The ‘Design Plus powered by Light + Building’ competition has again proved very popular at Light + Building 2018: no fewer than 154 companies have submitted a total of 222 products. The competition is particularly well supported from outside Germany: companies from 26 countries took part, including entries from countries outside Europe such as Japan, Columbia, China, Taiwan, India, Canada and the USA. The distinguished adjudicating panel, which met at the beginning of January, selected 39 of the entries for an award, with five of them nominated as “Best of…” Moreover, they also selected 13 of the 70 pieces of work submitted by young, up-and-coming members of the profession, with three of them nominated as “Best of…” The competition, which is organised by Messe Frankfurt, in collaboration with the German Design Council, honours innovations that meet the triple requirements of design, ecological awareness, and technological excellence in exceptional ways. The products selected will be on display for the entire duration of the show from 18 to 23 March in Hall 1.2. And it is there, too, that the award ceremony will take place on Sunday 18 March 2018 at 2:00 p.m.
Wolfgang Marzin, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Messe Frankfurt, explains the significance of the competition in the following terms: “Some 2,600 exhibitors attend Light + Building to showcase their new products in the field of lighting, electrical and electronic engineering and home and building services technology. The ‘Design Plus powered by Light + Building’ competition is all about the careful selection of outstanding innovations from the Light + Building exhibitors. I should particularly like to recommend a visit to the special exhibition, which provides, in a concentrated and accessible form, information about current trends in both design and technology.
And for Andrej Kupetz, Senior Chief Executive of the German Design Council, the competition is a real barometer for current trends. As well as digitalisation and building automation, the potential of LED technology is, in his view, a long way from being fully exploited: “Not only has it been possible to continually improve light quality over the past few years; the practically unlimited freedom of form has opened up hitherto undreamed of possibilities for designers, planners and architects alike. Particularly in situations where major change is in the air, however, a consistent brand management strategy is as important as the technical development of a product. It does not surprise me, therefore, that some of the major brands are amongst the winners selected for an award by the distinguished panel of adjudicators for this year’s ‘Design Plus powered by Light + Building’.
An adjudication panel, with a broad range of expertise in many areas, assessed the entries for the competition at a meeting on 4 January 2018. Till Armbrüster, Head of Product Design, Licht Kunst AG and one of the adjudicators, sums up the trends as follows: “From the products submitted, we were able to distinguish two major developments. As far as approaches to product design are concerned, the opportunities that arise from the miniaturisation of the technology and the use of LEDs have increasingly been better used. Moreover, the interface between humans and machines has been changing in ways that make things even more convenient to use – via an app, for instance.”
The adjudicators were:
- Barbara Friedrich, Design Consulting & Publishing, Hamburg
- Volker Hohmann, Founder and Managing Director, Ikarus Design Handel GmbH, Gelnhausen
- Prof. Michael Lanz, Managing Partner, design affairs Group, Munich
- Sabine Loeser-Schoeps, Managing Director, LS Architecture & Interiors, Frankfurt
The list of winners, together with photos of the winning products can be downloaded here: www.light-building.com/design-plus
