The A’ Design Award & Competition aims to highlight, advertise and advocate good design. Considered one of the world’s largest design accolades, the initiative has announced the best designers and designs for the 2017-2018 edition.
After careful evaluation by an internationally influential jury panel, over 1000 winners from 98 countries in 97 different design disciplines have been chosen.
Awards are given for categories including Spatial Design, Industrial Design, Communication Design, Fashion, System design, as well as for Achievements in Arts & Literature.
Below, you can check out some of our favourite winners from this year’s selection and if you click the link at the end of the article, you'll see some of the other winners worth mentioning.
k-haler Inhaler by Mundipharma International Limted
Designed by Clinical Designs Limited, a subsidiary of Mundipharma International Limited, the K-Haler is an inhaler that addresses many of the issues that have persisted since the invention of the first pressurised metered dose inhaler in 1956.
It is breath activated, eliminating the need for asthma sufferers to coordinate their breathing, but takes lower force to trigger it than most other breath actuated inhalers. k-haler’s unique technology has the potential to be suitable for a range of inhaled products and forms a platform for future drug development by Mundipharma.
Exhale Public Plaza by Mikyoung Kim Design
The Exhale sculpture was erected to help manage stormwater collection through a sculptural fountain that disperses and evaporates rainwater, highlighting the natural hydrologic cycles of the site.
Created by Mikyoung Kim Design the sculpture encourages participants to move around the varying elements and view the mutating piece during the various seasons and times of day. The unique paving pattern, inspired by wind movement pattern diagrams, emanates from the mist fountain at the core of the plaza.
Located in the heart of downtown Chapel Hill, the 140 West Urban Plaza is the first project in a larger town masterplan to invigorate this college town with greater pedestrian oriented landscapes.
This plaza, the 140 West Street Plaza in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA, was completed in 2013.
Unlike traditional Chinese power plants, the site of this project is among the mountains in Yantian district, Shenzhen. The main idea for its design comes from water. The white perforated plates make itd facade appear like a waterfall dropping down from the high mountains. As a result, the architecture is an exquisite element in the natural environment.
The purpose of this project is to renovate the facade of the main plant and the environment of the factory. The project started in September 2016 and finished in June 2017.
Dongziguan Affordable Housing Affordable Housing by Meng Fanhao
After convening with the residents in Dongziguan Village, Fuyang, Hangzhou,P.R.China, the architects created housing based on the vernacular style of a courtyard typology, a local traditional urban morphology.
The design intends to preserve the form of rural settlements and resists the current widely-criticized Chinese residential high-rises. The project brings an opportunity to regenerate the countryside while providing quality affordable housing.
The project started in September 2014 and the construction finished in July 2016.