New call for tender for Federal Ecodesign Award
Under the motto "Simply green colouring is not enough" a call for tenders for the Federal Ecodesign Award, initiated by the Federal Environment Ministry BMU and the Federal Environmental Agency UBA, has been published for the second time on 14 January 2013. Environmental compatibility and excellent design are no longer mutually exclusive. The organisers want the competition to showcase existing creative potential to improve the ecological characteristics of products and demonstrate how excellent design, aesthetics and environmental protection can go hand in hand. Companies as well as designers can submit ecologically and aesthetically convincing products, services and concepts up to 15 April 2013.
This year there is one additional new category: "Service" for existing services and system solutions. Last year's categories were retained - "Product", for which products available on the German market as well as prototypes ready for market introduction can be submitted, "Concept" for pioneering concepts, studies and model projects, and "Young Talent" for higher education students and graduates.
An interdisciplinary jury comprising ecology and design experts will assess the submitted proposals. Degree of innovation, design quality and ecological features will be of major importance in this context. BMU, UBA and IDZ have jointly developed a criteria matrix which will serve as a basis for the assessment. Developing the format of the competition and realising it was contracted out to the International Design Center Berlin e.V. (IDZ) which is supported in its task by a project advisory board.
The website of the Federal Ecodesign Award offers inspiration and orientation with its online exhibition of nominees and prize winners of the 2012 competition as well as background information on ecodesign. The travelling exhibition with the original prize winners of the 2012 competition will start in Ludwigsburg, where it will be on display from 6 to 16 February 2013. The second stop of the exhibition will be at the Munich Creative Business Week from 21 to 24 February, where it will be part of the special exhibition "mcbw momente – Denkräume für Design" (mcbw moments - mental space for design). From 28 February to 2 April 2013 the exhibition will be on display at the UBA in Dessau, accompanied by a framework program on ecodesign. Further locations are being planned.
Applications and additional information on both the competition and the exhibition are available at www.bundespreis-ecodesign.de (in German, English summary)
Applications can be submitted from 14 January to 15 April 2013.
Jury
Werner Aisslinger (designer)
Dr Kirsten Brodde (author, expert for ecological fashion)
Prof Günter Horntrich (designer, Professor for Design und Ecology at KISD)
Nicola Stattmann (designer, expert in materials)
Prof Rainer Grießhammer (Managing Director Öko-Institut)
Jochen Flasbarth (President UBA)
Ursula Heinen-Esser (Parliamentary State Secretary at the BMU)
Prof Erik Spiekermann (communication designer, typographer and author)
Project advisory board
Dorothea Hess, Alliance of German Designers (AGD)
Anne Farken, BMW Group Designworks USA
Prof Matthias Held and Sabine Lenk, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Designtheorie und -forschung (DGTF)
Lutz Dietzold, Rat für Formgebung
Prof Philipp Oswalt and Katja Klaus, Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau
Prof Susanne Schwarz-Raacke (product design), Prof. Heike Selmer (fashion design) and Prof. Dr. Zane Berzina (textile and surface design), Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weißensee (KHB)
Karin-Simone Fuhs, ecosign/Akademie für Gestaltung
Dr Dietlinde Quack, Öko-Institut
Thomas Wodtke and Hendrik Roch, Fraunhofer-Institut UMSICHT
Stephan Rabl, Handelsverband Deutschland (HDE)
Dr Dominik Klepper, Markenverband
Frauke Rogalla, Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband (vzbv)
IDZ | International Design Center Berlin e. V.
The International Design Center Berlin (IDZ) is a non-profit organisation to promote design and thus committed to the potentials and quality in design. Since its establishment in 1968 the IDZ considers itself to be a center of expertise and a communication platform connecting business, society and culture, dedicated to current as well as future topics and questions in design. Through projects, exhibitions and presentations, IDZ emphasizes various aspects of design, and presents and discusses current design topics. Social, economic and environmental as well as aesthetic considerations are all part of the effort to further the work of designers and to increase design consciousness in consumers, companies and politics alike. www.idz.de