Thailand's GREEN DOT BLUE and Department of ARCHITECTURE Co shine on stage
As the 2020 Golden Pin Design Award grand awards ceremony was held in Taipei on the evening of December 11, two Thai designers joined another 25 winners in receiving the prestigious awards - the 24 Best Design winners and 3 Special Annual Award winners for Circular Design and Social Design.
Thai designers do shine on stage, rewarding winners of the Golden Pin's highest honor this year on Golden Pin Design Award. Thailand's GREEN DOT BLUE is the only project which was awarded the Special Annual Award for Circular Design this year. Also, Department of ARCHITECTURE Co., is one of among this year's 24 Best Design winners.
The annual Golden Pin Design Award is the longest-running international design award that celebrates products or projects expressly created for Chinese-speaking communities, offering entrants an unprecedented opportunity to prove their prowess in the world's largest market.
The Golden Pin Design Award Group is comprised of two international awards ? the Golden Pin Design Award, the Golden Pin Concept Design Award ? and the Young Pin Design Award for students in Taiwan. The Golden Pin Design Award Group is executed by the Taiwan Design Research Institute and organized by the Industrial Development Bureau, Ministry of Economic Affairs. The Ministry of Economic Affairs acts in an advisory capacity.
This year, the theme "2020" was chosen for the awards ceremony to symbolize the many abrupt impacts and challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which also allowed people to take a step back, reflect on the meaning of life, and explore a future trajectory that embraces more sustainable development.
Golden Pin Design Award 2020 ? Spotlight on Sustainable Circular Design and Social Design
This year's awards saw twenty-four entries emerge from the 83-entry shortlist as winners of the Best, including four entries in the Product Design category, seven in Spatial Design, eight in Communication Design, and five in Integration Design.
ARTWORK TOMii by emerging Thai brand GREEN DOT BLUE was the only one which awarded the Special Annual Award for Circular Design. The recyclable backpack was made entirely from materials from recycled plastic bottles. The design concept derived the fact that more than 4,000 million plastic bottles were used in Thailand every year and less than 20% of them are recycled. By recycling them, the amount of pollution caused by landfills or incineration and sea wastes will be reduced.
Another Thai entry was also recognized for its eye-catching designs. One of the Best Design recipient Little Shelter Hotel, created by the Department of ARCHITECTURE Co., fuses traditional northern Thai elements with attractive and eye-catching modern styling to create the spatial design for a hotel. It is the company's interpretation of northern Thai architecture representing unique dialogue between old and new. The building is a craftwork with aesthetic character of the north region.
Book & Host by Taiwan's One-Forty and The OLD School: #AgeRready through Design by the Hong Kong-based Enable Foundation were named this year's Special Annual Award for Social Design. Both entries won favor from the jury for offering innovative design solutions to major contemporary social issues.
A Polish design entry ? The History of the Last Judgement by Hans Memling / animation, created by TOFU Studio for the National Museum in Gda?sk, was also among the winning entries, receiving the Best Design trophy for its exquisite animation that offers a deep and moving look at the history behind this work of art.
Final Selection jury member Fumie Shibata noted the high caliber of the designs in this year's Product Design category. This was especially evident in Taiwanese bicycle design, which combined great looks with technological breakthroughs to reinvent an old standby. This year's Best Design winner DARE VSRu AEROROAD sports a unique design with fully hidden cable and battery that bedazzled the judges.
Golden Pin Concept Design Award 2020 ? Innovative, Experimental Designs for Environmental Conservation and Renewable Energy Take Center Stage
This year's Golden Pin Concept Design Award saw three entries awarded the Best Design, with each entry receiving a prize money of NT$400,000. Jury member and Singaporean designer Nathan Yong was impressed by the diversity of this year's entries, particularly the innovative solutions offered by many Taiwanese entries that were inspired by the island's culture and society. Yong hopes that future contestants will pay greater attention to the social impact of their entries and create more possibilities for the world through bold, imaginative design.
The three Best Design winners were all favored by the jury for their bold yet carefully thought-out designs. The Call of the Forest, a Taiwanese graphic design, illustrates raptors, with information about their habitats, food sources, and the human impacts on these birds incorporated into the illustrations, thus raising awareness of the issue of environmental conservation in Taiwan's forested mountain regions. Cyclone Catcher, also from Taiwan, is a design for a large typhoon-powered wind turbine that overcomes the limitations of existing wind turbines to operate in strong winds, transforming these natural catastrophes into viable sources of energy. Finally, YEZO from Hong Kong took advantage of natural landforms and utilized an experimental design approach to create a shelter nestled in nature.
This year's award marked the first time the Golden Pin Concept Design Award has collaborated with Acer to create the Special Annual Award ? ConceptD Award. Previously announced in November, the winner of this new award is Fist Font by Taiwan-based design studio Wenhenju Design Co.
Golden Pin Design Award 2020 ? Welcome to The New Normal due to the pandemic
Heading into its 40th year, the Golden Pin Design Award has attracted a wide range of entries by outstanding designers from around the world to compete with one another since its transformation into an international award in 2014. The Golden Pin Design Award sets the stage for exceptional design entries to gain international exposure, while the Golden Pin Concept Design Award helps concept design entries garner attention and secure the resources that give designers the opportunity to achieve their dream. This year, the two awards saw a combined total of 8,000 entries from twenty-seven countries and regions around the world.
Due to the pandemic, this year's Golden Pin Design Award held both physical selection events and online selection sessions to overcome the limitations of time zone differences and geographical divides and allow jury members in Taiwan and overseas to complete the Preliminary, Secondary, and Final Selections together via the internet. The star-studded jury of this year's Golden Pin Design Award and Golden Pin Concept Design Award was made up of eighty-five design professionals from fifteen different countries and regions around the world, and included such luminaries as Fumie Shibata, Eisuke Tachikawa, Marco Casagrande, Sonja Schiefer, Gerald Mark Soto, Nathan Yong, and Aaron Nieh. After many rounds of discussion, twenty-four winners were selected for the Best of Golden Pin Design Award, two for the Special Annual Award for Social Design, and one for the Special Annual Award for Circular Design; while for the Golden Pin Concept Design Award, three winners were selected for the Best Design and one for the Special Annual Award ? ConceptD Award.
