A’ Design Award & Competition Winners 2021

The A’ Design Award & Competition, the World’s largest and most diffused international design awards, announced the results of the 2020 – 2021 design competition in May 2021.

Entries were carefully evaluated by an international jury panel composed of established scholars, prominent press members, creative design professionals, and experienced entrepreneurs who devoted great care and attention to details.

2094 Winners from 108 countries were selected in 104 different design disciplines including specialized design awards such as the Good Industrial Design Award, the Good Product Design Award, Good Communication Design Award, Good Service Design Award, Good Fashion Design Award Disposable, and Single-Use Product Design Competition.

Design enthusiasts, aficionados, and editors worldwide are invited to get fresh design inspiration and discover the latest trends in arts, architecture, and technology by visiting the A’ Design Awards’ online gallery of winners at http://www.designmag.org, which features all top designs from the 2020 – 2021 International A’ Design Competition as well as previously awarded works from past years.

In today’s post, we’ve rounded up 20 of the winners of the 2021 edition.

Xerolithi Residence by George Sinas

• Designers: George Sinas (Sinas Architects), Team: Maria Mamoura and Interior Decoration: Olga Ktena
• Winner Category: 2020 – 2021, Gold A’ Architecture, Building, and Structure Design Award Winner
• Inspiration: “The main focus of the design was to create a house that blends in its natural environment. An environment comprised of steep dirt and gravel slopes, dressed with scattered wild thorny bushes and beautiful large rock formations. The most important existing elements were the short stone retaining walls, locally called xerolithies, created a long time ago for land cultivation purposes. These walls, usually not more than a meter in height, formed flat stripes of land parallel to the slope and extended along the entire surface of the hillside. The site with its xerolithies was the spark of inspiration.”

Fondazione Bertarelli by Edoardo Milesi

• Designers: Edoardo Milesi & Archos, Engineer: Marco Verdina (structures) and Engineer: Alessandro Nani (plants)
• Winner Category: 2020 – 2021, Gold A’ Architecture, Building, and Structure Design Award Winner
• Inspiration: “The architecture of the concert hall, shaped according to its rational and poetic function, the task of letting instruments play, and the desire to convey emotions, listens and participates without disturbing; it is part of the orchestra and plays its role as a new musical instrument which improves the acoustics of the place. Aesthetic values are not perceived as added; they are part of the building and radiate from it.”

Furniture Pavilion S Showroom by Rooi Design and Research

• Designers: ROOI Design and Research, Chief designer: Zuoqian Wang, Structural design: Song Wang
• Winner Category: 2019 – 2020, Silver A’ Architecture, Building, and Structure Design Award Winner
• Inspiration: “821 pieces of prefabricated market standard-size plywood are used as a primary construction material, enabling rapid assembly or disassembly on-site within 48 hours. The pavilion comprises stacks of modular plywood units that double as display coves, allowing audiences to observe the furniture from various angles. After the exhibition, the entire pavilion will be transformed into 410 sets of furniture designated for the nearby community.”

The Fifth Element Residence by Materia 174

• Designers:Mykhailo Ilchenko, Aleona Pryadko, Anna Hryb, Kyra Tymchenko, Victoriia Shevchenko, Aleksandr Dityatev and Olga Kovalyova
• Winner Category: 2019 – 2020, Gold A’ Architecture, Building, and Structure Design Award Winner
• Inspiration: “House for permanent residence of an adult married couple. Located on the edge of an urban village, the plot looks into the forest on two sides. The owner is a media person; one of the requirements is to ensure maximum privacy. The main tasks were to leave connection with nature, to fit a Spa with a 20 m indoor pool and a garage for 4 cars, and keep the building looking compact. There are living, dining, kitchen zones, 2 master zones with a short connection between all the zones in the main block.”

Shelter Desk by Joao Teixeira

• Designer: Joao Texeira
• Winner Category: 2019 – 2020, Gold A’ Architecture, Building, and Structure Design Award Winner
• Inspiration: “While designing the Shelter desk, our main inspiration was to develop something focused on both function and aesthetics. We wanted to develop a solution that could improve the users’ productivity by enhancing his organization layouts through useful features like clean cable management and easy storage access.”

