NPO Aoyama Design Forum (ADF) has organized the ADF Milano Salone Design Award 2021 and announced the winners for the award on its website on 25 January, 2021.

Congratulations to the winners; Takuto Ohta (the Best Performance Award) , Boey Wang (Outstanding Performance Award winners) and Alexander Schul (Outstanding Performance Award winners).

Takuto Ohta (the Best Performance Award)

My project photo by Nicola Marnati
Boey Wang (Outstanding Performance Award winners)

Alexander Schul (Outstanding Performance Award winners)

We are truly grateful for all the support we received for this award to be a success.

This year has been its 11th since ADF started " Milano Salone design award " project to nurture artists, designers and architects and develop their social status.

The design theme of this year was "re_" . It literally means "Regeneration", which is "to make use of something again . " 　The applicants freely proposed their ideas with furniture, buildings, spaces, plans, etc., regardless of the form of "Regeneration".

As our new daily lives and values have changed dramatically these days, there were various kinds of submissions in response to the recent trends such as the COVID-19 pandemic, Global warming countermeasures, and efforts for environmental issues like SDG’s. Some submissions were even newly re-defined proposals of "re_".

The award received entries from 23 countries with various categories such as architecture, furniture, art works and videos. The outcome shows continuous improvement of the award for 10 years.

On the other hand, there were some difficulties to evaluate the submissions in different categories on the same stage. Since the environmental issues and its sustainability are the themes of all humankind, ADF will continue to hold design competitions with similar themes.

This year, two designers participated as judges, who are active in the world while being based in NY.
 
Mr. Eric Clough, a representative of 212box (http://212box.com/) who is very active in the United States and Europe and is involved in many projects in Japan. His unique expressiveness is remarkable, especially an incorporation of various subjects with local traditional methods. His art works have a wide range of genres such as products and images as well as architecture.

Eric Clough

We received his message for the award.
“I enjoyed reviewing the submissions and their considerate designs, all of which have made an indelible footprint into our minds which in some way will shape the future and our experiences to well-crafted objects and materials.” --- Eric Clough.

Kota Bando was another judge of the award. After the founding and management of Monolayer, Bando Design, he became a representative of the interior design office, Bando × Seidel Meersseman (https://bxsm.nyc/), which is currently based in NY. He is an active designer of hotels and private residences, by fusing Japanese sensibility to dynamic architecture in America.

Kota Bando

“Everyone took various approaches and flexibly responded to the theme that could be interpreted from multiple angles. As the world is so unpredictable, designers are required to respond the current situation, and are desired their flexible thinking. In this competition, I was inspired by various thoughts, their seeking and a glimpse of the process for the design and their responsiveness.

As for the tendency of the works, I felt that small-scale works have advantages for the theme as it is more easy to clarify the relationships with the theme "Re", and the quality of presentations and designs could be improved.”--- Kota Bando.

In 2021, Milano Salone has announced to postpone reschedule its event in September due to the Covid-19 pandemic. At the same time, the award ceremony and the exhibition for the Best Performance Award are postponed.

We are looking forward to restarting it as a highlighted international trade fair.

This time, we have reported on the summary of the award. Please stay tuned for the next update on the winners’ works.