The first bit of positive news we’d like to share this year came from the Chicago Museum of Architecture and Design. Our Emau bench and Elk bicycle stand have won a prestigious GOOD DESIGN award for 2021.
“The award won by their designs is testament to them having the highest standards in their field,” said Christian Narkiewicz-Laine, architecture critic and main curator, congratulating the winners. In the words of the organisers, the main philosophy of the GOOD DESIGN awards is to recognise the impact design has on people’s lives, and to understand that design is not just about the object created, but also about the experience and how it makes you feel, think and act.
“We’re proud of this GOOD DESIGN award and the recognition from professionals who truly understand what it means to design for the public realm,” said our chief designer and co-creator of both award-winning products, David Karásek. “It’s not traditional furniture. Nevertheless, we are setting the bar for design as if it were furniture. Furniture that must meet standards a thousand times more exacting than anything we have at home, thanks to the host of limitations on materials and technologies, as well as ensuring resistance against bad weather and vandalism,” he concluded.
A phoenix among park benches. This is Emau.
Design: David Karásek, Viktor Šašinka
– A continuous band of wooden slats joins the seat and backrest into one elegant whole piece
– The bench becomes almost invisible when the hardwood is swapped out for transparent steel slats
– An aesthetically slim side profile inspired by the brutalist architecture of the 1960s
Even prettier when no one’s around. This is Elk.
Design: David Karásek, Herrmann&Coufal
– A bicycle stand as a functional sculpture which both blends with its surroundings and brings them new emphasis
– Minimalist design (as you are used to from us)
– Its deformed elliptical shape sits firmly upon the pavement
Did you know:
At the very first GOOD DESIGN awards in 1950, famous designers Eero Saarinen and married couple Charles and Ray Eams were in attendance. To this day it remains the oldest and most world-renowned evaluation of quality design anywhere in the world, organised under the auspices of the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design in partnership with the European Centre for Architecture, Art, Design and Urban Studies. The number of entries for this design competition is growing every year, and the organisers say 2021 saw a record high. That makes the honour of being on the list of winners all the greater.
Have a GOOD year. We already do.