Tinker Patches Residential Interior Design by Hsin-Ting Weng

• Designer: Hsin-Ting Weng
• Winner Category: Winner in Interior Space and Exhibition Design Category, 2020 – 2021
• Inspiration: “Unlike most residential projects, the white color scheme holistically extends throughout spaces instead of arranging visualization on specific walls or fixtures, accentuating agile movement and aesthetic lifestyle. Misplacing colored details and furniture pieces, contrasting with white backdrops, culminates with a lively and inspirational home place.”

Siro Lamp by Marta Perla

• Designer: Marta Perla
• Winner Category: Winner in Lighting Products and Lighting Projects Design Category, 2020 – 2021.
• Inspiration: “Since our origins, humankind felt the primal need to research celestial mechanics and investigate the connections between cosmic phenomena and earthly episodes of mundane life. In the same way, a similar but intimate relationship exists in the domestic environment, between man, light, and space, resulting in inexplicable prosperity and peace of mind. Here comes Siro, as a tribute to Sirius, the brightest white dwarf star in the sky.”

EVD Office Office by Yang Bing and Hao Liyun

• Designer: Yang Bing, Hao Liyun
• Winner Category: Interior Space and Exhibition Design Category, 2020 – 2021.
• Inspiration: “The designers created a U-shaped area that combines with one long side and the five large windows, allowing natural light to filter in and diffuse freely. The entrance protrudes towards the foyer due to the consideration of fire control regulations. Its position and width for evacuation bring new opportunities for organizing spatial patterns and forms. The overall spatial design starts here.”

Ging Chair by Alan Hung

• Designer: Alan Hung
• Winner Category: Furniture Design Category, 2020 – 2021
• Inspiration: “When I was a child, I remember picking up wood sticks and made my own slingshot. The unique shape of the slingshot inspired the form of the chair. At the same time, it reminds me of the joy and memory of when I first made my own craft. The chairs’ form inspired by the slingshot is aesthetically intriguing and also structurally relating.”

Consentable WT Ao PC Work Desk by Takusei Kajitani

• Designer: Yoh Miyachi and Craftsman: Ryosuke Tanaka
  
• Winner Category: Furniture Design Category, 2020 – 2021.
• Inspiration: “Our lifestyles have changed with digital devices. But the designs of desks have not changed. Your desk might be flooded with various types of dusty wirings when you place your PC or chargers of various devices, so we wanted to improve those poor experiences. Especially in the era when Work From Home is common, our work desks at home also should be sophisticated. We designed this to provide better experiences on desks for home PC users.”

So Logic Multifunctional Table by SO Arquitetos Design Team

• Designer: Bruno Furtado, Gonçalo Blétière Lopes and Margarida Lopes
  
• Winner Category: Furniture Design Category, 2020 – 2021.
• Inspiration: “When we first started our business, we looked for a good-sized table that allows us to meet with customers, work with comfort and space, and fill the space gracefully. We were looking for a wood table, easy to transport and made of any organic material, preferably wood—we which for something natural, simple, ecological, and sustainable material, as well as elegant. Since we didn’t find a table to match our needs, we decided to design our own table.”

Ortho Residenti by Satoshi Kurosaki

• Designers: Ortho, Structural Engineer: Nomura Structures and Lighting design: SIRIUS LIGHTING OFFICE
• Winner Category: 2020 – 2021, Gold A’ Architecture, Building, and Structure Design Award Winner
• Inspiration: “The clients purchased the tiered, irregularly shaped lot as a place to spend meaningful time as a family. They wanted courtyards to play a big part in their home life, and to fulfill that request; the design makes use of the distinctive property shape and topography.”

Nght Architecture Photography by Simone Hutsch

• Designers: Simone Hutsch
• Winner Category: Winner in Photography and Photo Manipulation Design Category, 2020 – 2021.
• Inspiration: “I am a passionate graphic designer and self-taught architecture photographer. Exploring geometry in architecture is really exciting to me. My work combines art and photography and lets people dive into a different world. I give the buildings a surreal touch in my retouching process.”

