The jury of the German Design Awards 2024 has selected the five finalists for the “Newcomer” award: Leonie Burkhardt, Justus Hilfenhaus, Nicolas König, studio formagora (Finn Blankenberg, Esra Heuermann, Nick Potter) and Sebastian Winter impressed the jury with their portfolios from the disciplines of textile design, product design, architecture, participatory design, and digital design.

With innovative solutions for current social and ecological issues and forward-looking ideas, projects, and products at a high level of design, they impressively demonstrate the crucial role that young design talents play in the successful transformation processes of our time.

The award demonstrates the importance of young design for the competitiveness and future viability of medium-sized companies. As drivers of further development, young designers with their future skills are decisive for their innovative expertise.

Collaborative work, interdisciplinary exchange, openness, a love of experimentation and a spirit of research are common features of the finalists’ portfolios. They all deal with opportunities for change, react to a faster-changing world, work conceptually and experimentally and dare to find playful solutions to complex challenges.

The jury of the German Design Awards 2024 was impressed by the wide range of content, diversity of perspectives and their respective implementation in practice.  They can win the German Design Award, endowed with 15,000 euros and will be presented on 26 January 2024 in Frankfurt am Main.

The 5 finalists and their work:

Leonie Burkhardt (Textile Design)
Leonie Burkhardt was born in Heilbronn in 1994. After a two-year au pair stay in New Jersey, USA, she began a Bachelor’s degree in Textile Design at HAW Hamburg in 2016 and went to KMITL in Bangkok for an interim semester from 2018 to 2019. After completing her Bachelor’s degree in Hamburg, she moved to the Swedish School of Textiles in Borås for her Master’s degree in 2020, where she graduated in 2022. She was a scholarship holder of the German National Academic Foundation from 2019 to 2022. She gained practical experience through internships at Talbot Runhof and Kvadrat, among others. She has already shown her work in numerous international exhibitions such as the Dutch Design Week, the Milan Design Week and the International Biennal of Crafts and Creation in Paris. Leonie Burkhardt now works as a freelancer in the field of textile design. The core of her work is experimenting with textiles. Material and technology, innovation and craftsmanship are directly linked in her work: for example, she creates unusual projects and three-dimensional textile objects using both weaving and shrink yarn.

Justus Hilfenhaus (Product Design)
Justus Hilfenhaus was born in Offenbach in 1997. In 2016, he began studying product design at the Bauhaus University in Weimar, which he interrupted for a semester of industrial design at the Pratt Institute in New York. He also completed an internship at Studio Hanne Willmann in Berlin, where he continued to work as a designer after completing his bachelor’s degree in 2021. In 2022, he decided to study for a master’s degree in product design at the ECAL in Lausanne. Justus Hilfenhaus works in different product worlds as a matter of course: In the lights, electrical appliances or furniture he develops with great precision, the focus is always on designing products that offer exceptional and surprising added value.

Nicolas König (Architecture)
Nicolas König was born in Aachen in 1994. He studied architecture at the Berlin University of the Arts and the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen. In spring 2023, he completed his Master of Science with distinction as a DAAD scholarship holder at ETH Zurich under VOLUPTAS and Prof. Laurent Stalder. In addition to numerous engagements as a student assistant with Professors Christ & Gantenbein, Günther Vogt and Anne Holtrop, among others, he has already gained professional experience at OFFICE kgdvs in Brussels and at Muck Petzet and Felgendreher Olfs Köchling in Berlin. With his research-orientated work, Nicolas König pursues the goal of creating structures in the built environment that relate to and harmonise with the natural environment. His techno-ecological narratives move between physical fragments, experimental documentation and spatial investigations.

studio formagora (Product design / Participatory design)
studio formagora is a young studio for social design and transformative processes founded in Münster in 2022. studio formagora was founded by Finn Blankenberg (*1996 in Hamburg), Nick Potter (*1994 in Reinbeck) and Esra Heuermann (*1992 in Benkel). The three designers, who are also carpenters, met in their first semester at the Academy of Design of the Münster Chamber of Crafts and completed their studies in the same period from 2019 to 2022. studio formagora sees the design process as a tool and catalyst for change processes, whereby design is always understood politically by the three founders. Their thematic areas are socio-ecological change and participation. Encounters, furnishing public spaces and craftsmanship are core elements of their work.

