The winner’s of the highest distinctions

Client:
The Design Ambassador / Vassilios Bartzokas
Berlin, Germany

Design:
Post-Spectacular Office
Thessaloniki, Greece

Right from the start, Elli Christaki, Stergios Galikas and Evelina Garantzioti saw more in their Post-Spectacular Office than just a studio for “anything”. This is where numerous creative disciplines come together with enthusiastic curiosity. “We are always on the lookout for people and things we admire, for art that shocks us and for cultural movements.” With the transformation of the extensive content of the Archisearch online platform by The Design Ambassador, the trio lives up to its passion for architecture as well as its love of materiality. “The sensitive treatment of the format, the carefully considered typography and choice of materials, as well as fine details such as the matching colour of the thread binding for each edition make Archisearch an object that is simply a pleasure to hold in one’s hands”, the jury said.

With Archisearch, you take online content back into the analogue. What was the decisive factor for this?
The online version of Archisearch has a daily content feed, showcasing a multitude of architectural projects from around the world. After all, this is the nature of such a medium. The need for a firmer filtering of the content, targeted topics and the presentation of more theoretical approaches led to the creation of its printed version.

Has the longing for analogue, haptic media grown again? 
Sure, the world is turning to analogue-haptic media again, but not in the sense that it will displace the dominance of digital. It is definitely a trend, but also has deeper reasons related, in our opinion, to the human need for a sensory relationship with things that goes beyond one-dimensional vision. Another reason may be the need for slower information intake and mental processing. 

What is special about the medium of the magazine? Or is there anything that puts limits to your creativity?
Starting with the second question, having a maximum number of pages per issue always is a limitation. On the other hand, this is the driving force while curating and designing publications. At the same time, a crucial characteristic of magazines is trying to capture the present and this is always a key point that motivates us as designers - we are called upon to seize the moment.

Archisearch is overwhelming above all because of its large format …
That is a nod to the architect's everyday life. An everyday issue during practice is the large scale of printed drawings that an architect has to deal with. But also, we aimed to point out the sense an architect has when something is drawn on paper or digitally and then scaled up in real life.

The use of typography in this project is also striking. Do you see typography as one of the most important tools in design? 
Ideally, we would love to design only with letters. As shapes with cultural meanings, they are able, we think, to carry a narrative by themselves. In Archisearch, we have two typographic systems. A basic one, which runs through the entire issue and creates a textual topography referencing the shapes of a city, and a second system, that of the titles, which creates the necessary tensions in the change of chapters, defining the pace of reading.

Client:
Sanjo City & Tsubame City
Niigata, Japan

Design:
SPREAD
Tokyo, Japan

The Tsubame-Sanjo Factory Museum was a unique temporary exhibition in a disused factory dedicated to the history and culture of the local metal processing industry. To bring the complex project to life, numerous collaborators from different studios and design areas worked together, but the creative and design lead was in the hands of Spread, a creative agency founded in 2004 by Haruna Yamada and Hirokazu Kobayashi and based in Tokyo. Spread combines the environmentalist approach of landscape design with the visual techniques employed in graphic design while also incorporating other aspects such as the environment, living organisms, objects, glyphs, time, history and memory. Above all, Spread uses colour in its varied and diverse award-winning work to stimulate the senses and emotions. In whatever they do, the designers strive to “spread” whatever subject they take on.

Which topic did you want to help spread with the Tsubame-Sanjo Factory Museum?
The exhibition aims to throw a bridge between the history and culture of the local manufacturing industry and the next generation. The metal processing industry in the Tsubame-Sanjo area is discernible, but little known. The objective of the exhibition therefore was to create a series of activities to visualise the attractions that the manufacturing sector has to offer to both the local community and outsiders.

How important was creating an immersive exhibition experience to you?
Immersion is indisputably important for the exhibition experience. The utilisation of a defunct factory that had not been touched for years, tremendously contributes to creating a sense of immersion for this themed exhibition. The most important aspect of the project is to make visitors actually walk the factory floors and experience the energy of the location through smells, sounds, etc. with all senses. That is also why we decided not to put an excessive number of exhibits on display, so that visitors would get a sense of what a huge idle factory means for the character of the region and the industrial sector. Detailed information and explanations are important, but intuitive experience is key.

How did pink come to be chosen as the main colour of the visual identity in such an industrial setting?
The pink is inspired by the colour of fire. Fire as it is used to heat metals at production sites. It is the key element for the local industry. We have used pink symbolically in the form of stripes to recall the black and yellow floor-marking tape used in factories to warn of possible hazards. It is exciting to a get a look behind the safety barriers of the manufacturing industry.

