Spark Awards 2009
San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) November 11, 2009
13 prestigious judges choose 93 winning designs
US winners exhibition in place at Autodesk Design Gallery
Chinese winners exhibition opens at Guangzhou Design Week, December 4-6
Winners of the 2009 Spark Design and Architecture Awards are showcased at the Autodesk Gallery at One Market in San Francisco, following a full-day jury session and awards celebration.
More than 370 contenders applied to Spark, the unique awards and qualification process that seeks out the best in dazzling design. The judges selected 93 winning designs in one of four categories - bronze, silver, gold or the ultimate Spark!
Spark celebrates the best in design - from awesome architecture and sumptuous interiors to the bravest digital design. All types of product entries were encouraged, from mobility to medical, along with the best in fields such as branding, graphics, advertising and experiential design.
"Not for the faint-hearted, the work of the Spark Award jury is always a challenge," explains Peter Kuchnicki, executive director of Spark Awards. "We were delighted with both the entry pool and our great judges, who brought years of experience and keen design vision to the task."
Entries were pored over by a stellar group of renowned judges, who came together on October 26th in San Francisco for Spark's day-long electronic voting session. Judges included David Albertson, Principal, Albertson Design; Gaby Brink, Founder & Creative Director, Tomorrow; David Darling, Partner, Aidlin Darling Design; D. Philip Haine, Principal, Product Vision Associates; Mark Davis, Director of User Experience, Autodesk; Rich Gioscia, Director of Design, Palm, Inc.; Johanna Grawunder, Principal, GRAWUNDER; Cory Grosser, Principal, cory grosser design; Tong Huiming, Professor and VP, College of Design, Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts; Nathan Shedroff, Chair of Design Strategy MBA Program, California College of Arts; Cameron Sinclair, Founder/Executive Director, Architecture For Humanity; Neil Robinson, Chief Creative Directer, AKQA and Sara Beckman, Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley.
"The jury had to decide what makes a design "spark" as opposed to being just great, which can be tough," explain Spark jury member David Darling, partner at Aidlin Darling Design. "Spark connotes a catalyst - new momentum, new direction, for the betterment of the human spirit. I evaluated designs rigorously on this basis."
Cameron Sinclair, co-founder and 'eternal optimist' at Architecture for Humanity emphasized that "We live in a time of pragmatism aspiration now. I voted on the ones that were implementable. If you design something that can't be implemented, you're raising hopes and expectations for a community that will then be dashed, at an incredible rate."
"Design is the most exciting place to work today," explains Peter Kuchnicki, executive director of Spark. "Spark pits the best design firms against each other, and thrusts great independent work into the spotlight, often from under the radar."
This December, Spark moves its focus to China as winners from 2007, 2008 and 2009 go on display at the famous Guangzhou Design Week, December 4-6.
For the full list of winning entries, see the Spark Awards website at http://www.sparkawards.com.
Here's a snapshot selection of winners of Spark 2009 winners:
Laundry POD Concept - SPARK! Winner
Design Type: Consumer Concept
Designer: RKS Design Team
While re-engineering and re-designing a salad spinner, designers learned resourceful women were buying salad spinners to wash their delicates. This sparked the idea that salad spinner technology could be used to create a portable, hand-powered laundry machine that would be far more appropriate for the task. The result is Laundry POD, a portable, hand-powered laundry machine. Small enough to fit under the sink, Laundry POD is intended for delicates, hand-washables, and anytime you don't want to waste the energy or a trip to the Laundromat. The Laundry POD is ideal for urban dwellers, RV campers, and the eco-conscious.
The Rocker - SPARK! Winner
Design Type: Architecture & Interiors
Designer: Mark Sarkisian, PE, SE, LEED AP
The Rocker Beijing building in China was designed to allow for the suspension of a lantern-like museum structure within the atrium of an office building, using the world's largest cable-net without interaction with the building's lateral system. The top of the building can move freely during an earthquake, which is likely in Beijing. The idea is founded in the concept of the pulley, allowing loads to remain constant in tension-supporting members, which pass through or over the mechanism. A cable-stayed system was introduced by using two large diameter parallel strand bridge cables in diagonal fold lines while anchoring to the eight-story suspended lantern-like museum structure. This structure acts as a counterweight for the cables, introducing pre-stress and providing the required stiffness to resist out-of-plane loads caused by wind on the cable-net.
