The Golden Pin Design Award 2022 Design Mark winners list is revealed today. This year, a grand total of 687 entries from design companies or enterprises in Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Macau, Thailand, Singapore, Japan, U.S., India, Malaysia, Germany, Poland and Canada, receive the coveted Design Mark. They now progress into the Final Selection judging round, which will take place on September 21st & 22nd, to decide which of them will win 2022 Best Design and Special Annual Awards. These top honor winners will be announced at the Grand Ceremony in early December.
▲ The Secondary Selection & Jury.
❚ Highlights of the 2022 Design Mark Recipients
1. HP Presence
- Category: Product Design
- Country/region: U.S.
- Design Company: HP Inc. (U.S.)
HP Presence is a disaggregated video conferencing solution that scales from small huddle rooms to large conference rooms, making sure everyone can be heard and seen, and in control of their calls. It can be combined to choose the exact bundle for the size of room. As the number of participants grows, cameras, a second prism, and even a soundbar with camera and TV connectivity can be added to make everyone an active participant.
2. Bloom Chair
- Category: Product Design
- Country/region: Taiwan
- Design Company: JC Architecture (Taiwan), Kobe Leather (Japan), Studio Kiichi (Japan), Ryosuke Nagata Shoten (Japan)
- Client: Kobe Leather (Japan)
The Bloom Chair is made of Kobe leather, a byproduct of Japan’s Kobe beef industry. Kobe leather, which is thin, stiff and not highly usable, is processed using the concept of architectural structure and repurposed by tanning and stitching into a novel leather upholstery that is resilient, foldable and strong enough to support human weight. When unfolded, the leather chair exhibits both the beauty of a blooming flower and also the value of sustainability.
3. Intercity Electric Multiple Units EMU3000
- Category: Product Design
- Country/region: Japan
- Design Company: Hitachi, Ltd. (Japan)
- Client: Taiwan Railways Administration, MOTC (Taiwan)
The Intercity Electric Multiple Units EMU3000 is an express train designed by Hitachi, Ltd. for Taiwan Railways Administration. It operates throughout Taiwan and 600 new carriages will be introduced by 2024 in order to improve the transportation capacity. In collaboration with Taiwanese train operator and design experts, Hitachi has created a design that is appropriate for the coming modern Taiwan. The train’s exterior and interior designs both echo the concept of “silent velocity,” creating a calm and concise space with simple lines and soft colors to bring a brand-new landscape for railways in Taiwan.
4. Air3
- Category: Product Design
- Country/region: China
- Design Company: QIUdesign (China)
- Client: AIRMATE (Taiwan)
Air3 is a portable heater that draws on the design concept of a toddler’s car seat. It is designed for use in bathrooms to satisfy various household needs, such as keeping the area warm, drying clothes, disinfecting the environment, and hanging towels to dry. This product features a simple design language, portability and multifunctional integration and represents a reborn version of conventional heaters.
5. GOGORO VIVA MIX
- Category: Communication Design
- Country/region: Taiwan
- Design Company: MixCode Studio (Taiwan)
- Client: GOGORO Inc. (Taiwan)
The promotional video for GOGORO VIVA MIX is analogous to an invisible music magician who makes everywhere you go colorful and interesting. The rich visual image of mixing and matching different urban structures and elements, demonstrates the diversity and personality of the product styles that are both refreshing to see and hear.
6. Pakelang
- Category: Communication Design
- Country/region: Taiwan
- Design Company: Spread Design Studio (Taiwan)
- Client: 2nd Generation Falangao Singing Group & The Chairman Crossover Big Band (Taiwan)
The design for the album Pakelang wins yet again the Golden Pin Design Award after winning the 64th Grammy Award for Best Recording Package. The album cover features an ingenious use of composite media to integrate the images of Taiwan’s mountains, oceans and Amis people, conveying the beauty of Taiwanese culture and the vibrant originality of the cover design.
7. THE CAMPUS
- Category: Spatial Design
- Country/region: Japan
- Design Company: KOKUYO Co., Ltd. (Japan)
The 40-year-old privately owned office building has been transformed from a closed, corporate workplace into an open, semi-public office space. The green landscape inside the building is extended outward into the street, establishing a connection with the urban environment for co-development. The diverse and comfortable spaces are functionally divided to echo the new trends of hybrid office models and create a work environment that inspires creativity and enriches experiences.
8. Dog / Human
- Category: Spatial Design
- Country/region: Thailand
- Design Company: EKAR Architects (Thailand)
- Client: Private House
This private house echoes the love of dog owners and their expectation for living with their furry friend. The house’s exterior is noted for the most famous roof features of local agricultural buildings in Nakhon Pathom. Many details are thoughtfully designed to create a space where humans and dogs can live side-by-side. The space includes an open corridor, an easy-to-clean column base designed to fit a dog’s shape when they sleep, and a swimming pool with steps that make it easier for dogs to climb out of the pool etc. The space is meticulously planned to demonstrate a respect for life.
