On May 17, the Sala Excelsior of Anteo Palazzo del Cinema hosted the NABA Design Award ceremony. The design prize springs from a Claudio Larcher's idea, and it is in its fourth edition now. It looks at the works of students of the BA Programme in Design and of the MA Programmes in Product and Service Design, in Interior Design and in Social Design.
The best design project and Jury Prize
The Best Project of the Year 2022 is “Blue Metamorphosis” by Weam Baroudi, Santa Laude and Jenni Palokaj. It focuses on the transformation of face masks into new materials. The goal is to avoid the excessive waste of face masks and elongate their life cycle by 100% recycling them. The obtained materials present different properties depending on the processing and can be employed in the creation of different objects. "Blue Metamorphosis" applies a precise methodological approach carried out by the Academy's Design Area, aiming to define educational processes in the direction of greater sustainability in design making. Recycled materials also affect the aesthetic code.
The Jury Prize and the Best MA Social Project go to "Naso Digitale" by Martina Petiti. The subject of this proposal is a device capable of transforming social data into essences, some sort of an olfactory algorithm. All the memories we share on social networks are analysed and categorised by artificial intelligence, and are turned into perfumes. The aim is to enclose the digital essence, ethereal by nature, in something tangible that can be experienced: a perfume algorithm, is able to transform social data into essences.
The two projects won a prize from SELETTI's BLOW collection. To the authors of “Blue Metamorphosis” went the "Mouth" lamp. While the “Peace” mirror went to Martina Petiti.
The other prizes of the fourth edition of the NABA Design Award
The quality of the projects is clear when scrolling through the other 11 Award categories:
- BA Interior Project (ex aequo) “Mutualism” by Jessica Lu, Puyu Wu and Ziyi Zhao; “Sanctuaries” of the Alps' by Oliwia Syroczynska and Dana Berro;
- BA Product Project “Urban Chalk” by Riccardo Proli;
- MA Interior Project “Machehabitat” by Riccardo Fomia, Giulia Gaudio and Sofia Merola;
- MA Product and Service Project “Here” by Andrea Bonzio, Federica Gianni and Cecilia Raimondi;
- Photo “Insights into insanity” by Ilinca Maria Pop, Matilde Nera and Kseniia Petrova;
- Drawing and sketch “Searching for Self” by Xiaoxuan Huang;
- Materials and innovation “Belt” by Riccardo Bargagli Stoffi, Davide Occhicone, Daniele Padovani and Andrea Pedrali;
- BA Interior Thesis “A Shared Place” by Greta Diletta Piazza;
- BA Thesis Product “Parole a zonzo” by Sara Millozza;
- MA Interior Thesis “The Floating Community” by Wanxuan Xiong;
- MA Product Thesis “Catia” by Mirko Sconza.
The winning students got a thermal water bottles from the TOILETPAPER and DIESEL LIVING collections. All finalist projects are in a catalogue edited by Claudio Larcher with graphic design by Atto.
The jury and the NABA design award
The event could rely on the media partnership with DesignWanted - a digital magazine dedicated to Product & Industrial Design. Jurors' commitment has been essential: Patrick Abbattista (Founder & CEO DesignWanted), Odo Fioravanti (Product Designer), Aurelio Magistà (Lead Editor of Design, La Repubblica), Marco Sammicheli (Curator of design, fashion and craft sector of Triennale Milano and Director of Museo del Design Italiano), Stefano Seletti (Owner and Art Director Seletti) and Federico Stefani (Founder & Team leader VAIA), Guido Tattoni (NABA Dean), Italo Rota (NABA Scientific Advisor), Dante Donegani (NABA Design Advisor), Luca Poncellini (NABA Design and Applied Arts Department Head), Valentina Dalla Costa (Course Leader of Design Area MAs).