london's design museum announces beazley designs of the year nominees for 2018

UPDATE: on november 16, 2018, the design museum announced the winners of each of the six categories, as well as the overall winner — ‘counter investigations’, an exhibition of work by forensic architecture, an independent research agency based at goldsmiths university london. the team seeks to uncover miscarriages of justice and international war crimes through the architectural analysis of imagery — from official news to satellite footage.

winners in the individual categories include zeitz MOCAA by heatherwick studio (architecture) and falcon heavy by spaceX (transport). read on for more on the awards, and see the other winners listed at the bottom of the page.

the design of the year: ‘counter investigations’, an exhibition of work by forensic architecture
image by mark blower, forensic architecture

london’s design museum has revealed the 87 nominees that form the beazley designs of the year 2018. the design museum’s annual exhibition and awards is spread across six categories — architecture, digital, fashion, graphics, product, and transport — with a winner chosen from each group. from these six designs, a single overall winner will be announced on november 15, 2018. selected by a panel of distinguished international designers, curators and critics, the longlist includes previous winners and nominees of THE DESIGN PRIZE, such as pretziada, studio drift, louvre abu dhabi by jean nouvel, SESC 24 de maio by paulo mendes da rocha and MMBB arquitetos, formafantasma, and michael anastassiades.

on view until january 6, 2019, an exhibition displaying the projects has been curated by aric chen of M+ museum — awarded THE DESIGN PRIZE 2017 for best curator. the exhibit at the design museum displays sketches, models, prototypes, videos and photography, providing a rare moment to experience a diverse selection of industries, objects, and technologies.

copenhagen islands by marshall blecher and magnus maarbjerg | all images courtesy of the design museum
main image: SESC 24 de maio by paulo mendes da rocha + MMBB arquitetos | image © nelson kon

the fashion category includes items from NIKE’s nigeria national football team collection, pieces from palomo spain’s SS 2018 menswear collection, and matty bovan’s debut collection. the rainbow check by christopher bailey for burberry and fenty beauty by rihanna are also nominated among the fashion and product categories and reflect designs that show a commitment to inclusivity.

LEGO house by bjarke ingels group

following last year’s overall winner, the david adjaye-designed national museum of african american history and culture in washington DC the architecture category continues to feature many renowned practices, including OMA for the qatar national library, and MAD architects for chaoyang park plaza. other featured projects are copenhagen islands by marshall blecher and magnus maarbjerg and LEGO house by bjarke ingels group.

chaoyang park plaza by MAD architects | image by hufton + crow

the digital category includes gucci’s utopian fantasy campaign, titled #guccihallucination. the campaign blurs the lines between real and fake by taking viewers on an app-based journey to display the fashion house’s SS18 collection. also included is a digital animation from the european space agency visualizing the dangers of space debris to spacecrafts, showing that disused and broken satellites will be harmful for future space travel.

bleached by erez nevi pana

responding to the threat of global warming and a drive to create a sustainable future, resources and biomaterials are two prominent themes in this year’s nominations, with projects including: trash isles, a campaign by LADbible in partnership with the plastic oceans foundation, which gained widespread support across the globe and called for the UN to recognize a floating pile of rubbish as an island, and the world’s first plastic-free aisle in amsterdam, designed by creative agency made thought for ekoplaza — both forming part of the graphics category.

pretziada is a sardinia-based collaboration between ivano atzori and kyre chenven

the product category features pretziada a project by ivano atzori and kyre chenven that seeks to support artisanal excellence in sardinia, while bringing the island’s rich heritage to a contemporary design audience. other nominees include bleached by erez nevi pana, jellyfish vase by nendo, and a collection of eye-wear designed by jasper morrison.

JINS design project #01: new normal by JINS and jasper morrison

the transport section brings to the forefront visions previously only seen in science fiction, such as traveling at high speed through a low-pressure tunnel with virgin hyperloop one and racing to and beyond earth’s orbit with elon musk’s most powerful rocket, spaceX falcon heavy. also appearing in this category is nominee city brain, which demonstrates how data driven governance is no longer an idea for the future — the operating computer chip is already in use throughout china as an AI system that optimizes traffic in city centers.

see the full list of nominees and winners in each of the six categories below.

fashion

winner: royal ballet costumes for christopher wheeldon’s production of corybantic games by erdem moralıoğlu

nominees:

