Pininfarina Launches Design Competition For A New World

How design will have to approach the new world? On the occasion of its 90th anniversary, Pininfarina has launched an international design competition that challenges students from all around the world to create something that expresses their dreams for the future: “Design Reset: New Dreams for a New World”. An initiative engaging prestigious international schools that enables the community of creative young people to rethink what human experiences will be like in the New Normal.

Design has the ability to innovate continuously while enhancing the lives of people, and provide the response to imagining a new future. This is something that Pininfarina has been doing since ever and will continue to do so because this is its mission. As the whole approach to designing and life has been questioned during these very testing times, Pininfarina, which operates in such various areas of design from product to architecture, UX/UI, retail and all forms of transportation, has been particularly sensitive to the kind of future sensations and experiences that Design should deliver and that people might want to rethink or change completely after the pandemic.

This is why Turin-based design house celebrates an important anniversary with a unique contest that will involve the new generations and major universities to re-think, re-design and build a positive future way of moving and living thus submitting projects where product and experience come together.

“We are particularly interested – explains Chief Creative Officer Kevin Rice - in starting a worldwide discussion about the way of designing for the future, so we invited some prestigious design schools across the globe to take part in a competition that tackles this question. We want to put this challenge out to the very best future designers so, for that reason, we would like to aim the competition towards the students which are already active in only the very best design academies, rather than a blanket Social Media approach”.

The contest is free to enter for anyone over the age of 18 attending the following Universities of Architecture, Design Schools and Institutes and Fine Arts Academies: China Academy of Art (China), Coventry University (UK), FH JOANNEUM Industrial Design (Austria), Hochschule München (Germany), IAAD-The Italian University for Design (Italy), Istituto Europeo di Design - Torino (Italy), ISD Rubika (France/India), National Institute of Design Ahmedabad (India), Politecnico di Torino (Italy), PRATT Institute (USA), Royal College of Art (UK), Strate School of Design (France), TsingHua University (China), Umeå Institute of Design- UID (Sweden) and USP (Brazil).

Rarely has a student competition embraced such a varied group of creatives. Unlike most design competitions which normally focus on one particular area of design, Pininfarina wants to open up the competition to industrial designers, digital designers, transportation designers and architects. From October 2020 to Mars 2021, students of the mentioned schools will have the chance to submit their solutions inspired by three different themes:

- Smart Individual Mobility: a new way to move that is easier, more efficient, cost-effective, environmentally-friendly, safe and comfortable for the individual

- Smart Social Mobility: a new way to move together, namely create new forms of collective mobility that promote the concept of sharing and a sustainable lifestyle: public transport (such as rail, metro, tram and bus networks), car-sharing, car-pooling, flexible mobility services such as people movers, autonomous shuttles, demand-responsive transport vehicles, and related infrastructure.

- Smart Spaces: a new way to live together, namely create a temporary outdoor pavilion to be completely built off-site through rapid prototyping, digital fabrication and/or robotic technologies. The full building lifecycle should be considered: materials sustainability and recyclability is a must.

- The competition will be judged by a panel of experts chaired by Kevin Rice and closes on March 31 st, 2021. The winner will be selected for each area (Individual Mobility, Social Mobility, Spaces) according to the beneficial impact of his/her project on the user experience as well as the ability of the project to make the new world a better place to live in. Entries will be judged on how original the idea is and how visually appealing the experience is. In addition, consideration will be given to how practical the design is to build from cardboard. The evaluation will take into consideration the variety of the design themes, the ability to visualize design solutions and the overall quality of the work submitted.

- The winner of each category, selected from a list of finalists, will be awarded a 6-month Internship at Pininfarina’s design studios in Torino or Miami or Shanghai. A Special Chairman Award will go to the work that reserves a special attention to the Pininfarina design values. The DesignWanted Special Award will go to the project featuring the best architectural vision, which will be awarded with the publication on the international architecture and design magazine designwanted.com. The Award Ceremony will be held in Turin within May 2021 among the 90+1 anniversary celebrations.

- “Designers can and must play a crucial role in shaping our new dreams in a brave new world – adds Kevin Rice. - With this contest we officially invite designers to think outside of the box, to surprise us. Our goal is to enlarge Pininfarina’s spectrum. Collaborations with students are vital and we just love the idea of partnering with such prestigious schools around the world and get so many different voices involved. We are sure we will learn a lot”.

Rules and info on the contest are available on designcontest.pininfarina.com. More info will come through their social media channels.