Workstation of the Future 2008
WINNERS ANNOUNCED
Four Australian designers took out the top prizes for the 2008 Workstation of the Future design competition. The winners were announced at the sophisticated Awards Night held on 31st July at Simmer on the Bay, Walsh Bay overlooking the Sydney Harbour. The night featured the exhibition of 60 shortlisted entries and the launch of Iken’s new workstation with live jazz entertainment for the celebration. Over 200 designers, students, sponsors, judges and design colleagues gathered to enjoy and celebrate the winning designs.
Glenn Bevan (Infinity Design Developments) and Lorrin Windahl (Cobalt Niche) were equal winners in the Australian Professional Innovation Category taking out the major prize which includes a 10 day trip to Europe, The Netherlands and Japan. Both designers will travel to Cologne in October 2008 to attend Orgatec, the largest office furniture trade show for the year.
ERUG designed by Lorrin Windahl is a futuristic concept that takes the workstation into the outdoors - a key feature of this winning design. This picnic rug style workstation utilises developing technologies such as flexible solar panels, a flexible touchscreen display and an electric charge capability that enables the user to shape the eRUG into different seating positions.
INFINITY DESIGN WORKSTATION designed by Glenn Bevan states his winning idea as, “This design seamlessly combines furniture and technology in a workstation that is targeted at the needs of the creative designer. The ergonomic and collaborative benefits of traditional drafting tables have been combined with clever storage, a large format drawing tablet and a customisable software interface to create the ultimate designer
workstation."
This year, Iken received over 135 entries locally and internationally. “This is the first time we have introduced an International category and we have had a tremendous response”, said Ms Amy Tang, Marketing Manager, Iken.
Of the 60 shortlisted, 6 entries received the winning prize for their category and 7 entries were awarded a “highly commended” award.
The judges involved with the 2008 competition commented:
Stephen Ballesty (Director of Rider Levett Bucknall & Immediate Past Chairman for Facility Management Association of Australia)
“The IKEN Workstation of the Future event inspires, and proves that a productive and sustainable Built
Environment is more than just about survival, quality of life demands innovative design.”
Andrew MacKenzie (Editor in Chief - Inside & AR Magazine)
“This year's entries represented an expansion the competition in both numbers of entries and overall quality, making the job of the jury that much harder. Designers from around Australia and indeed the world approached the challenge of designing tomorrow's workstation from a wide range of different perspectives. Some explored material experimentation, others chose to challenge the conventions of open-plan and modular, while others speculated on the future possibilities of ITC, and how technology will become less clunky, more integrated in the overall design environment of the workstation. The jury day was long and included some heated discussion on the relative merits of the these different design strategies, but in the end the jury was unanimous in its decisions, in rewarding the innovative work of the competitions winners. A particular congratulations to all the great student work, which was of outstanding quality and gave us cause for confidence in future design innovation of Australia.”
Brandon Gien (General Manager, Design and Communications, Standards Australia & Executive Director, Australian International Design Awards)
“Designing a workstation for the future is a very challenging undertaking. Various considerations need to be considered such as rapidly changing technology, environmental issues, functionality, safety, maintenance and cost. Above all, from a design perspective, these ‘environments’ must look the goods and be
comfortable enough to want to spend your working day in. The entries this year not only met the challenging brief set by iken, but went above and beyond it – making the job of judging all that more interesting and challenging.”
And the winners are...
AUS/NZ/FIJI
| PROFESSIONAL INNOVATION |
Glenn Bevan |
Infinity Design Development (QLD) |
| PROFESSIONAL INNOVATION |
Lorrin Windahl |
Cobalt Niche (VIC) |
| PROFESSIONAL INNOVATION |
Ferry Tatano |
University of Technology Sydney (NSW) |
| PROFESSIONAL SUSTAINABILITY |
Liam Mugavin |
University of South Australia (SA) |
INTERNATIONAL
| INTERNATIONAL PROFESSIONAL |
Diego Zavala Figueroa |
Elemental Studio Design (Mexico) |
| INTERNATIONAL STUDENT |
Carsten Oster Nielsen |
Aalborg University (Denmark) |
And the highly commended are...
AUS/NZ/FIJI
| STUDENT INNOVATION |
Paul Conley |
University of Technology Sydney (NSW) |
| STUDENT SUSTAINABILITY |
Serena Holloway |
University of QLD |
INTERNAIONAL
| INTERNATIONAL PROFESSIONAL |
Jessica Lamb & Britney Bishop |
Lyall Design Architects |
| INTERNATIONAL STUDENT |
Alan Lu |
University of California Berkeley |
| INTERNATIONAL STUDENT |
Monica Undarsa |
Universitas Pelita Harapan |
| INTERNATIONAL STUDENT |
Martin Necas |
Aalborg University |
| INTERNATIONAL STUDENT |
Kristian Villadsen |
Aalborg University |
Iken would like to thank the judges and sponsors for this successful initative in the Australian design
community.
WATCH THIS SPACE - 2010
To view Workstation of the Future winners from 2006 and awards night click here. |
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