INDEX: Design to Improve Life Awards 2011

INDEX dreams of a world that is designed to suit the needs and aspirations of mankind. Their ten years of experience have shown, through thousands of conversations and thousands of life-improving designs, that design is a decisive factor towards creating a better world.

The 60 finalists for INDEX: Award 2011 have been carefully selected by the international INDEX: Jury as the best of the best Design to Improve Life. As a whole, the finalist group offers unique proof of the wide reach and huge potential of Design to Improve Life in terms of challenges addressed, solutions created and people affected. More images and description after the break.

We promote the application of designs and design processes to improve vital areas of people’s lives worldwide, and to us, the best definition of design has been expressed by our jury member Professor John Heskett, who said that “Design is the human capacity to shape and make our environments in ways that satisfy our needs and give meaning to our lives.”

Design offers environmental, social, and economically sustainable tools to make the world a safe and better environment for people, and design processes are the ways of working that identify solutions based on the knowledge, responsiveness, and methodology of designers.

INDEX: challenges the traditional concepts and stereotypes of design while highlighting the complexity of the design field, demonstrating very different solutions to problems such as HIV/AIDS, scarcity of potable water, and carbon emissions. We inspire, collect, advocate, communicate, evaluate, connect, and discuss Design to Improve Life on a global scale.

Finalists for 2011 include, but are not limited to:

The Cheonggyecheon Restoration Project
Category: Community Category
Designers: Seoul Metropolitan Government team (Republic of Korea), 2000′s

Learning Landscape
Category: Play Category
Designers: Heleen de Goey (the Netherlands), Ilona de Jongh (the Netherlands), Matthew Miller, Neha Thatte, Emily Pilloton, Kristina Drury and Dan Grossman (United States of America), 2008

Green School
Category: Community Category
Designers: Cynthia Hardy (United States of America) and John Hardy (Canada), 2007

High Line
Category: Community Category
Designers: James Corner, Lisa Tziona Switkin, Nahyun Hwang, Sierra Bainbridge, Tom Jost, Danilo Martic, Tatiana von Preussen, Maura Rockcastle, Tom Ryan, Lara Shihab-Eldin, Heeyeun Yoon, Hong Zhou, Elizabeth Diller, Ricardo Scofidio, Charles Renfro, Matthew Johnson, Robert Condon, Tobias Hegemann, Gaspar Libedinsky, Jeremy Linzee, Miles Nelligan, Dan Sakai, Joshua David and Robert Hammond (United States of America), 2008

ELEMENTAL Monterrey
Category: Home Category
Designers: ELEMENTAL, Alejandro Aravena, Fernando García-Huidobro and Gonzalo Arteaga (Mexico), 2008

Design Seoul
Category: Community Category
Designers: Seoul Metropolitan Government Team (Republic of Korea), 2007

Aqaucube
Category: Community Category
Designers: Hugh O’Donnell and Dr. Keith Gavin (United Kingdom), 2007