9. THE SYMPHONY OF NORTH POINT
- Category: Spatial Design
- Country/region: Hong Kong
- Design Company: ARTA Architects Limited (Hong Kong)
- Client: Hong Kong Arts Centre (Hong Kong)
The Symphony of North Point is an urban furniture and sound exchanging device that encourages inter-generational communication through the sound of People, Places and Nature and fully captures the uniqueness of this site. The design team took their inspiration from traditional brass instruments, and reinterpreted it as a jumbled maze of sound exchanging tubes and devices that allows people to be able to talk to each other without actually being able to see who they are talking to, to reduce the discomfort and awkwardness for those who have a more introverted personality.
The sound devices also serve as impromptu amplifiers for buskers to play music, or for dancers to perform in events that unite the local community. The sound devices also extend along the existing pavilion to reach out to the nearby trees for visitors to be able to experience hearing the peacefulness of the sounds of nature within this unique site at the heart of one of the densest cities in the world.
10. YANG MING MT. LAB
- Category: Integration Design
- Country/region: Taiwan
- Design Company: Yangmingshan National Park (Taiwan)
- Client: InFormat Design Curating (Taiwan)
The Yang Ming Mountain Lab was initially a security guard house that had been abandoned for more than thirty years in Taiwan’s Yangmingshan National Park. It has been repurposed as a mountain house integrating experience, leisure and ecological education. The mountain house offers innovative public services, which are developed by incorporating brand-new visual plans, popular science exhibitions and peripheral product designs and by integrating brand concepts and people-oriented cultural experiences into the natural ecosystem.
11. COCOHELI—Search Helicopter Service
- Category: Integration Design
- Country/region: Japan
- Design Company: AUTHENTIC JAPAN Co., Ltd. (Taiwan)
COCOHELI features a specially developed wireless device (i.e., the transmitter) and a nationwide search network that comprises hiking organizations, the police force, and firefighting units. When a person is in distress on the mountain, a helicopter equipped with a special receiver will search for the member’s transmitter. This service is expected to save as many lives as possible.
2022 Second Selection Jury’s Comments
Golden Pin Design Award organizes secondary and final selections online this year in response to the global pandemic. In the secondary selection on August 18th, 31 design and industry experts from Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Italy, Australia, Finland, Singapore, Thailand, Brazil, U.S. and Japan, gathered online to evaluate various categories with heated discussions.
Finnish designer Renne Angelvuo and Australian designer Danny Venlet often served as judges for international design awards. They were members of this year’s jury for the product design category, and both of them were impressed by the high-quality entries submitted this year, which ranged from daily necessities to public transports such as trains. They mentioned that there were many outstanding and interesting design works in each category, which made their judging experience extremely enjoyable.
Suyan Huang, Director of Product Design at Xiaomi Youpi, was happy to see that designers and companies from around the world were just as creative as they were before the pandemic. She believes that after the boundaries between work and life are blurred, how to balance and integrate work and life and health concerns, are design issues that warrant greater attention now and in the future. Shiuan-Hung Lee, General Manager of Design Innovation Center at TLC Technology Group, observed that the new ways of living and working derived from the pandemic over the past two years demonstrate the vigorous development of creative designs in such aspects as remote communication, disinfection and care, physical and mental healing, and pet-related products.
As a returning member of this year’s jury for the communication design category, Eisuke Tachikawa, CEO of NOSIGNER, focuses his evaluation on a design’s basic techniques and quality, and then checks whether the design is meaningful to a problem, and whether its quality is high enough to bring about social impact. Arthur Guimarães, Brazilian architect and a jury member for the spatial design category, was surprised to see the extent of cultural diversity among the design works entered this year and was also deeply impressed by the overall level of sophistication. Taiwanese Architect Wen-Chieh Chiu was fascinated by the number of outstanding works in public space design; his evaluation was focused on the power of “small design details that make a big impact,” rather than on the space itself solely, and also on which kind of design can bring about positive impact to the society.
According to Ming-Tsung Lee, CEO of Searchlight Culture Lab and a jury member for the integrated design category, the entries enabled him to perceive different industries’ capacity to jointly create crossover works. The attempts with digital applications and new technologies are not confined to the technical level, but are associated with a deeper level of engagement and even cultural creation. He envisions a future of design that transcends industries and centers on non-digital natives or special needs and disadvantaged groups.
Follow this link for the 2022 Design Mark Winners List (The Final Selection Shortlist)
