Design Museum starts up sustainable awards

THE DESIGN MUSEUM is to launch a 40 000 global award scheme next week, in a bid to encourage the design of sustainable products and architecture.

Called Design Sense, the scheme is, claims a Design Museum spokesman, the first UK award to honour the sustainability of design. It is being sponsored by British Steel as part of its Design Futures initiative.

The winner will be judged by a single set of criteria applied to both architectural and product entries. The judging panel will include: director of Ideo Europe Tim Brown, Tomorrow’s World presenter Peter Snow and Royal Institute of British Architects president-elect Marco Goldschmied.

The museum sees a need to reward designs which have the minimum impact on the environment. “We are hoping to fundamentally change consumer demand towards more sustainable products and architecture,” says the Design Museum spokesman.

Submissions are invited internationally until 23 July, with two shortlists to be drawn up over 1-2 September. The final judging will be on 6 October with a presentation and private view of the 12 finalists the following evening at the Design Museum.

The call for entries brochure is designed by CDT Design. Entry enquiries can be e-mailed to: designsense@designevents.co.uk.

The Centre for Sustainable Design (at the Surrey Institute of Art and Design), RIBA and The Guardian are endorsing the scheme.