The world’s biggest design prize, INDEX: Award has announced their 2013 recipients. From the Danish capital’s pioneering plan of how to address the changing climate to a Dutch take on intelligent roads of the future, each of the five recipients will receive a €100,000 award to implement their ideas which all offer sustainable solutions to global challenges.
The INDEX: Award 2013 recipients are:
Smart Highway / Daan Roosegaarde
Dutch designer Daan Roosegaarde’s has received an INDEX: Award 2013 Winner in the Community Category as well as the People’s Choice Award on CNN.com for his project Smart Highway, a whole new road experience to be realized already by the second half of 2013.
“We live in cities of endless gray concrete roads, surrounded by steel lamps and they have a huge visual impact on our cities. But why do the roads remain so rough and without imagination? Why not turn them into a vision of mobility – a symbol of the future?” Daan Roosegaarde asks.
Smart Highway is an interactive and sustainable road, developed in collaboration with Heijmans Infrastructure, that includes a five-step plan for modernizing European roadways. It proposes embedding highways with technology that can visually communicate when the road is slippery, charge your electric car as you drive, and generate electricity for its own lights. The goal is to make roads more sustainable and interactive by using light, energy and road signs that automatically adapt to the traffic situation. New design concepts include the ‘Glow-in-the-Dark Road’, ‘Dynamic Paint’, ‘Interactive Light’, ‘Induction Priority Lane’ and ‘Wind Light’.
Daan Roosegaarde is awarded for a design that the INDEX: Award Jury is confident will spin out to many sustainable and cost-efficient innovations in the years to come. Innovations that will all carry a large potential to improve life for people. More information on the project can be found here.
Copenhagen Climate Adaptation Plan / The City of Copenhagen
Danish capital Copenhagen received an INDEX: Award 2013 for the city’s climate adaptation plan, a plan that provides a unique and robust framework for a massive influx of sustainable design solutions in the future.
“Copenhagen is already a world leader for green and sustainable solutions. By implementing the Copenhagen Climate Adaptation Plan, the city can stimulate growth and sustainability at the same time. We believe that a climate proof city is more attractive to live and invest in”, says Frank Jensen Lord Mayor of Copenhagen.
The climate adaptation plan is tightly interlinked with Copenhagen’s other key plans for green, sustainable, social and economic development. Taken together, the plans serve as the framework for hundreds of Danish designers, architects and engineers working on designing solutions for a vibrant and resilient metropolis of the 21st century.
The INDEX: Award jury’s motivations for awarding this design is that in a year where climate adaptation plans are mandatory in all municipalities throughout Denmark – and a central focus of city administrations around the world – Copenhagen Climate Adaptation Plan really stands out with its main focus on seeing flooding and climate adaptation as a resource rather than a problem, benefiting businesses and citizens alike. Thus, by rethinking climate adaptations as a whole, via in-depth analyzes, the Danish capital will use excess water as a vital resource – while implementing flexible design solutions that reduce construction work and saves money for the city.
Copenhagen Climate Adaptation Plan also stands out because it is based on public-private partnerships and, as opposed to many other climate adaptation plans, is of value because it has been passed in the Copenhagen City Council, in a city of relatively longsighted planning. More information on the plan can be found here.
The other three non-architecturally related award winners include:
- FreshPaper: a revolutionary and simple sheet of paper keeping produce fresh 4 times longer.
- The Natalie Collection: a trio of birth simulating devices preventing child and maternal death.
- Raspberry Pi: a $25 computer aiming to digitalize the whole world.
News via INDEX: Design to Improve Life.
