Design is Everywhere in 2023
News about our DEA Honorees
Each year, Collab presents our Design Excellence Award (DEA) to a design professional or organization who has made a significant contribution to the field. Recipients of the award include luminaries from around the world and in the areas of architecture, product design, textiles, graphic design, and related design that shapes our world and inspires future generations. This program was started in 1986, with the inaugural award bestowed on renowned architect, furniture designer, and woodworker George Nakashima.
Since then, Collab has honored more than thirty designers with the award, an exhibition at the PMA, and a celebration at the museum to share insights from our DEA recipients. Since then, we have sadly lost Nakashima, Lella and Massimo Vignelli, Niels Diffrient, Jack Lenor Larsen, Robert Venturi, Michael Graves, Sir Terence Conran, Milton Glaser, Ingo Maurer, Florence Knoll, and Zaha Hadid. However, their legacies live on in our design collection at the museum, as well in practice in their various fields. For example, the offices of Graves and Hadid continue to design projects in the unique vernacular that they have each created. Nakashima’s woodworking practice is still active and receives visitors for planned tours.
Nakashima’s Conoid Studio in New Hope, PA. Photo by Royce Epstein.
For many of our active DEA honorees, it has been years since they have been recognized at the museum, so let’s look at what some of them have been working on lately. They are organized by the decade they were honored:
2020s
Drift, our 2022 honoree, has announced that a new museum in Amsterdam will open in 2025 to feature their work. The Drift Museum will have five galleries to showcase art and performances from the duo of Lonneke Gordijn and Ralph Nauta. Recent work from Drift includes Franchise Freedom, a site-specific blend of art and drone technology in Central Park, NYC that mimicked the flight patterns of starling birds, and I Am Storm, part of an interactive installation of moving elements at the TextielMuseum, NL.
Franchise Freedom installation by DRIFT. Photo by dronelightlabs.com.
Our 2021/2020 DEA winners (combined years due to Covid) - Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec – create and abundant amount of art and design for both residential and commercial audiences. In 2023, Vitra launched the Abalon sofa, for their international furniture brand. Established & Sons released Island, a bench system inspired by platforms made of wood planks. In 2023, they have also launched textiles for Kvadrat, lighting collections for Flos, and porcelain lamps for Sèvres among other projects.
Erwan Boroullec sitting in the Abalon sofa from Vitra.. Photo by Phillipe Thibault, Studio Bouroullec.
Island from Established and Sons. Photo by Phillipe Thibault, Studio Bouroullec.
2010s
2017’s honoree Patricia Urquiola is one of the most prolific designers of our time and continues to work in various capacities and scales from her Milan-based studio. Urquiola is a regular contributor to the design fair circuit, from NeoCon in Chicago to Salone in Milan. At NeoCon, Urquiola’s Bolete Lounge BIO for Andreu World won an Interior Design Magazine HiP Award. She also designed the Kettal furniture stand for Salone, Mangas Outdoor rugs and lounge furniture for GAN, and a commercial carpet collection for Desso. In 2022, she designed Habito, a clothing collection for Max Mara in the same spirit as her product designs.
Bolete lounge BIO seating by Patricia Urquiola for Andreu World.
Habito collection designed by Patricia Urquiola for Max Mara. Photo by Dario Catellanni.
In 2016, Nendo’s Oki Sato, Faye Toogood, and Zanin de Zanine were given the Next Generation award at the PMA. Nendo continues to be active with many industrial design projects, including a new Japanese-inspired lounge seating collection called Torii Bold for Minotti, and Soroe, a new architectural and bath hardware collection for SANEI. British designer Faye Toogood is also quite busy with her business that designs clothing, homeware, furniture, and offers interior design services. In 2022, a new monograph was published by Phaedon, providing a glimpse into the studio’s use of materials, sculpture and drawing, and landscape. Also that year, Toogood launched the Slump table collection through Hem.
Torii Bold collection by Nendo for Minotti.
Soroe bath hardware collection for SANEI. Photo by Takao Nagase.
Slump tables designed by Faye Toogood for Hem. Photo by Erik Lefvander.
2015’s honoree, Bruce Mau, is a visionary designer and design optimist. He believes that design can make positive change in the world. Through his design firm, Massive Change Network, he continues working with brands and organizations to design a better future and create solutions for the climate crisis. This past year, Mau’s studio worked with car company Infiniti to refresh their brand with a new car emblem and logo. In 2021, a documentary called Mau was released, following a book launch of MC24 in 2020.
New logo emblem for Infiniti cars designed by Bruce Mau.
Bruce Mau with Collab Board Member Royce Epstein at NeoCon 2022. Photo by Rebekah Matheny.
Marc Newson, industrial designer, and Collab’s 2013 DEA recipient just designed a carbon fiber electric hydrofoil for Flite, a water vehicle company (think motorized surfboards). The Newson-designed hydrofoil is an innovation in that it combines and streamlines the mast and fuselage and is dematerialized as it uses strong yet light weight carbon fiber, often used in aerospace design. By molding the components into a monobloc structure, Newson was able to reduce weight and parts. This was shown at London Design Week in September 2023.
