Time spent working from home, staying in one place, communicating with each other via new and unfamiliar media has inspired a long hard review of our immediate surroundings. If we must be here for a while, how can we make things better – simpler, more efficient, nicer to look at, easier to use, more pleasing to handle?
We’re launching the Wallpaper* Smart Space Awards to celebrate the objects, accessories, services and tools that combine contemporary design, innovation and style.
Smart Space: what does it mean?
We are looking to acknowledge ideas that inspire and products that last – employing cutting-edge technology and design know-how to make the places we inhabit noticeably smarter, creating a positive impact on our lives.
For the past year, confined for various periods during the pandemic, we’ve been editing the products that surround us – upgrading and recycling, clicking and collecting. We’ve marvelled at the really good, well-made and reliable stuff and looked to replace what no longer provides beauty, joy or service. Being static, it seems, has also encouraged us to multi-task and move forward.
We have also become ever more aware that rampant consumerism, the accumulation of flimsy, frivolous products that come pre-loaded with looming obsoletion and gimmicky fashionability, is not the way ahead. Good design is beautiful and clever; it offers a long life of loyal and hardy service.
We want to champion wonderful wearables, illuminating lighting innovations, the most goddess-like domestic appliances and most eloquent audio. We’re looking for tantalising social media tools, timely transportation services and good mixers for our home bars.
Choosing the winners
A panel of Wallpaper* editors – comprising Sarah Douglas, Editor-in-Chief, and Jonathan Bell, Technology & Transport Editor – alongside designers and industry experts, will judge each award category based on quality, impact and user experience: does the product create a notable, positive impact on the life of its users? Does its design improve the aesthetic of their surroundings? What elevates the product above the rest of its market sector?
A Wallpaper* Smart Space Award will be more than just an industry accolade. An edit of the award-winning products and services will be featured in the print edition of Wallpaper*, on our digital platforms and across social media channels.
Who can enter?
Anyone can enter. The Wallpaper* Smart Space Awards 2021 call out to big tech brands and boutique makers alike, start-ups and innovators, designers and thinkers. We ask that they nominate the stuff that beautifies, enhances and improves the spaces that surround us. All things considered. The smarter, the better.
INFORMATION
Find full details and nominate your product at futureevents.uk/smartspaceawards
Nomination deadline: 24 June 2021
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