Bustler: Red Dot Design Award Winners for Architecture and ...

Since 1955, the in Essen, Germany has been marking outstanding international product design with its famous dot. Manufacturers and designers of a wide variety of industrial products can enter their work all year round in different product groups for the coveted red dot award. BMW 7 Series Dealer Drive Event Manufacturer: BMW Group, Germany Design: (Sylvia Demes, Uwe Prell, Christoph Schmuck, Mischa Schulze, Andreas Stephan, Gregor Siber), Germany They represent luxury and splendid variety. A similar aesthetic, and with it the implied lifestyle, is taken up in the temporary architecture for a six-week product presentation event for the BMW 7 Series, which too embodies an impressive scenario. Set against the monumental castle facade, which serves as both the setting for the presentation of the vehicle fleet and the gala dinners, the design aims at creating an atmosphere of luxurious and glamorous opulence. Even though this might at first surprise beholders as being a dramaturgically staged contrast, the concept still manages to harmoniously combine the castle facade with the other architectural elements: the pavilion for the presentation of the vehicles features a clear layout with flowing lines that make the outside and the inside spaces blend into one another, lending the architecture an exciting feel of transparency. The interior itself showcases a rather reduced design, yet with colossal luminaries that create a visual link to the large-size castle facade. By now, ornithologists and engineers also take advantage of this effect with regard to glass architecture: since birds often hurt themselves when crashing unwillingly into transparent or reflecting surfaces, the idea was to use the bird’s special ability to perceive UV light and put it to use in protecting them. The design of the Ornilux Mikado bird-protection glass translates this profound discovery into an impressive product: it provides architecture with the possibility of making window panes and glass fronts safer from now on for all birds without the need to resort to special stickers. This innovative bird protection glass was developed in close collaboration with the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology at the Radolfzell ornithological station and its effectiveness was tested in a flight passage with real birds. At the same time it incorporates a design that creates something new in harmony with nature. Van Gogh Museum Shop (Gesina Roters, Louk de Sévaux, Mette Hoekstra), NL Museums such as the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam are true crowd pullers. The task to extend the museum shop and at the same time enrich the architecture both in function and aesthetics was therefore a big challenge. The new museum shop was to be larger than before, serve substantially more visitors, and live up to the international reputation of the museum. The architectural conclusion follows an environmental design, which subtly integrates the shop into the existing monumental museum architecture, while at the same time retaining the shop’s sense of architectural uniqueness. The detailed grid of the building developed by Gerrit Rietveld served as a visual guideline for the shop’s interior design: it was used as a point of orientation in proportioning all components of the store into a well-balanced unity. The result is a shop that aims to impress museum visitors though its bold design.