LG Conceptualife 2011 design winners

This week LG Electronics announced the South African LG Conceptualife Kitchen Design Competition winners for 2011, who’ll be off to Dubai for another round of the competition at the end of the month.

This annual contest encourages all young interior design students to show their creativity and design skills by presenting their very own distinctive depictions of futuristic and eco-friendly kitchens. For the first time a draw for first place occurred in the South African finals. The winners of the contest were Tarquin van der Westerhuizen from the BHC Design School and Karyn Schott, representing the Greenside Design School.

Karyn Schott was honoured for her ‘cooking pod’ concept of modularity that lends to a green future constructed from recycled plastic, glass and aluminum.

Tarquin van der Westerhuizen was commended for her design that was inspired by the game Jenga, and which utilises adjustable building blocks to create a self-sufficient and eco-friendly kitchen that can be adapted to suit all user’s needs. Van der Westerhuizen and Schott both claimed an eco-friendly SolarDOM oven and a trip to Dubai to compete in the regional finals on 30 May.

Abegail Williams from BHC Design School was awarded the runner-up award for her ‘hide and seek’ design and also received an LG SolarDOM oven as a prize.

This year’s panel of judges included acclaimed South African designer, Brain Steinhobel, VISI’s Annemarie Meintjes and House and Leisure deputy editor, Graham Wood..

“I cannot believe how high the standards were of all of the entries,” Annemarie Meintjes said. “It gives me hope for the future designers of our country. The ‘cooking pod’ design will change the way people design homes and most probably take kitchen designers out of business – I want one now.”

At the Middle East and Africa (MEA) regional finals, our top two finalists will compete against 10 students from five other countries for the first place and the 2011 MEA Conceptualife title, the grand prize of $5000 (R35,000), an LG Optimus smartphone and a one-month internship at a renowned design firm in Dubai.

Each of the participating students will showcase their designs to an expert panel that will evaluate their work on uniqueness of design, eco-friendliness and practicality of the overall design, as well as the use of innovative kitchen appliances that considers space, storage and worktops.

More information: http://www.lg.com/za, http://www.steinhobel.co.za/awards.html