ECO-DESIGN – Design Competition for Sustainable Environment

Design is one of the strongest tools that makes ever improving manufacturing infrastructure in our country, produce more added value. Design can open new paths to create new brands, can create new markets by responding to a new demand and consequently can strengthen our production capacity. However, all these developments bring another responsibility to the designer. Every product manufactured can harm the environment directly or indirectly. The product, while responding to a certain need of the user, can at the same time harm the environment because of the resources it consumes, the energy it spends or the waste it produces. Especially products, responding to the price and fashion oriented expectations of manufacturers and users in the short term, may harm the environment in the long term. Eco-Design conceptual project competition invites designers and all who feel related to design to create design concepts sensitive to the environment. The competition is open to all sustainable solutions towards home and office life, public spaces, transportation vehicles or the environment we are living in and the products we are using in general. 

Eco-design is an approach of decreasing the negative effects of the product to the environment and creating a sustainable environment. Design process pursued with such an approach may consist of following strategies:

1. Using materials which effect the environment less: design towards use of non-toxic or recycled materials, reducing consumption of natural resources
2. Design towards re-use: design allowing re-use of products or their parts for another purpose, whose use life expired or which are unused
3. Creating service system: Instead of consumer goods owned personally, creating new sharing service systems for such products
4. Giving opportunities for maintenance: using changeable parts, providing maintenance and increasing life of the products
5. Energy effective product design: design solutions decreasing the use of energy by products

AIM AND PROCESS

Design Turkey - Conceptual Design Awards are presented every year with a specific theme, in order to encourage creative ideas that will help the industry to find a new path for the future, within the framework of Design Turkey Industrial design Awards organization, by evaluating design projects which are not scheduled for manufacture. The theme for Conceptual Design Awards 2008 is "Eco-Design: Design for Sustainable Environment". Evaluation of conceptual design awards is made by following four stages i.e. application, pre-evaluation, awards and presentation.

APPLICATION

Who can apply?

Projects of participants residing in Turkey or Turkish citizens, projects which are not scheduled for manufacture, can apply to Design Turkey conceptual project evaluation. Evaluation jury members, members' close relatives or projects prepared by the companies where the jury members are working cannot apply for conceptual design awards.

How to apply?

Application to the Conceptual Design Awards are done on the internet. Information about the designer or the design team, information regarding the design concept and conceptual design presentation boards are requested during the application. Personal information of the designers are kept confidential by the award secreteriate in records and are not communicated with the jury members. Application fee is not requested. 

Click here for application form.

EVALUATION

A group of experts of 7, evaluate the applications on the Internet, and eliminate the ones which do not comply with the competition content and application conditions, by also considering originality criteria. The projects which pass the pre-evaluation stage are invited to the exhibition and requested to submit the following material:

1. Conceptual design presentation boards: Maximum 5 Presentation boards not exceeding 5mm. thickness with photoblock back support, in A2 format
2. Exhibition application form indicating the content of the materials delivered.

Conceptual design evaluation is done on the exhibited projects by the jury according to conceptual project criteria. The following criteria are graded by each jury member. Jury gives its final decision on the awards in consensus.

Evaluation Criteria

1. Innovation : to create a totally new product concept or to bring a new approach to an existing product
2. Responding to the foreseen need : The potential of the design to respond to the foreseen need and target group
3. Realizibility : Realizibility of the design concept with current technologies or whether the proposed technology and oportunities for manufacturing are realistic or not
4. Aesthetic Contribution : Visual attractiveness of design
5. Level of development and detailing : How deeply configured the project with its user scenario and technical details.

JURY

Jury is formed of seven experts who have knowledge on sustainable design and production, and environment friendly products in national and international scale, who have professional and academical works on these matters.

İlknur Baylakoğlu (Tübitak Space Technologies Research Institute, Chief Researcher, Reliability Specialist)
Aldo Cibic (Cibic & Partners, Architect and Designer)
Banu Dökmecibaşı (Greenpeace Mediterranean Office, Campaign Representative, Industrial Designer)
Merih Kunur (RCA Vehicle Design, Industrial/Vehicle Designer, Researcher)
Eero Miettinen (Nokia Design Director)
Can Özcan (İzmir University of Economics, Chair of Department of Industrial Design)
Owain Pedgley (Cool Acoustics, Product Designer)

AWARDS

Further to the jury evaluation, maximum five designs which fulfill conceptual design criteria best, receive conceptual design awards. Awards are announced the next day of jury evaluation together with the exhibition opening with the award ceremony to the press and public. During the exhibition the award winning designs are indicated. All projects passing the pre-evaluation stage are published in the Design Turkey Awards annual catalogue and web site. Annual catalogues are sent to all participating companies and designers of Design Turkey Awards free of charge.   

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

• During the evaluation, names of the applicants will be kept confidential. Any expression indicating the identity of the applicant must be avoided in the texts explaining the project and on the presentation boards.
• All application information and visuals and presentation boards submitted to exhibition hall, can be exhibited in different cities and countries by the organizers.
• The organizers have the right to publish and keep in archive all projects applied to the competition.
• All materials submitted for the exhibition need to be taken by the applicants at the end of exhibitions.  Organizers are no longer responsible for the materials which are not taken in time. However, the organizers may keep the materials for traveling exhibitions, by informing the applicants five days prior to  end of the exhibitions.
• Products might be transported by the Design Turkey organisation. Every effort will be made to ensure the security of materials submitted by the applicant during assessment and exhibition. Design Turkey organisation accepts no responsibility for any damage or loss caused to any submission material during transportation, handling or storage and that packaging, transportation and insurance of any submission material is the responsibility of the applicant. Due to the highly fragile nature of some submission material, please be aware that damage or loss might occur. Insurance to cover damage or loss should be considered if the value of the item is considerable.
• Projects submitted to the exhibition should be original. If the designs or presentation materials are not original and violates third parties' intellectual property rights, organizers can not be taken reponsible.
• All intellectual property rights of the projects belong to project owner applicant or applicants.
• The responsibility to take necessary actions to protect the intellectual property rights of the projects belong to the applicants, in case of copying of the projects the organizers are not responsible.
• The names and address of the participants will be shown on all submissions in the exhibion and publications.

IMPORTANT DATES