Sebastian Winter (Communication Design / Digital Design)
Sebastian Winter was born in Stuttgart in 1996. Before he began studying media design at DHBW Ravensburg in 2017, he completed an apprenticeship as a graphic designer at the Johannes-Gutenberg vocational college in Stuttgart. In 2016, Winter began working as a trainee developer at Strichpunkt Design in Stuttgart, which accompanied him as a partner from the start of his dual study programme until his graduation in 2020. In 2020, Winter focussed on interaction design at Strichpunkt Design. He has been working as a freelance Interaction Designer & Creative Developer since December 2022. Since 2021, he has also been teaching interface design and creative coding in seminars and workshops at the HBK Essen, and currently also at the DHBW Ravensburg and the Bauhaus University Weimar on interface design. Sebastian Winter’s work aims to make complex content as accessible as possible, especially in the fields of education and science. The designer uses creative coding to promote interaction and open up a dialogue.

Further information under:  www.german-design-award.com/en/the-newcomer.html

Tom Reynolds, chief executive at the Bathroom Manufacturers Association, outlines the water efficiency labelling regulations expected to come into force by 2025.

As I write, the devasting consequences of Storm Babet are coming to light with the Environment Secretary, Therese Coffey, saying the damage was harder to predict because of “rain coming from the other way, and we don’t have quite as much experience on that”. It feels like a weak excuse and highlights our inadequate infrastructure. But it also highlights a UK-wide conundrum: it rains a lot, yet we have a severe water scarcity challenge to address.

Defra’s statistics say we will need an additional 4,000 million litres of water a day by 2050, almost a third (28.5%) of current public water supplied in England, with over half of it coming from reduced demand. Their target is to reduce public water supply use by 20% for each person by 2038 through measures including “to make regulations to introduce a mandatory water efficiency label to inform consumers and encourage the purchase of more water-efficient products for both domestic and business use”.

At the end of September, Defra published the long-awaited response to its consultation on mandatory water efficiency labelling (MWEL), in which the BMA had provided expert input. The headlines include a projected launch of MWEL regulations next year with implementation by 2025, covering toilets, urinals, taps, showers (including electric models), dishwashers, washing machines, and washer-dryers. Notably, manufacturers must adhere to any new technical criteria and testing.

While we welcome and champion attempts for water efficiency to address our water scarcity challenges, if Defra continues its current intentions for the MWEL, it will have missed an enormous opportunity and potentially cost the taxpayer around £20m unnecessarily.

The UK already has the Unified Water Label (UWL), a voluntary initiative that provides detailed water and energy information for water-related products. IKEA and BMA’s branded manufacturers have adopted the UWL to highlight their products’ water usage. With water-use ratings and an accessible online database, this label enables informed choices for customers, architects, specifiers, and end users. It maintains reliability through strict technical criteria and annual audits.

The BMA will continue proactive dialogue with Defra to reach a sensible conclusion which could see the utilisation of the UWL. In the meantime, I would urge architects and designers to remain aware of their opportunity to play a vital role in reducing our water use by specifying water-efficient products, many of which are available through the UWL scheme. Regulation is coming, so awareness and practice for water efficiency should be addressed quickly.

The Thomas Crapper team has successfully cycled 250 miles to raise money for Bowel Cancer UK and to spread the word about the importance of early diagnosis.

The team took time out of their busy schedules to take part in a static bike ride at the Huddersfield HQ. So far, £1,410 has been raised for the charity, and the JustGiving page is still open, so there is time to donate.

Managing director (and cyclist!), Paul Dwyer, comments: “We were eager to start raising money for Bowel Cancer UK and, as the Thomas Crapper team is small and mighty, we decided on a static bike ride as our first fundraising event. The date was set, bikes were sourced, social team was briefed, PR and marketing content was in place…and we were off!”

All-in-all, the event was a huge success with the Thomas Crapper team reaching 250 miles way faster than anticipated. It was agreed that the next event will have to be more of a challenge. Stay tuned!

Bowel Cancer UK is the UK’s leading bowel cancer charity. The team is on a mission to save lives and improve the quality of life of everyone affected by bowel cancer. Every year, nearly 43,000 people in the UK are told that they have bowel cancer. It is the UK’s second biggest cancer killer – over 16,500 people die from the disease each year. However, bowel cancer is treatable and curable if caught early and around 90% of people will survive for five years or more. Together we can work towards a world where no one dies of bowel cancer.

For more information on Thomas Crapper, please visit www.thomas-crapper.com.

For more information on Bowel Cancer UK, please visit www.bowelcanceruk.org.uk

Pictured is some of Thomas Crapper team during the 250 mile cycle.