Designboom Opens THE DESIGN PRIZE To Public Voting

Last year, Designboom teamed with Abitare Magazine to launch THE DESIGN PRIZE. With nominees and judges spanning the globe, the program recognizes the most influential players in design inside and out. Its 10 awards categories include usual suspects such as Best Designer and Lifetime Achievement, but also celebrate more overlooked yet still powerful components of the industry such as Experimentation (research, education, etc.), Communication (branding, advertising campaigns), and—arguably most important—Social Impact.

For the program’s second year, Designboom has opened the Social Impact category to public voting, which runs from today through March 30. “We feel it’s important to democratize THE DESIGN PRIZE,” says Designboom founder Birgit Lohmann. “We’re starting with only one category, Social Impact, because it is of public interest, and to determine the winner of this most beautiful and noble among the categories, it seems only right that the public should be consulted.”

Following in the footsteps of the 2017 Social Impact winner, “Floating Piers” by Christo and Jeanne Claude, this year’s nominees are The Shed in New York’s Hudson Yards, designed by Diller Scofidio & Renfro and Rockwell Group; the stair-climbing wheelchair Scewo, designed by students rom the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and the University of the Arts Zurich; and the 14-story culture and recreation complex SESC 24 de Maio in São Paulo, designed by Paolo Mendes da Rocha & MMBB Architects.

Visit here to join this year’s jury—Stefano Boeri, Ingeborg De Roode, Jasper Morrison, Guta Moura Guedes, Carlo Ratti, Libby Sellers, Alex Mustonen, and Kjetil Thorsen—and cast your vote for this year’s DESIGN PRIZE for the Social Impact category. 

THE DESIGN PRIZE partners with the City of Milan, La Scala Opera House, and the Italian energy company Edison.