Gone are the days when being “old” equated with being in frail health, heavily dependent on medical care and financially hard up.
Today the media portray senior citizens as being in the prime of life. Elderly people enjoy a high life expectancy and are highly mobile. They are avid consumers, and have the purchasing power to back it up. Nevertheless, life in advanced years, e.g. from 70 onward, has its own special framework. The competition entitled “lebens(t)räume 2009″ puts a spotlight on this framework, inviting students of design, architecture or interior design as well as young designers up until 2 years after graduation
Below are some examples from last year winning entries:
(+ plus minus -) little helper
University: Universität der Künste Berlin
Design: Mechthild Ubl
To unplug an electric appliance is a daily procedure with frequently occurring difficulties. For this, we often misuse the cable, because it seems to be much easier to catch hold of it and pull at. But by doing so, we cause loose contacts or even worse situations. (+plus minus -) is made to ease the act of grabbing a plug. Punched out of a 0.5mm strong plastic foil, it’s wrapped around the plug and builds two loops jutting out from the socket. By using different colours, unities between plugs and electric appliances can be created and recognized easily.
IUVO (~ich helfe) ist eine innovative Lösung für den Umgang mit der Multiplen Sklerose im modernen Alltag. Das System basiert auf den Möglichkeiten der e-Health. Im Mittelpunkt steht der Injektor für die kontrollierte Verabreichung des Medikamentes. Als Kommunikationsportal zwischen Patient und aller an der Therapie beteiligten Einrichtungen dient die Basisstation. Das modulare Aufbewahrungssystem nimmt alle notwendigen Utensilien auf und ermöglicht einen flexiblen Umgang mit der MS. Ansprechendes Design, Funktionalität und Intelligenz des JUVO sind Motivator für eine konsequente Therapieführung und steigern die Lebensqualität des Patienten.
Hannover (Germany) – Universal design GmbH, in partnership with iF International Forum Design GmbH, announces the universal design award 2009. Now in its second year, the universal design award acts as a communication tool to target businesses, researchers and the political community. The competition is meant to not only sensitise the public to the topic of universal design, but to invite the public to actively participate in deciding which entries promise the greatest possible benefit for their target audience.
The competition is open to product designers, graphic designers, manufacturers, service providers and service designers, architects, and interior designers. Designs must demonstrate that they are accessible, flexible, intuitive, safe, affordable and sustainable.
Deadline for entries: December 15, 2008
New York (United States) – Open call to students around the world: Use your creative talent and strategic design skills to address the global water crisis.
The Aspen Design Challenge is an annual call to students worldwide, inviting them to address an international problem that is not only crucial in today’s world, but critical to our survival and the world that we will one day inhabit.
Designing Water’s Future is aimed at generating exceptionally creative and original design thinking to raise awareness of the emerging global water crisis – and to do so in ways that inspire people to act. Reaching beyond all boundaries, the initiative seeks to reframe how we think about water, how we manage it, how we save it. It will address the design problem of the crisis, redefining the outdated, limited cultural mythologies that have become obstacles to progress on one of the world’s gravest threats.
Kengo Kuma is going to give a talk about “anti-object” at NUS Architecture Department on Friday 29 August 2008.
Born in Kanagawa, Japan in 1954. He completed his Master degree at Tokyo University in 1979, and continued as a visiting scholar at Columbia University from 1985 to 1986. In 1990 he established Kengo Kuma & Associates. From 2001, he has been a professor at Faculty of Science and Technology, Keio University, and is currently serving as the 2007–2008 Plym Distinguished Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Illinois, USA).
Hunn Wai, a NUS ID graduate, will present a dining chair from the Tre di Una family of chairs and the WOOD X PLASTIC shelf at Design-e-space design/art gallery during the Architecture Biennale in Venice this year.
