Meet the Henry van de Velde Gold Award Winners 19!

It goes without saying that Flemish design and Flemish designers are a force to be reckoned with. The Henry van de Velde Awards, organised by Flanders DC, reward designers, design companies, design products, design projects and design services and does so for 25 years. ​ 

“The Henry van de Velde Awards are often referred to in the media as the ‘Oscars’ of design in Flanders. And they really are. They are the oldest and best-known design awards in Belgium. Companies and designers dearly want to win one and are disappointed if they don’t. Winning a Henry van de Velde Award means attention, prestige, and recognition and leads to increased sales or new customers. For the past 25 years, the awards have also been a catalyst to illustrate the breadth of design: design is about creating the products and also the services that solve the problems of companies and ordinary people. By highlighting these projects, companies and designs, the Henry van de Velde Awards have played a role in spreading this message.” Pascal Cools, Managing Director of Flanders DC

Flanders DC announced the Henry van de Velde Award Winners 19 last fall. They are 23, divided over 8 categories. One winner out of every category will be the Henry van de Velde Gold Award Winner. This will be announced the 29th January, together with the awards for Lifetime Achievement, Company, Young Talent and Public.

These are the 12 Henry van de Velde Gold Award Winners 19:

Henry van de Velde Lifetime Achievement Gold Award 19

This award honours a designer or design studio which has operated for at least 30 years and has had a national, and certainty international, impact at the economic, social and/or cultural level as a result of his/her/its design activities.

Vincent Van Duysen wins the Lifetime Achievement Award. The jury appreciates Vincent's broad vision, who views architecture, interior and furniture design as a single whole, and praises his refined and timeless, read durable, aesthetic. This has not escaped Belgian manufacturers such as Tribu, When Objects Work and Bulo. International brands such as B&B Italia, Flos and Herman Miller also took a great liking to him thanks to his choice of materials and eye for detail. He also immediately clicked with Italy's Molteni & C, which quickly appointed him creative director after a few stand-alone collaborations, above all due to his overall vision. Not a single designer outside Italy has repeated that feat. This year, the Henry van de Velde Awards jury also wanted to reward that international recognition with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Henry van de Velde Company Gold Award 19

A prize for private or public sector organisations which make strategic use of design and designers in their company or institution.

This award goes to De Zetel. In recent years, they have consistently and emphatically combined their craftsmanship with a striking design in which they, together with the designers, thoroughly examine the possibilities of wood, a quality that really appeals to the jury.

Henry van de Velde Young Talent Gold Award 19

This is the incentive prize for a young talent or bureau which has been active in the industry for no more than 10 years.

The jury honors not one designer this year, but by awarding BRUT Collective, no less than 6 young talents: Ben Storms, Bram Vanderbeke, Cédric Etienne (Studio Corkinho), Charlotte Jonckheer, Linde Freya Tangelder (Destroyers/Builders) and Nel Verbeke. It was impossible for the jury to ignore the number one revelation of Milan 2018. The presentation of the brand-new BRUT Collective immediately had a major international impact. The strength of this collective stems from the individual strengths of the six young designers who make up the group. Each with his or her own oeuvre, each with a refined design language, each with his or her specific materials, insights and vision and together so much more than their sum.

Henry van de Velde Ecodesign by OVAM Gold Award 19

A prize for products or services which are created in accordance with the principles of eco design or have a positive effect on the environment.

The innovative, sustainable HNST jeans collection is the result of the collaboration between a creative start-up and many other partners. In an initial phase there was the extraordinary collaboration with textile company European Spinning Group (ESG) that produces textile yarns for different markets and applications. Both partners had previously chosen for open innovation, co-creation and circular design as a business model. The ESG Green yarn used for weaving the HNST jeans collection symbolises this new “design thinking” in classical sectors.

The jury found the collaboration between ESG and HNST worthy of a Henry van de Velde Award as a positive and inspiring signal that the entire value chain is important in the design process and that co-creation and collaboration between the creative sector, the social economy, the local textile industry and partners in education and research pays off in all areas.

^{HNST jeanscollection & ESG Green, Collaboration between a start-up and traditional industry. Development & Design of the HNST jeans collection HNST. Development & Production of ESG Green European Spinning Group. Visual identity Pinkeye.}

"Together with Flanders DC, OVAM has been presenting Ecodesign awards for over 10 years. We reward products that have a positive effect on the environment and on our society and which have the ability to change our economic model. Today, I am extremely proud to say that this award has sparked change in an entire industry. Today, ecology has become a given for most product designers. This is why HNST jeans with ESG yarn are the latest product to receive a Henry van de Velde Award Ecodesign by OVAM. We continue to encourage designers to push their boundaries, and in the future we will reward the designers themselves for doing just that.” Henny De Baets, Administrator-General of OVAM

Henry van de Velde Business Gold Award 19

Aa prize for innovative machines, installations and tools, transport tools and automation systems, made to be used in the industries or professional surroundings such as medical care, construction, agriculture. The focus is on efficiency gains, dismountability, modularity, automation, new technologies, robotisation,...

With the Barco UniSee® platform, Barco has completely redesigned and optimised every part of a LCD video wall solution. During a design-driven innovation process, in which - at every step - all that was superfluous was omitted and the necessary simplifications made, the design team came up with a solution which has a superior picture quality which, moreover, is self-aligning and easy to install and operate.

