Palafuksas, Torino, Italy. May – July 2008
The exhibition included among its participant’s world famous designers, the Japanese Naoto Fukasawa, the Brazilian Campana brothers, Jasper Morrison from Britain, and many others.
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The first Audi Innovation Award for the Middle East was presented to Sahar Madanat from Jordan at the opening of Design Days Dubai for her ‘One-Handed Tableware Set’ design with second and third places being awarded to local UAE based designers, Mansour Attia and Nick Karinzaidis for a ‘Metro-bike fly-over’ proposal and a ‘Gaudi style responsive bath system’ respectively.
The Audi Innovation Award theme for 2016 was ‘Alternative’ where the objective for designers was to offer concepts that integrate existing solutions into new uses, ranging from lifestyle, healthcare, mobility, education and urban public spaces. The competition seeks to empower regional designers while archiving intellectual progress in the region.
The winning concept from Jordanian designer Sahar Madanat, perfectly demonstrated the theme of interpreting a seemingly resolved everyday object and redefined it for a new use. The innovative design is a multi-function tableware set enabling one handed users to cut food and navigate between courses while concealing the limitations imposed by their disability. An arrangement catering not only to their physical needs, but also considering the users’ emotions and sense of confidence. The design was a unanimous winner from the panel of judges for the idea that delivers both a diagnosis and a cure for a basic human need. The practical and stylish solution has a relevance, not only for the disabled and those recovering from accidents or illness, but also for mothers who are feeding their children.
Second place was awarded to UAE based designer Mansour Attia with his Metro-Bike fly-over proposal that offers a solution for dealing with Dubai’s vehicle based lifestyle, lack of safe cycling lanes and abandoned spaces under metro bridges. Nick Karintzaidis, also based in the UAE, was awarded third place with a responsive bath system designed to give the user full control to fulfill their basic bathing necessities as well as minimizing the use of excessive water and electricity.
Speaking about the Audi Innovation Award, Sahar Madanat commented “ I am thrilled to receive this award from Audi Middle East and plan to use the prize to develop my design into full production for use not only locally but I hope internationally. I am really looking forward to working with industry experts over the next few months to turn this design into reality”
Enrico Atanasio, Brand Director of Audi Middle East, who presented the award, said “I am proud to see such fantastic innovation from not only the winner but from all of our top ten finalists who are with us today. Audi has always represented progressiveness and stylish design and this award fits perfectly with our brand.”.
The winning three shortlisted candidates were given $2,500 to present their concept model at Design Days Dubai 2017. The prizes to Sahar Madanat, as the unanimous winner for the Audi Innovation Award, include a trophy and a trip to the Audi factory in Ingolstadt, Germany to experience the automotive design journey at their company headquarters. In addition, Audi Middle East has awarded her with $25,000 worth of consultancy to cover items such as IP registration, legal counselling and business development. The progressive automotive company will work closely with their partners at Design Days Dubai and Dubai Design Week to provide design advice and mentoring to ensure the ‘One-Handed Tableware Set’ design is protected and given every opportunity for further development.
The Audi Innovation Award judges included Brendan McGetrick, American author, Designer and Director of Global Grad Show; Dr. Noah Raford, Chief Operating Officer of Dubai Futures Foundation; Mitra Khoubrou, Co-founder of Dubai-based Pink Tank; Salem Al Qassimi, Professor of Design, Founder of Fikra, Designer and Entrepreneur; Amer Aldour, Founder of inter.act, his own interactive design studio in Dubai; Aisha Alsager, Managing Director of AGi Architects from Kuwait; Riyad Joucka, Architect and Researcher for SHoP Architects, Mohammad Saeed Al-Shehhi, Chief Operating Officer of Dubai Design District (d3) and Enrico Atanasio, Brand Director of Audi Middle East.
The next Audi Innovation Award theme was announced as “Autonomy” where design solutions will be capable of regulating themselves, according to changing environmental circumstances and different user specifications, with minimal human intervention.
Further information regarding the Audi Innovation Award can be found at https://audiinnovationaward.com/
Local designer Sahar Madanat introduces audiences to her work and talks about what it means to design for people and tailor products to their specific needs. Through her work, she has learned to create emotional connections between users and products and offer tailored and empathetic solutions. She explains her design process explained using real examples of innovative and customized product designs.
One handed plate exhibited at the San Francisco AutoCAD gallery in November 2015.
One handed plate exhibited at the San Francisco AutoCAD gallery in November 2015
We were invited to give a talk to the 4th grade students and their teacher, Mrs.Hanadi Kadura, at the Mashrek International School. Our talk covered topics such as design for future generations and design for disability, to help the students with their ‘Innovations and Technology for the Disabled’ class project.
We were part of a delegation of Jordanian creatives lead by Mohamed Al Borno on a tour of Dubai Design District, D3 for their designer Insights session.
Nov. 2014
We were invited to give a talk about Design Thinking at the MENA ICT forum held by the MIT Enterprise Forum, Pan Arab Region, where we challenged the audience to a task involving designing tableware for the disabled.
November, 2014
Ex-Chiesa di San Francesco, Como, Italy – April 2013.
Exhibition of A’Design Winners