If you or your friends are in the area, do drop by and have a vino by the canals with Hunn and his design pieces! He will be contactable by info@hunnwai.com or the telephone numbers listed on the design-e-space website. You can find Hunn’s work at http://www.hunnwai.com/
Keeseh Studio invites students and design enthusiasts to celebrate the pursuit of ecodesign through an international competition to utilize waste material.
The goal of the competition is to promote upcycling by encouraging the use of wasted materials to generate innovative designs and redefine the standards of environmental sustainability by fostering balance between conservation and development. This competition will provide a stepping stone to help educate viewers of the vast opportunities and future development of environmentally friendly processes, materials, and products.
Call for entries – the imm cologne’s young designers competition is now open!
During the forthcoming imm cologne 2009 the 6th edition of [d³]contest will be on show in Cologne from January 19th to 25th 2009. The competition is open to students and graduates (graduation exams passed not longer than three years ago) from the fields of product design, industrial design or interior architecture and allows all interior products like furniture, lighting, textiles, carpets or wallpapers at the status of prototypes at the time of the fair or in preparation for serial production. In the 2008 competition 31 products have been chosen from 534 entries of which the best three products have been awarded by an internationally well-known jury of interior experts with the interior innovation award of imm cologne and have been rewarded with price money of 1000€, 2000€ and 3000€.
All entries have to be submitted by September 15th 2008 (date of postmark) to the German Design Council which is organising the competition on behalf of imm cologne. For more information, please visit http://d3talents.en.koelnmesse.info/the_fair/index.php
Below is the first prize of 2007
1st Prize [d³] contest, Raphael von Allmen (ECAL) – Chair
Indoor chair in polypropylene and aluminium. A “cnc-cut” PP foil is counterfolded and bolted on a rigid aluminium structure so as to form the back of the chair. The seat, also in aluminium, is screwed on the structure and gives its final tension to the plastic. For more information about this product, please refer to http://www.raphaelvonallmen.com/plasticback.htm
3rd International Roca Design Contest 2008-2009 “Jump the gap”, on the search of conceptually innovative products within the bathroom area.
Jump the gap, design today while focussing on tomorrow.
The contest will be addessed to product or interior designers and architects, as well as product design, interior and architecture students.
Participants must be under 35. This 3rd edition will be open worldwide and allow online registration and submission of projects through this website.
The winning project will receive a prize valued in 5.000 euros and will be presented by Roca during the “100% Design London” in 2009.
This 3rd Edition is open worldwide and allows online registration and submission of projects through the website http://www.jumpthegap.net/, that will be available from September, when the Water Drop project will be launched in the frame of the “100% Design London”. Water Drop is a unique space that pays homage to water, created by the prestigious designer Hector Serrano in collaboration with Roca.
Deadline for registration is December 2008 and for on-line project submission mid March 2009.
This Yamaha-branded Deus Ex Machina concept motorcycle was dreamed up by Art Center Pasadena student Jake Loniak.
The vehicle is powered by ultra-capacitors and doped nano-phoshpate batteries (similar to the ones currently used in hybrid cars) and it is controlled using 36 pneumatic muscles with two linear actuators set along a spine consisting of seven artificial vertebrae. Even the helmet is pneumatically attached.
Claire Beale, editor of ‘Campaign’, wrote on Independent, about Jonathan Ive’s understanding of design.
“The word design is everything and nothing. We think of design as not just the product’s appearance, it’s what the product is, how it works. The design and the product itself are inseparable.”
On the relationship between design and experience
“And when I say the product I mean the product in its total sense, the hardware and the software, the complete experience that people will have. We push each other, we’re very self-critical and we’ll take the time to get the product right.”
“My goal is simply to try to make products that really are meaningful to people. Ultimately there is something motivating and inspiring in seeing someone using an Apple product and enjoying an Apple product.”
“I remember it really clearly, the moment when I realised that technology could be accessible and intuitive. And I had a real clear sense of the people who made it: it speaks to their values and preoccupations. And that’s what makes Apple a remarkable and unique company.”
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