Marc Newson’s new hydrofoil design for Flite.
Our 2012 DEA recipient Paula Scher, iconic graphic designer who is a Partner at Pentagram and has created brand identities for MoMA and Citi Bank, has been selected by the BBC Maestro series to teach classes for this new subscription program, launching October 30, 2023. Scher also continues to teach at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
Paula Scher, Photo by Pip Cowley.
In 2011, the trailblazing Zaha Hadid was honored with the DEA. She passed away in 2016, yet her architectural practice remains one of the most cutting-edge firms pushing the boundaries of complex forms and parametric design at all scales. In progress today is a 45,000 square meter metro station in Riyadh, the Beeah Group’s headquarters building in the UAE desert is shortlisted for a Dezeen award, and the Chengdu Science Fiction Museum recently opened in China. They also designed a new porcelain tile collection for Atlas Concorde called Diamond Decor, which debuted at Cersaie 2023 in Bologna, Italy. In addition to designing buildings in the real word, Hadid’s office is also designing for the Metaverse, with virtual cities such as Liberland.
Chengdu Science Fiction Museum by ZHA. Photo by Arch Exist.
Diamond Decor tiles by ZHA for Atlas Concorde.
Liberland in the Metaverse designed by ZHA. Photo by Mytaverse.
2000s
2009’s honoree was Marcel Wanders, the Dutch creative designer of products and interiors. Wanders had his own design firm in Amsterdam but stepped back in 2022 after a serious car accident. He is doing well now and thriving with his brand Moooi, which started in 2001. After over twenty years, Wanders has shaped Moooi into a leader of luxury furniture, lighting, carpet, and accessories for interiors. The brand is well known for its theatrical, experiential approach, pushing boundaries in form and materiality and continues to exhibit globally with magical installations. This year, Wanders also launched a new company called BASTA, seeking to transform the sofa industry with new modular designs for new ways of adaptable living.
Marcel Wanders sitting on a BASTA sofa.
Frank Gehry, our 2008 honoree, is one of the most prominent architects in the world. At age 94, his work continues to delight fans of the built environment all over the world, especially for its use of twisted forms. Recent projects from Gehry Partners include a new two-tower residence under construction in Toronto, completion of Second Century for Warner Bros., and a new waterfront restaurant (at the site of Gladstones) in Los Angeles for Wolfgang Puck that will break ground next year.
Rendering for Wolfgang Puck’s new LA restaurant designed by Gehry Partners. Image by Supervisor Sheila Kuehl.
In 2005, Collab honored Gaetano Pesce, one of Italy’s pioneers of radical design who works a lot in furniture design. Pesce is well known for using colored urethane, casting the material into anthropomorphic shapes. Recently, at the age of 84, Pesce was the subject of an exhibit at the Future Perfect Gallery in Los Angeles, where new generations are discovering his unique design language. He is still creating new work at every scale that continues to delight fans. For the 2022 Fuori Salone, he collaborated with fashion brand Bottega Veneta to design a pop-up in their Milan store using a resin-coated fabric for the space to display a pair of Pesce-designed handbags. Pesce also designed 400 chairs for the brand’s Spring 2023 runway show.
Bottega Veneta handbag designed by Gaetano Pesce.
1990s
1999 was a great year for Collab, where three designers of various vernaculars were honored at the museum: Karim Rashid, Jonathan Ive, and Maya Lin. Karim Rashid is known for his playful design language, and he continues his practice today of interiors, architecture, lighting, product, and furniture design. Recent projects include the Chelsea Chair for BoConcept, which is a nod to his favorite “blob” forms and the Cyborg Big lamp for Martinelli Luce, exhibited at Euroluce at Milan Furniture Fair this year.
Chelsea lounge seating designed by Karim Rashid for BoConcept.
Cyborg Big lamp designed by Karim Rashid for Martinelli Luce.
Jonathan (Jony) Ive, former chief designer at Apple, is now the Chancellor of the Royal College of Art in London and is in discussions with OpenAI to design a new mobile phone that incorporates artificial intelligence. Maya Lin, also honored in 1999, is an architect and artist who regards the environment in her work. She has been active with various projects, including a sculptural commission for the Obama Presidential Center (opening in 2025), and designing NFTs based on the root system of trees.
In 1997, Collab honored Phillipe Starck, one of the most iconic designers of the 20th and 21st centuries. Starck has been steadily working since the late 90s, designing furniture, hotels, schools, bath fixtures, yachts, and even Olympic medals intended for the 2024 Paris Olympics. As an industrial designer, he is interested in materiality and technology, and designs many objects that overlooked, such as valves and power docks. In 2023, Starck, who became famous with his juicer design for Italian housewares brand Alessi in 1990, has now designed a chair for them, a first since the company began in 1970.
Poele chair designed by Phillipe Starck for Alessi.
As you can see, design is everywhere! And our list of Design Excellence Award honorees will continue. Stay tuned for the next chapters bringing design into the future.