Marcaron House Interior Design by Yuan Chang Tsai and Pin Yu Chen

• Designer: Marcaron House
• Winner Category: Winner in Interior Space and Exhibition Design Category, 2020 – 2021
• Inspiration: “The original layout of the old house had many partition walls, which resulted in insufficient space and insufficient lighting. After the layout was re-adjusted, the light in the whole room became bright and transparent, and the field of view and movement lines were more spacious and smooth, allowing everyone to enter the space. It feels like the house is getting bigger! Because it is a space for women, many colors are used to make the space feel lively and soft.”

Cubecor Wood Toy by Esmail Ghadrdani

• Designer: Esmail Ghadrdani
• Winner Category: Winner in Toy, Games, and Hobby Products Design Category, 2020 – 2021.
• Inspiration: “Nowadays, Most children prefer electronic games to traditional games, even in educational situations. Perhaps this is because of its appeal. This thought came to my mind of ​​giving kids a simple product that would appeal to them and improve their creativity. While considering environmental issues, this toy can familiarize children with various connections, entertain them, be attractive and enhance their creativity.”

The Doberman Chair Armchair by Lianghao Zha

• Designer: Zha Lianghao
• Winner Category: Furniture Design Category, 2020 – 2021.
• Inspiration: “The Doberman Chair invites you to sit back and relax. The Doberman Chair has many details, and the use of high-quality materials: black leather and solid wood guarantee a contemporary and timeless design. Also, the designer chose mahogany as material due to the similar color to the real Doberman dog.”

Minimal Techno Arm Chair by Sebastiaan Van Beest

• Designer: Sebastiaan Van Beest
• Winner Category: Furniture Design Category, 2020 – 2021.
• Inspiration: “Japanese minimalism and the use of negative space are the main inspirations for this project.”

Aura Minimalist Standing Fan by Marco Gallegos

• Designer: Marco Gallegos
• Winner Category: Furniture Design Category, 2020 – 2021.
• Inspiration: “The inspiration for this product comes from the idea that we can change the way we interact and assign value to everyday objects through the use of good design principles. The result is an unexpected design with a different choice of materials and unusual proportions. The new design creates a completely new user experience and changes the way users engage with the fan, strengthening their emotional connection with the object.”

Strait Culture Art Center by Zong Wu Xu and Pekka Salminen

• Designers: Zong Wu Xu , Pekka Salminen , Martin Lukasczyk , Yu Hui Song , Yue Xing Tang , Wei Xing Dong , Zong Rui Chen , Lin Li Lai
• Winner Category: Architecture, Building, and Structure Design Category, 2020 – 2021.
• Inspiration: “The center is an innovative expression of Chinese traditional culture. Its design is inspired by jasmine, a world-renowned symbol of Chinese culture and the city flower of Fuzhou. Five main buildings constitute five white jasmine petals, through which runs the Liangcuo River like a flower stalk. Several small petals make up a waterborne platform that goes deep into the Minjiang River. Together, they build up a magnificent Chinese picture featuring “blossoming jasmine flowers over a moonlit river.”

Images of Concert Hall in Warsaw by Tomasz Konior

• Designers: Tomasz Konior, Dominik Koroś, Aleksander Nowacki, Michał Lipiec, Marcin Piotrowski, Wojciech Przywecki, Angelika Drozd, Anita Łukaszyk-Nagi, Justyna Boduch, Adam Przybyła, Magdalena Jagoda, Anna Kłosek, Arkadiusz Laskowski, Agata Żak
• Winner Category: Bartek Barczyk, Concert Hall in Warsaw, 2020
• Inspiration: “The architectural competition for the music school did not include the historical building of the former orphanage. It fills almost the entire front elevation from Rakowiecka Street; hence the decision was to locate the new building with a concert hall deep within the plot. The existing context inspired us to create a background architecture with the continuation of the scale and rhythms of the existing building while inside a world full of acoustic details subordinated to music and silence.”

Registration to A’ Design Award & Competition 2021-2022 period is now open
Results will be announced to the public on April 15, 2022.