REturn Organic Waste Reclamation System - SPARK! Winner
Design Type: Eco-Design Concept
Designer: Essential Design Team
REturn is a simple, elegant waste processor that makes the environmentally responsible act of composting food waste convenient and rewarding at an individual level, wholly inside the home. REturn offers a convenient way to manage food scraps and organic waste without burdening the public waste infrastructure. Diverting waste from the trashcan and returning it to your backyard as nutrient-rich compost reduces the presence and volume of garbage in your home. Users who don't currently compost can reduce the volume and frequency of trash collection, since their bin will no longer smell of rotting food. Homeowners who composted traditionally will no longer have to manage a slop bucket, an outdoor compost pile, or handle compost as loose dirt. Urban dwellers can now compost without a backyard. And everyone can enjoy reducing the burden on landfills and sewage treatment plants.
CMYK Electric Bike - SPARK! Winner
Design Type: Transportation/Product
Designer: Manuel Saez & Design Team
The CMYK Electric is a folding electric bicycle for short commutes. This bicycle has the ability to make people smile, feel young and free. Everyone can enjoy the emotion of riding a bike while its reduced size, ease of transportation and storage when not in use are convenient benefits for the urban dweller.
Rescue Stick - SPARK! Winner
Design Type: Product
Designer: Sungjoon Kim
Lifesaving tubes are useful equipment for saving a person from drowning. However, current versions have limitations in speed and accuracy, because of their shape and dimensions. This can hinder the ability to promptly react to actual emergencies, and that could be a fatal problem for the person in danger. Rescue Stick is a small baton-shaped portable life saving device which provides rapid flotation assistance when thrown to a person at risk of drowning.
SF Municipal Transportation Agency Bus Shelters - SPARK! Winner Design Type: Architecture
Designer: Olle Lundberg
The design of San Francisco's next generation of bus shelters was an opportunity to create an object that celebrates function, is visually arresting, and specific to San Francisco. 1,200 of the new design will be installed over the next five years. The design needed to accommodate three different sizes without losing its character and proportion. San Francisco is a city of hills, so the design must visually work on both sloped and flat sites. Issues regarding seating, information signage, green construction, and advertising are all addressed in innovative ways.
Kiran Solar Lantern - SPARK! Winner
Design Type: World Changing
Designer: Robin Chilton
Product: Kiran ('Ray of Light' in Hindi) is a solar lantern designed to provide a cheap and clean replacement for the use of kerosene lighting in rural India and Africa. Kerosene lamps are a poor source of light reliant on a costly source of fuel that can take up to a third of a family's monthly income. These lamps produce a dim yellow light that is ineffective for tasks such as reading and writing, cannot be operated when there is strong wind or rain, can result in fires when left alone and emit toxic fumes. Every year, kerosene lamps are responsible for over 100 million tons of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere. Kiran offers a cheap, clean solar-powered replacement so people can pursue opportunities in education and income-generating activities without endangering their health. The team drew upon months of rural field research to ensure that Kiran is innovatively matched to the needs of rural customers.
Universal Generator -SILVER Winner
Design Type: World Changing
Designer: Christopher Natt
APPLICATIONS. The generator could allow for water wheels to be made from bamboo, wind turbines to be created from old oil barrels, gearing to be created from old bicycle parts etc. Energy can be produced and stored on the move. The generator can be dragged behind a cow whilst plowing a field by connecting a rope through the inner drum and allowing the outer drum to role freely along the ground, Alternatively the generator could be connected to the axle of a donkey cart and charge batteries on the way to market. The electricity is regulated within the generator and used to power devices directly or to charge batteries. • IMPACT. It is the most vulnerable members of these communities - the young, the elderly and the ill who will gain the most, but all would experience benefits to their everyday lives through adequate, reliable and sustainable lighting.
See a full list of winners, with links to their designs, at http://www.sparkawards.com/09_Winners.htm
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