Life-enhancing innovations to help people with visual impairments to navigate the internet, wheelchair users to negotiate the urban environment, autistic children to communicate and diabetics to manage their condition, were among the award-winning projects created by graduating Masters students at the Royal College of Art in the Helen Hamlyn Design Awards 2011.
The Helen Hamlyn Design Awards, organised by the RCA’s Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design, recognise outstanding student projects that are based on user research and address a genuine social need. Royal College of Art Rector, Dr Paul Thompson, comments: “These awards demonstrate how young designers across a wide range of disciplines can put social activism and good citizenship at the centre of their work.”
The four main award categories were sponsored by Age UK, the Technology Strategy Board, Clearblue – and GMW Architects, which rewarded a campaigning architectural project to use unoccupied space on a London high street for educational purposes.
Representatives from each organisation handed over the prizes at an awards ceremony on 28 June 2011 as part of the Royal College of Art’s Innovation Night. There was a total prize fund of £10,000.
Helen Hamlyn, founder of the Helen Hamlyn Trust, which has endowed the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design at the RCA, gave her own personal award to a project which redesigned the traditional black bag used by nurses on home visits.
There was also a special award for alumni of the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design, given this year to industrial designers Edward Goodwin and Richard Hartshorn for their work in keyhole and robotic surgery.
For a list of all the winning projects and find out more about the Helen Hamlyn Design Awards 2011, see the website: www.hhc.rca.ac.uk
