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Talented innovators from the fields of architecture, digital media, fashion, furniture, graphic design, product design and transport have been celebrated by the Design Museum’s in its list of Design of the Year 2014 nominatees.
From Dumb Ways to Die, the app which teaches players rail safety by seeing them try to save cute characters from violent deaths, to a floating school in a Nigerian lagoon, contenders take vastly different approaches to design but are united in their attempts to fearlessly and imaginatively improve people’s lives.
Names shortlisted by the London based museum include: architects Zaha Hadid and David Chipperfield, and fashion designer Miuccia Prada.
Show all 21 1 /21In pictures: Top designs of the year In pictures: Top designs of the year Frac Centre, Les Turbulences, Orleans, France Designed by Jakob and MacFarlane: Conceived by the architects as both a landscape and a topographic surface, this faceted pavilion of concrete and aluminium conveys a perpetual flow of digital information. Volume, light and image fuse together to create a dynamic form of architecture that communicates, reveals, provokes, stimulates and informs
In pictures: Top designs of the year Makoko Floating School, Nigeria Designed by NLÉ, Makoko Community Building Team: A prototype floating structure, built for the historic water community of Makoko, Nigeria. The school takes an innovative, cheap and sustainable approach to address the community’s specific social and physical needs
In pictures: Top designs of the year Child Chemo House, Kobe Designed by Tezuka Architects, Takaharu & Yui Tezuka: A place where children undergoing chemotherapy treatment can live with their families, Child Chemo House aims to facilitate an ordinary lifestyle in a beautiful, calm space
In pictures: Top designs of the year Metro Trains - Dumb Ways to Die Designed by McCann Melbourne: A song, a book, a smartphone game, interactive outdoor posters, radio advertising and tumblr GIFs – all designed to get young people to care about safety. Dumb Ways to Die uses black humour to make the point that there are many dumb ways to die, but perhaps the dumbest is doing silly things around trains - in the process it has become an internet phenomenon and Kate Moss’s favourite app
In pictures: Top designs of the year Citymapper Designed by Azmat Yusuf, Gilbert Wedam, Joe Hughes, Nicholas Skehin, Emil Vaughan: Describing itself as the ultimate transport app, Citymapper aims to make the world’s most complicated cities easier to use with A to B journey planning that includes everything from cost to calorie burning
In pictures: Top designs of the year Peek (Portable Eye Examination Kit) Designed by Dr Andrew Bastawrous, Stewart Jordan, Dr Mario Giardini, Dr Iain Livingstone: A tool with the potential to revolutionise the prevention of blindness in low-income countries, Peek is a smartphone-based system for comprehensive eye examinations. It is easy to use, affordable and portable, meaning that it can bring eye care to even the remotest of settings
In pictures: Top designs of the year 'Totemic' Collection by Sadie Williams Designed by Sadie Williams: A collection of dresses in stiff 3D embossed textiles created by a multi-step, multi-layered process developed by the designer. Inspired by the graphic masculine print arrangement found in biker clothing, helmets and satin racing vests, the high-impact textiles are balanced with elegant A-line silhouettes
In pictures: Top designs of the year The Hinterland of Ronaldo Fraga Designed by Ronaldo Fraga: The signature of the caatinga, the natural scuffing of the cattle that the market considers a defect, becomes a sign of sophistication in this collection from the Brazilian designer
In pictures: Top designs of the year Tracey Neuls Bike Geek Designed by Tracey Neuls: Bike Geekis a hybrid of a dress shoe and a casual shoe with the performance of sportswear. It is designed to be simple, easy and suitable for all occasions. The sole is a hard wearing, one piece, rubber unit which gives shock absorption and endures many walking or biking miles, and a reflective half moon ‘cat eye’ tab makes the wearer safely visible at night
In pictures: Top designs of the year Pro Chair Family Designed by Konstantin Grcic: The Pro chair which Konstantin Grcic has developed for Flötotto features state-of-the-art ergonomics and pioneering design. The construction of the chair not only allows movement in all directions, but actively stimulates it thereby promoting healthier sitting
In pictures: Top designs of the year 'Simple' Exhibition At ProjectB Gallery, Milan Designed by Philippe Malouin: The works displayed for the 'simple' exhibition span two years of design and experimentation around the theme of simplicity. Timber slats, positioned in the right rhythm and proportions create benches, a table, a library. A Simple chair, exhibiting modest geometry and simple boxes, bookends and a lamp are composed of a readily available and humble material such as MDF