Client:
REWE Markt
Cologne, Germany

Design:
acme
London, United Kingdom

knippershelbig
Berlin, Germany

Operating some 3,700 supermarkets, the REWE-Group is one of Germany’s leading retailers. The company first included sustainability policies in its guiding principles in 2006. The REWE Green Farming supermarket in Wiesbaden-Erbenheim, planned by the Berlin and London based firm ACME Architects, is a telling example of how to reconcile changing customer needs with company principles. “We construct buildings that are sustainable not only from an aesthetic point of view, but also from an environmental and social perspective. And we do so believing in the individual nature of each space and the convergence of new materials and technologies.” This philosophy led to the creation of a modular, sustainable building concept for REWE that ties in with a multifaceted service offering and the company’s vision of a self-producing supermarket. “The idea of producing right inside the supermarket caters to the consumers’ wishes for sustainability. The aesthetics and atmosphere of the building also are very appealing, recalling the market halls of a bygone era, albeit in a very contemporary interpretation,” the jury said about the project.

Our shopping habits have changed considerably over recent years – to what extent does that play into the (new) design of REWE supermarkets?
We are seeing completely new offers in supermarkets. They have evolved from monofunctional to multifunctional providers groceries-related services. That includes a DHL station, a post office counter, a collection point for online grocery orders, etc. And the new generation of REWE supermarkets is again right in the city centre, close to customers and thus an active element of the residential neighbourhood. This development entails new and completely different requirements for the architecture of new supermarket buildings.

One of the special features of the REWE Green Farming supermarket is that it has its own fish farm as well as a basil farm …
This is an example of how we at REWE are ushering in a new generation of green supermarkets. 800,000 basil plants are grown every year on a hydroponic rooftop farm, run by REWE’s partner ECF Farmsystems. They are fertilised with the excretions of the fish that REWE breeds, slaughters and sells on site. No pesticides are used. This practice is line with the company’s vision of a self-producing supermarket.

The construction follows a modular system – do you believe this is also the future for other industries?
In view of the climate crisis, wood is certainly one of the most important sustainable building materials of the future. It is also very well suited for modularisation – depending on the structure, construction elements may be used in whole or in part. That also aligns with the cradle-to-cradle principle: throughout the lifespan of a building, the material stays within the materials cycle. If we can achieve this and use wood from sustainable forestry sources, our buildings can act as CO2 reservoirs. Around 1,100 cubic metres of local coniferous timber were used to build the REWE pilot supermarket in Wiesbaden, which meant storing 700 tonnes of CO2. In 30 years, the wood will have regrown and the CO2 will have been offset. Smart refrigeration and heating technology, 100 per cent clean energy as well as the use of rainwater for the rooftop farm, toilets and cleaning of the supermarket furthermore help to save resources.

University:
Ling Tung University
Taichung, Taiwan

Design:
Xin-Rong He, Yi-Ling Chen, Hong-Jie Chen, Pin-Ling Chen
Ling Tung University
Taichung, Taiwan

The level of pragmatism with which young designers are approaching issues of sustainability becomes apparent in the “Laundry Clinic” project undertaken by students at Ling Tung University in Taichung City. Focusing on caring for clothes, rather than “just” washing them, this extensive project also takes a tactile approach to instruct about proper ways of treating textiles and removing stains. Over the course of 14 months, the students created a comprehensive set of instruction manuals using different fabrics and packing these in silk-screen-printed boxes. “Clear illustrations, the attention to detail and the intuitive take on the subject make this graduation project a significant design object”, the jury found.

What was the idea behind the “Laundry Clinic” project? 
The process of washing laundry is like visiting a doctor, and we wanted to find out why clothes become “ill”. For this purpose, we gathered information about laundry and translated our findings into an easy-to-understand guide on how to combat stains.

Did the concept of sustainability play a role here?
Yes, of course. By emphasising that clothes can also become “ill”, we draw attention to the proper care for clothing and thus prevent them from being thrown away due to damage caused by inappropriate washing. Properly cared-for clothing lasts longer, so that less of it needs to be produced and the negative environmental impact of the clothing and fashion industries can be reduced.

What did your research look like? Did you conduct your own experiments or rely on experts?
Both. We read a vast array of textbooks and built up our own basic knowledge. Then we tried to visit different types of laundries. We discovered that when it comes to washing clothes, the crucial factor is preparing detergents according to the material of the clothing and the type of stain. We therefore began collecting these detergents and conducted a series of experiments as part of the project.

What role do haptics play in your project?
An important one. A variety of fabric swatches enabled getting a feel for individual textile materials and thus helped to understand the instructions much better.