Report on the IAUD International Design Award 2022 Presentation and Awards Ceremony

The projected screen during the ceremony: the certificate of the Grand Award

The IAUD International Design Award 2022 Presentation and Awards Ceremony was successfully held online on March 1st, 2023 Wednesday. It received appx.200 participants from 14 countries and as information accessibility, simultaneous interpretation (Japanese / English) and Japanese captioning service (automatic translation for other languages) were delivered.

The IAUD International Design Award was established in 2010 in order to promote and champion UD by recognizing and rewarding outstanding achievements and in particular products that ensure people of all ages and abilities can enjoy an active, independent and productive life. The number of the applications from various fields has been increasing every time and those applications are from various countries. The awards ceremony was held in Munich, Germany in 2017 and in Bangkok, Thailand in 2018 although it was held online last two years.

There were 31 entries from 8 countries (China, Germany, Israel, Japan, Korea, Norway, Spain and UK). Carrying out strictly neutral examinations, the IAUD International Design Award 2022 Selection Committee selected 2 winners of the “Grand Awards”, 8 winners of the “Gold Awards”, 8 winners of the “Silver Awards”, 4 winners of the “Bronze Awards” and 1 winner of the “Student Design Challenge Award” were selected.

At the ceremony, all the winners were announced in order from the Grand Awards by Mr. Keiji Kawahara, the member of the Selection Committee / IAUD Executive Director / Professor Emeritus, Nagoya University of Arts and Sciences.
Mr. Fumikazu Masuda, Co-chair of the Selection Committee / President, open house inc., presented the award certificates to the award winners.

After that, Ms. Onny Eikhaug Chair of the Selection Committee/ Executive Board, EIDD Design for All Europe, Norway, offered a critique: “The IAUD Design Award is an international award – the only global one recognizing and honoring outstanding and exemplary projects based on the principles of universal design. We have award winning social innovation projects enabling diverse people to live independently and sustainably through new services. This year the international jury selected two Grand Award winners, complementing each other in two completely different categories. Both represent outstanding and pioneering examples of universal design. They demonstrate how research, and deep insights of user needs can lead to extraordinary results. Their inclusive design processes involving different user groups at every stage using appropriate tools and methods are worthy a textbook case presentation.”

Moreover Mr. Masuda commented: “We are now moving toward an era in which we recognize diversity in the global community and consider mechanisms that allow for it. The IAUD International Design Award has a role to serve as a forum for the free exchange of opinions and for open discussion beyond standpoints in order to design the principles of nature and the ideal form of human society.”

Then, other members of the Selection Committee also commented and celebrated the winners. The jury members are as follows;

From left:
Mr. Thomas Bade (Founder & Partner, Institute for Universal Design, Germany)
Mr. Rama Gheerawo (Director, Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design, Royal College of Art, UK)
Mr. Francesc Aragall (President, Design for All Foundation: Spain)
Ms. Antika Sawadsri (Dean, School of Architecture, Art, and Design, King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang, Thailand)
Ms. Valerie Fletcher (Executive Director, Institute for Human-Centered Design: USA)

After the citations, all the Grand Awards winners, Gold Awards winners and Award of Excellence for Student Design Challenge winner gave their presentations remotely. Their presentations were very informative and wonderful.

In the end, Online Get-together was taken place among the all participants. We shared valuable time.

IAUD will hold the “IAUD International Design Award 2023” this year. The application guidelines will be posted on the IAUD official website in the near future. We look forward to receiving your applications.

Please visit IAUD website for the details;
Announcement of Award Winners
Full Citations