In pictures: Top designs of the year Iro Jo Nagasaka for Established and Sons: Named after the Japanese word for colour, Iro is a family of vibrant yet elegant furniture which remains true to Nagasaka’s minimalistic style, whilst making bold use of brightly coloured resin. The smooth finishing highlights the natural grain of the wood enclosed within the resin
In pictures: Top designs of the year Chineasy Created by ShaoLan Hsueh with Illustrations by Noma Bar: Chineasy is an illustrated Chinese language methodology created by entrepreneur and author ShaoLan Hsueh. Chineasy’s aim is to bridge the gap between the East and the West. The system is built on a building block methodology which allows students to learn a small number of commonly occurring characters, which can then be combined to create more complex compounds and couplets. These illustrated and animated characters aim to provide both a memorable interpretation of Chinese and also a glimpse into the culture behind the language
In pictures: Top designs of the year The Gourmand - A Food and Culture Journal Created by David Lane (Creative Director), Marina Tweed & David Lane (Founders/Editors-in-chief): The Gourmand is a food, arts and culture journal, printed bi-annually. It prides itself on high production values – combining exquisite printing with a variety of materials, more akin to book publishing than traditional magazines. All of the content is specially commissioned with submissions from well respected writers, photographers and illustrators as well as up and coming talent
In pictures: Top designs of the year Grand Central Designed by ECAL/Thibault Brevet: Realised as diploma project in Bachelor Graphic Design at ECAL/University of Art & Design Lausanne, Grand-Central is an open internet platform that lets people express themselves freely through a tangible output device. Users can submit text via their smartphones which is then ‘written’ in marker pen by a mechanical printer – creating a physical embodiment of a digital message
In pictures: Top designs of the year Clever Caps Designed by Claudio Patrick Vollers (Co-inventor & Designer) and Henry Suzuki (Co-inventor): Clever Caps are bottle caps which also work as building blocks. They can be collected and used on their own, but are also compatible with the world’s most popular building blocks. In this first commercial version, they were designed to fit PCO 1881 standard bottle necks, and include a tamper evident safety seal
In pictures: Top designs of the year Silk Pavilion Designed by Mediated Matter Group at the MIT Media Lab: The Silk Pavilion explores the relationship between digital and biological fabrication on both product and architectural scales. The primary structure was created of 26 polygonal panels made of silk threads laid down by a CNC machine. 6,500 silkworms were then released on to the structure where they worked as biological ‘printers’ spinning as they moved across the panels
In pictures: Top designs of the year ABC Syringe: A Behaviour Changing Syringe Designed by Dr David Swann: The ABC Syringe is a frugal innovation to combat the prolific use of non-sterile syringes. The syringe remains colourless when stored inside a sterile pack. However exposure to air triggers a controlled colour change that transforms the syringe barrel from colourless to red within a few minutes. This visual transformation alerts and empowers both literate and illiterate patients to make better risk decisions, and provokes doctors into clinical compliance
In pictures: Top designs of the year ME.WE: Forward-Thinking Car Designed by Massaud & Toyota ED2: ME.WE’s philosophy combines flexible geometry, a customizable look and environmental responsibility. It features an aluminium tubular structure, expanded polypropylene panels, electric power wheels, and a bamboo interior
In pictures: Top designs of the year Single Seat Aircraft Designed by e-Go: e-Go aeroplanes has created this striking new single seat aircraft, which costs dramatically less to fly than traditional aircraft. It uses novel technologies to boost performance, and achieves a low cost of development and operation by exploiting the newly deregulated environment in the UK. Very lightweight but strong construction is achieved using ultra-thin carbon fibre and foam – the empty aircraft weights just 115kg
In pictures: Top designs of the year IFmove Bicycle Designed by Section Zero: Pacific Inc’s 9-speed, 11.5kg IFmove unfolds in seconds and combines striking looks with rigid aluminium construction. It can also be rolled along on its 20” light weight wheels whilst folded
Nominated designs will be exhibited at the Design Museum from 26 March until 25 August 2014, with the winners announced later in the year.
“The gaming app that outlives its player, the mobile phone you can build yourself, the bottle caps that turn into building blocks – someday the other museums will be showing this stuff,” the museum said in a statement.
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