— burberry rainbow check by burberry
— nigeria national football team: national team collection by NIKE
— black panther costume design by ruth e carter
— zoa by modern meadow
— goldwin ski jacket by goldwin with spiber materials
— hotel palomo: spring summer 2018 menswear by palomo spain
— G-star elwood RFTPi jeans & D-staq RFTPi denim jacket by G-star RAW in collaboration with artistic milliners, DyStar, and saitex
— TELFAR fall-winter 2018 collection by TELFAR
— vigilamus by matty bovan
— made by rain by aliki van der kruijs
— horizon infinity by marisa and marie gnanaraj

architecture

winner: zeitz museum of contemporary art africa by heatherwick studio

nominees:

— MycoTree by sustainable construction (karlsruhe institute of technology) and block research group (ETH zürich)
— copenhagen islands by marshall blecher and magnus maarbjerg
— the common stove by matali crasset
— SESC 24 de maio by paulo mendes da rocha and MMBB arquitetos
— digua community by designers: shu zhou
— small is meaningful by design trust futures studio
— jintai village reconstruction by rural urban framework
— chaoyang park plaza by MAD architects
— louvre abu dhabi by jean nouvel
— qatar national library by OMA
— gulshan society jame mosque by kashef chowdhury / URBANA
— stone matters by AAU anastas / scales and laboratoire GSA
— microlibrary at taman bima by SHAU indonesia
— fuyang cultural complex by amateur architecture studio
— ganga maki textile studio by bijoy jain of studio mumbai
— LEGO house by bjarke ingels group
— lumen by jenny sabin architects
— bío bío regional theatre by smiljan radic, eduardo castillo and gabriela medrano

digital

winner: counter investigations: forensic architecture exhibition at the institute of contemporary arts, london by forensic architecture (also overall winner)

nominees:

— aibo ERS-1000 by sony corporation
— franchise freedom by studio drift
— technology interfaces for blade runner 2049 by territory studio
— choose love shop by help refugees in partnership with glimpse
— bad news by gusmanson and DROG
— gucci spring summer 2018 campaign: #guccihallucination by ignasi monreal (artwork), alessandro michele (creative direction) and christopher simmonds (art direction)
— verificado19s by anonymous collective
— space debris – a journey to earth by european space agency with ID&SENSE and ONiRiXEL

graphics

winner: trash isles by plastic oceans foundation with LADbible

nominees:

— mushpit #10 by mushpit with richard turley
— netherlands women’s national football team crest by wieden+kennedy amsterdam for NIKE
— migrant journal by offshore studio (art direction) and justinien tribillon (editor)
— aravrit by liron lavi turkenich
— visual identity for the czech railway infrastructure association by studio marvil
— hoarding for the apple store taipei 101 by yang shiyi
— oto nové swiss by studio feixen
— plastic-free aisle by a plastic planet and made thought for ekoplaza
— save our species T-shirt by lacoste with the international union for conservation of nature (IUCN)

product

winner: paperfuge by prakash lab

nominees:

— algae lab by studio klarenbeek & dros at atelier luma
— totomoxtle by fernando laposse
— self-healing e-skin by jianliang xiao, wei zhang, zhanan zou and chengpu zhu
— glowing plants by seonyeong kwak and michael strano, strano research group, massachusetts institute of technology
— bleached by erez nevi pana
— nest ceramic heaters by estudio äco
— quicksee by plenoptika
— surgibox by debbie teodorescu, mike teodorescu, stephen okajima and team surgibox
— ori studio collection by ori with fuseproject
— medal design for pyeongchang 2018 winter olympics by sukwoo lee at SWNA
— pretziada by ivano atzori and kyre chenven
— you & I rug collection by nada debs and FBMI
— excavation: evicted by paul cocksedge, supported by friedman benda and beatrice trussardi
— unhomely by chris schanck
— nintendo labo by nintendo
— new £1 coin by royal mint and david pearce
— tetra countertop dishwasher by heatworks and frog
— ceramic tap water carafe by lotte de raadt
— jellyfish vase by nendo
— JUST water by drew fitzgerald, kara rubin, madwell and tetra pak, inc.
— ore streams by studio formafantasma
— trashpresso by miniwiz
— metamorphism by shahar livne
— caskia / growing a marsboot by liz ciokajlo (OurOwnSkin) with maurizio montalti (officina corpuscoli)
— arrangements by michael anastassiades for flos
— JINS design project #01: new normal by JINS and jasper morrison
— re-engineered brown betty teapot by ian mcintyre
— ENEA walking stick by shiro studio in collaboration with arup UK and MHOX
— fenty beauty by rihanna by established

transport

winner: falcon heavy by spaceX

nominees:

— city brain by city brain open research (wang jian, xue guirong, li zhengui and wang min)
— virgin hyperloop one by hyperloop one
— kalk electric motorbike by CAKE
— mobike lite by naoto fukasawa for mobike