2014 LONDON DESIGN MEDAL WINNERS NOW

Now in its eighth year, the annual London Design Festival grants honors to four exceptional designers. They are particularly celebrated for the multidisciplinary approach to design.

The winners include Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec (Panerai London Design Medal)  Richard Rogers (Coutts Lifetime Achievement Medal), Nicolas Roope (Perrier-Jouët Design Entrepreneur Medal) and Roland Lamb (Swarovski Emerging Talent Medal).

PERRIER-JOUET DESIGN ENTREPRENEUR MEDAL - NICOLAS ROOPE

The London Design Festival also recognizes business starters in the design field with its Perrier-Jouët Design Entrepreneur Medal -- this year, awarded to Nicolas Roope.

Roope co-founded Antirom, a collective of London designers interested in exploring interactivity and technology design. He also founded design firm, Hulger, a collaborative design problem-solving company titled Poke, Internet Week Europe, the Lovie Awards, and BL-NK space, proving himself as a successful and innovative serial entrepreneur.

Roope was intrigued by the idea that the light bulb, an object so synonymous with ideas, is “almost entirely absent of imagination.” So Roope collaborated with Sam Wilkinson to develop Plumen, an innovative lightbulb series.

They are low-energy bulbs and beautiful sculptures at the same time. Plumen’s stunning Glowing Oak installation was on display at this year’s London Design Festival.

Roope has won multiple awards, including the D&AD Black Pencil, Brit Insurance Design Awards and several Webby Awards. His designs have been included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York, as well as in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

PANERAI LONDON DESIGN MEDAL - RONAN & ERWAN BOUROULLEC

The Panerai London Design Medal is supported by the eponymous Italian watch brand. It distinguishes designers who have made a substantial impact on the world of contemporary design.

For the first time since its inception in 2007, Panerai is honoring a team rather than an individual, granting the award to renowned French product designers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec. It is also the first time the award was granted to a non-Brit.

The brothers are known for their simple, curvaceous products, which they design for brands like Vitra, Magis and Cappellini.

But they’ve also created large scale art installations such as “Textile Field,” a massive, 100-foot-long upholstered platform which graced Victoria & Albert museum’s Raphael Court.

The Bouroullecs’ most recent work includes a series of rectangular vases for Finnish luxury brand Iittala.

The brothers’ iconic Lighthouse table lamp for Established & Sons, combines a simple Carrara marble base with an oversize, hand-blown Murano glass shade.

Today, Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec design for numerous manufacturers, namely Vitra, Kvadrat, Magis, Kartell, Established and Sons, Ligne Roset, Axor, Alessi, Issey Miyake, Cappellini, Mattiazzi, Flos, Mutina, Hay and more recently Glas Italia and Iittala.

They recently designed “Cercles", an iPad app which showcases formal studies, freehand drawings, and sketches in a very intuitive way.

The duo also remains passionate about continuing experimental activity, some of which can be seen at Galerie kreo.

Several exhibitions have been devoted to their work at the Design Museum, London (the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, to name a few.

A number of the Bouroullecs’ designs are part of collections at international museums such as the Musée National d’Art Moderne,Centre Pompidou, Musée des Arts Décoratifs -- all in Paris, as well as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Design Museum in London, and the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam.

Check out other recent books that feature Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, including Works, (Phaidon) a comprehensive monographic book and Drawing (JRP Ringier), which contains  more than 850 drawings.

SWAROVSKI EMERGING TALENT MEDAL - ROLAND LAMB

The London Design Festival recognizes up and coming designers with the Swarovski Emerging Talent Medal. This year’s winner is designer Roland Lamb, founder and CEO of technology startup ROLI.

ROLI developed the new SEA Interface sensor technology, a disruptive platform hardware innovation, that enables high-resolution pressure sensors to be shaped to any form factor (patent pending).

The first application of the interface is Seaboard GRAND, a musical instrument that re-imagines the traditional keyboard as a sensitive, soft, three-dimensional continuous surface for continuous touch.

It enables unprecedented intuitive manipulation of the fundamental characteristics of sound.  The innovative keyboard reacts to the pressure of your fingers as you play, raising and lowering the volume and timber accordingly and allowing for a whole slew of beautiful new musical effects.