^{Barco UniSee®, LCD-videowall platform. Design Barco designteam, Client Barco.}

Henry van de Velde Community Gold Award 19

A prize for innovative and sustainable products, services and systems where a multidisciplinary team (scientists, sociologists, psychologists, etc.) has been involved from the start, just as all potential stakeholders. This way, these solutions contribute to a better world and have a broad support.

The Sint Jozef building of PC Caritas in Melle has unexpectedly been given a second life as a monumental outdoor space open to patients, staff, visitors and local residents. The monumental outdoor space was given the name Kanunnik Petrus Jozef Triest Plein to emphasise that it is not an empty building, but a space of possibilities for patients, personnel and residents alike.

^{Kanunnik Petrus Jozef Triest Plein, Concept & Design: Architecten De Vylder Vinck Taillieu, in collaboration with architects BAVO & work groups of doctors, management, staff and patients. Opdrachtgever: KARUS.}

Henry van de Velde Consumer Gold Award 19

A prize for end products that have a positive impact on the life of the individual. It makes life easier, it makes life better and they are developed for individual use and productivity, within the areas of lifestyle, work, nutrition, media and entertainment.

Acacia is a compact, asymmetric parasol that provides you with shade wherever you want it. Like the African tree of the same name, thanks to its eccentric shape, it manages to capture as much sunshine as a larger specimen despite its small textile surface.

^{Acacia, Parasol. Design Dirk Wynants Design Works, Client Extremis.}

Henry van de Velde Graphic & Packaging Gold Award 19

A prize for the innovative development and design of letters, packaging and printed media, and for new media or new applications of existing media that have improved and/or altered communications directed at the consumer in an original manner.

Frieke Janssens' images are sumptuously beautiful, but touch upon subjects that aren't: death, smoking, drinking, and the battle between the sexes. During the briefing of The Sweetest Taboo Frieke Janssens gave an extensive explanation of the detailed method her style of photography requires. The generous format of the book enables details of Frieke's photography to be shown in full glory. Typography is chosen and set in such a way that it feels very detailed and well chosen, such as the work of Frieke Janssens.

^{The Sweetest Taboo, Boek. Design Superset, Client Lannoo.}

Henry van de Velde Habitat Gold Award 19

A prize for products, objects, services and systems for the private space and living space as well as work space.

When you have a single connection point in combination with suspended lighting, you almost never have the possibility to orient the light source. On top of that, adjustable spots mounted on the ceiling can often be very glary. Marbul Suspension Adjustable solves these problems in a very elegant way through an ingenious rotation system that is partly in the spherical lamp housing and partly in the cylinder or the built-in connection point. Hereby the suspended light source achieves an inclination of 45° and a rotation of 360°, so that after installation you can still direct the light to any desired location.

^{Marbul Suspension Adjustable, Architectural lighting, adjustable hanging lamp. Design Jeffrey Huyghe, Client Modular Lighting Instruments.}

Henry van de Velde Health & Wellbeing Gold Award 19

A prize for products and services that promote the physical or mental wellbeing of individual persons.

The Belun ring is a non-invasive solution that monitors the sleep quality of its user. It analyses the amount of oxygen in your blood, your stress level, and provides a picture of the different phases in your sleep. An important target group is formed by those people who suffer from obstructive sleep apnoea (OSAS).

^{Belun Ring, Pulsoximeter to measure sleep quality. Design Studio Dott. Client Belun Technology Company.}

Henry van de Velde Mobility Gold Award 19

A prize for products or services that make the transport of people or goods easier, or for systems that have a positive impact on the mobility of civilians in private or public spaces.

Addax Motors developed the Addax MT10, a 100% electric, green, compact, manoeuvrable and pleasantly quiet vehicle, which is available with an open or closed body and with many other options. Thanks to the size and flexibility of the chassis in combination with a considerable carrying capacity of up to 1000 kg, the Addax MT is perfectly adapted for short distance transport and specially developed for the professional market.

^{ADDAX MT, Elektrisch vrachtwagentje. Design Eduardo Gonzalez, Client Addax.}

Henry van de Velde Public Gold Award 19

When we launched the 23 Henry van de Velde Winners last fall, the public at large was asked to vote for its favourite design. 5.318 persons did so and voted. Out of the 23 Henry van de Velde Winners, the NMBS M7, the new double-decker train designed by Yellow Window, (design: Axel Enthoven & Eric Govers) for Bombardier and the NMBS-SNCB was the clear winner.

Jury

No meaningful prizes without a powerful jury. This is this editions jury: Ronald Bastiaens, An Bogaerts, Evelien Bracke, Tom Delaey, Frederik De Smedt, Peter Ghyczy, Katrien Laporte, Kriistina Lassus, Giovanna Massoni, Chris Meplon, Hilde Peleman, Hugo Puttaert, Liv Vaisberg, Heleen Van Loon, Lise Van Tendeloo, Saskia Westerduin and Anne van der Zwaag.

Exhibition

The Henry van de Velde Awards 19

The Foyers at BOZAR, Ravensteinstraat 23, 1000 Brussels, Belgium, www.bozar.be

30/01-24/03/2019

Free entry

The catalogue is for sale in the BOZAR Bookshop for 10 euros.

The exhibition and the catalogue are made by Flanders DC.

Open: Tuesday - Sunday from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. On Thursday from 10 a.m. until 9 p.m. ​

Organisation

The Henry van de Velde Awards are distributed by Flanders DC and its partners, the OVAM and the Center for Fine Arts Brussels/BOZAR, with the support by Flanders Innovation & Entrepreneurship.