of biomimicry, the L.I.C.K. by Irina Samoilova from Russia is a portable body cleaner that takes inspiration from the way felines clean themselves. The L.I.C.K. is modeled on a cat’s tongue, with a soft cleaning surface with unique papillae that helps people who are unable to have a bath to clean themselves. Designed for people with no immediate access to water, or with injuries/bandages/casts that require being kept away from water, the L.I.C.K. provides a unique tactile experience that helps keep the body clean. Designed to work just the way a cat’s tongue does, the L.I.C.K. can simply be run across the body while its specially designed papillae and U-shaped cavities help lift dirt off the body (while feeling great to the touch too!)
Open Source Communities by BellTower
What if architecture, like software, could be open-sourced so that people can collectively develop something better together? The Open Source Communities, a Grand Prix finalist from Kenya-based BellTower, hopes to create universally available open-source home-design plans that can be used to design communities in developing and underdeveloped countries. These open-sourced homes can help provide a safe and secure haven for people in developing areas, while helping designers leverage the power of open-source planning to effectively allocate resources, allowing communities to even be sustainable, energy-efficient, and eco-friendly by design!
Pursewit by Aqsa Ajmal
The Pursewit is uniquely positioned to help the visually impaired not just be independent, but also develop vocational skills that help them make a living. Designed by Pakistan-based designer, Aqsa Ajmal, after her friend lost her vision in an accident, the Pursewit makes sewing more accessible with a design that’s built around ease-of-use with an approach that’s immediately intuitive and with a relatively shallow learning curve. The design scales the form of the sewing machine down, making it less cumbersome while also being simpler and safer. Ajmal hopes that the Pursewit will go beyond just helping the visually impaired be more independent by sewing or fixing their clothes, by also allowing them to take on a skill set that helps them earn a daily wage and be financially independent too.
The Grand Prix trophy was designed by Hideki Yoshimoto.