Lamb is a multi-faceted creative soul. At 18, he joined a monastery in Japan to practice Zen Buddhism. He studied Classical Chinese and Sanskrit philosophy at Harvard and Product Design at the Royal College of Art. Lamb also worked as a visual artist and jazz musician.

COUTTS LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT MEDAL - RICHARD ROGERS

Richard Rogers, renowned architect and designer, was awarded the London Design Medal Coutts Lifetime Achievement Medal. His exceptional design aesthetic also achieves social impact. He has reshaped a significant part of the world.

One of Rogers’ recent designs, done in conjunction with Belgian architects VK Studio, is The New Law Courts, in Antwerp. Its most innovative and beautiful feature is the pointed roof structure, with its soaring spires, that rise above a series of paraboloid roofs that recycle rainwater.

Rogers, together with Renzo Piano, designed the Centre Pompidou, an architectural icon in Paris. Other renowned Rogers’ works include the Leadenhall Building and Lloyds Building, both in London, as well as 3 World Trade Center.

He is the winner of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Gold Medal, the Thomas Jefferson Medal, the RIBA Stirling Prize, the Minerva Medal and Pritzker Prize

This year’s medal was designed by luxury jeweler Hannah Martin.

Read more about Beautiful Design, as they relate to Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink,Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact including London Design Festival Beauties, Turning Science Into Art at London Design Festival, The Most Beautiful Sketch in the World Right Now??? and New Beautiful Juxtapositions in London.

Enter your own images and ideas about Beautiful Design in this week’s creative Photo Competition. Open for entries now until 11:59 p.m. PT on 09.28.14. If you are reading this after that date, check out the current BN Creative Competition, and enter!

PHOTO CREDITS:

1. Photo: Courtesy of Room68. Plumen Light Bulb. Designer: Nicolas Roope.
2. Photo: Courtesy of Plumen. Glowing Oak. Designer: Nicolas Roope.
3. Photo: Courtesy of Plumen. Garland Light. Designer: Nicolas Roope.
4. Photo: Courtesy of Hulger & Sam Wilkinson. Plumen 001 Light bulb. Designer: Nicolas Roope.
5. Photo: Courtesy of Plumen. Plumen X Boskke Chandelier. Designer: Nicolas Roope.
6. Photo: Courtesy of Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec. Bivouac. Designers: Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec.
7. Photo: Courtesy of Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec. Clouds. Designers: Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec.
8. Photo: Courtesy of Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec. Vitra. Designers: Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec.
9. Photo: Courtesy of Kvadrat.Textile Field. Designers: Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec.
10. Photo: Courtesy of Established and Sons. Lighthouse Table Lamp. Designers: Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec.
11. Photo: Courtesy of Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec. Workbays. Designers: Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec.
12. Photo: Courtesy Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec. Cercles, App. Designers: Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec.
13. Photo: Courtesy of Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec. Clouds. Designers: Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec.
14. Photo: Courtesy of Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec. Contemporary Armchair. Designers: Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec.
15. Image: Courtesy of JRP|Ringier. Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec: Drawing, by Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec.
16. Image: Courtesy of Phaidon Press. Works, by Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec & Anniina Koivu.  
17. Photo: Courtesy of Balderton. Seaboard GRAND. Designer: Roland Lamb.
18. Photo: Courtesy of ROLI. Seaboard GRAND. Designer: Roland Lamb.
19. Photo: Courtesy of ROLI. Seaboard GRAND. Designer: Roland Lamb.
20. Photo: Courtesy of ROLI. Seaboard GRAND. Designer: Roland Lamb.
21. Photo: Courtesy of Virginia Duran. Terminal 4, Barajas Airport.
22. Photo: Courtesy of Antwerp Law Courts. Antwerp Law Courts. Designer: Richard Rogers.
23. Photo: by David Kracht. Lloyd’s Building. Designer: Richard Rogers.
24. Photo: by barnyz. European Court of Human Rights. Designer: Richard Rogers.
25. Photo: Courtesy of the London Design Festival. London Design Medal. Designer: Hannah Martin.