Monday 21 September 2015

Designs of the Year 2015


Designs of the Year is an annual exhibition at The Design Museum showcasing the best of design from around the world in six categories: architecture, digital, fashion, graphics, product and transport. In each category a winner, the best of the best, is chosen by an independent jury.
We went as a family last year, 2014, which you can read here, where we had trouble agreeing on what we thought made for good design, our own judging criteria being far from independent. It's hard to agree on things when you know what you like and your mum thinks she know better. This year I went with friends, three women, three mums. What would we consider to be good design?

Firstly this.  


Plant pots to live in, bringing indigenous trees back into a city in Vietnam that is only 0.25 percent green. A kind of two birds and one stone design, helping with pollution and flood prevention.
Just one problem, "you couldn't seriously sit on that wall. Look at the drop".


Then there was tea, "I'd like that", just heating the water you need. Could this be the gadget that really does slot into everyday life and doesn't get resigned to the back of the cupboard after the initial enthusiasm has died down and you realise you haven't the space for it.


Then it gets clever, we all love this. Not only for the innovation, a table that can charge your phone using daylight, but who doesn't love a good pun, "Current table". It all happens by photosynthesis.


Saving on family squabbles, it is able to charge two phones at the same time.


Another design we could totally go with. "Inglorious Fruits and Vegetables".
Common sense, playful design promoting misshapen fruit and veg, making it "appealing and cool".


An attempt to reduce waste. We learn that fifty-seven percent of the 300 million tonnes of fruit and veg thrown away each year, is due to its appearance. Crazy! Get with it, shoppers, it's thirty percent cheaper too.


Then there are the designs we are thankful we don't have to rely on, but can still get very excited about. "How cool is this?" Without being connected to a water supply, sewers or mains electricity it provides hygienic sanitation.  


This toilet has everything covered. It's solar powered, waste water is cleaned, with chlorine produced through electrolysis, clean enough to wash your hands. Yes really. Waste material (you get my drift) is separated and collected to be converted into fertiliser and biogases. Practical, everyday design, yet its effects are huge. 1.8 million people die a year due to poor sanitation.


For some design, there's a story rather than an object on display. "The Ocean Cleanup", an "environmentally safe process" for removing the vast amount of plastic waste from our oceans. A project begun by a teenage engineering student, using the ocean currents to drive the rubbish towards floating barriers. 


We're convinced, however evidence is provided of the damage plastic waste does in our seas.

Not all the designs that impress us are about providing practical solutions and meeting needs, some is purely aesthetic and playful.


These designs for new Norwegian banknotes, combine two different designers' ideas, front and back. They work well together, kind of need each other. Two different designers saying, "I did that!"


"A streetlamp that plays with your shadow"


We had fun with this, as it recorded our shadow and played it back when the next person walked underneath. What I loved about this, is that it brought people out onto the quieter less explored streets of Bristol purely to search them out and play. One of our favourite designs in the exhibition.



As I said, we were three mums visiting, we have kids. How clever is this? Sensing labour is underway, it texts the farmer an hour before the calf is due. A design for animal welfare, but there are parallels.


Designs of the Year 2015 is on at the Design Museum until 31 march 2016.
This is our selection, there are many more design nominations, the best of 2015. Is this the stuff of future museums? As the Design Museums says,
"Someday the other museums will be showing this stuff".

24 comments:

  1. I think that the tea heater thing is probably the most long term useful thing to most of us! I love that the "ugly" fruit is all so beautiful and beautifully photographed! I would need some higher walls or railings around the plant pot house roof for me to feel safe, but it is a great idea! xx

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    1. My husband is a civil engineer, he says that there's no way health & safety would allow that build. But still a fabulous idea.

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  2. Replies
    1. Makes you grateful for unoticed design in our own lives.

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  3. Fascinating! I had no idea that all these ideas were being developed. The sanitation, cleaning up plastics from the ocean and the current table all especially give me hope for a better future......but sitting on that high wall is concerning :) xx

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    1. Yep the high wall is scarey. See my reply to Amy above. Health & safety!

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  4. I love the 'moo call'. I never even realised they needed such a thing. Not sure about the shadow shifter. I think it would make me feel uncomfortable. I'd have to see it to know.

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    1. Oooh the shadow shifter was such fun. The shadows played as blobs rather than accurate shapes of what we really looked like.

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  5. So many interesting new ideas. The toilet looks like it could help save the world - much better than the alternative many people live with. I really hope the method of saving the ocean catches on and is used - it is tragic the mess we have made of our seas. The inglorious veg is so clever - not an invention per se, but an excellent idea, ecologically clever.

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    1. I know, I love these designs. I probably picked these because I can see how they impact my life & future lives.

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  6. Some interesting and varied designs to see here, Katherine. Love the tea warmer and the embracing of misshapen fruit and veg..The toilet is a great invention and will surely help so many people who don't have running water and adequate drainage:)

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    1. Funny how we are drawn to the same designs and often we don't stop to consider how everyday things have been designed to make our lives run smoothly.

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  7. These are really interesting and cool! I love the ones talking about bringing trees back into the city. I'm really into eco architecture and architecture in general so I love anything related to it! Thanks for the lovely comments on my blog too. - Tasha

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    1. If you look very closely (enlarge the photos of the buildings) you can see that the concrete has been noulded around horizontal bamboo, which I think looks beautiful. Love your blog too.

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  8. There are some interesting designs and ideas here!

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    1. I know great ideas, some of which we take for granted. I rarely give toilets a second thought. Not until they go wrong.

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  9. The 'Eco' designs appeal to me: the loo, and the plastic clearer-upper. Not so sure about the single cup boiler. Does it only work with that glass cup, or could I still use my favourite mug/s with it? Agree on the trees, the roof is too high for safe use by children, and where do the roots of the tree go? X

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    1. I had second thoughts about the single cup boiler. Not sure you could use your favourite mug. The element doesn't appeared to be wired up to anything. Think you need a special mug & it needs the mat underneath.

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  10. The veg moche was a campaign for Intermarché. It didn't last long enough unfortunately even though it was a great success.

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    1. Oh yes, you would have seen this 'design' in real life. I think they started a campaign like this in the UK too but I haven't seen it recently. I suppose the big supermarkets just call that fruit & veg' "value" and charge less but I'm not so sure.

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  11. There are so very clever people out there. And to them I am very thankful, especially those who come up with ideas like the toilet and the ocean cleaners.
    Lisa x

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    1. I know, very clever people. Wasn't it Mr Crapper who invented the UK toilet? Or perhaps somebody is having me on.

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  12. We went to this exhibition and I also liked the tree idea, although I cant help feeling it would take rather a lot of work to keep the trees alive! My favourite exhibit was the mobile app Disclosed. I didn't notice the labour sensor at all!

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    1. Funny we come home from museums and talk about things and that often happens, not noticing things that have captured someone else's imagination.

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