The 2023 Designblok Award for the Best School Presentation went to the UMPRUM.wav project. Among the winners is also Matyáš Švejdík, a Ph.D. student from the Studio of Architecture IV at UMPRUM, who together with Pavel Špringle, and Šimon Marek who stands behind the Cake Houses brand. Cake Houses was the overall winner of Designblok and won the Grand Prix (Award for Outstanding Achievement) and 2nd place for Best Manufacturer's Installation. The 2nd place in the Best Home Accessories category went to Karla Kislingerová, a student from the Studio of Textile Design.
The multimedia project UMPRUM.wav by students offers a way to understand the structure of music and offers an extraordinary view of musical instruments. The project, first presented during this year's Milan Design Week, is the result of a long-term collaboration between designers, leading Czech musicians and music theorists.
The multimedia student project of UMPRUM.wav was presented in the entrance area of Studio Hrdinů. It offers a way to understand the structure of music and is a unique view of musical instruments. It was first presented during this year's Milan Design Week. The project, dominated by the Studio of Product Design led by Michal Froňek and Jan Němeček, offers a way to perceive music and musical instruments from an unconventional perspective. The connection between the world of music and the world of design was presented through unique original musical instruments combining unconventional acoustic and visual compositions. A special mixing console invited visitors to play with sound and immerse themselves in the duality of analogue and digital, acoustic, and visual experimental experience. The collaborative project is the culmination of cooperation across product, graphic, and digital design, as well as a long-term collaboration between designers, leading Czech musicians, and music theorists. For example, the musician and composer Never Sol and the company Quix actively participated in the project.
The trio of architects Pavel Špringl, Matyáš Švejdík, and Šimon Marek are behind Cake Houses, which received the Grand Prix (Award for Outstanding Achievement) and 2nd place for Best Installation by a Manufacturer. In their work, they decided to explore architecturally high-quality, easy-to-construct, and at the same time versatile family housing for the 21st century. They presented a concept of a configurable house that can be individualized according to the specific needs of future inhabitants, combining the advantages of a standard house and the possibilities of modern technology. "Cake Houses appealed to us not only for the coherence of their ideas and the quality of their presentation but also for their potential for societal impact. It is a project that gives new potential to improve many people's lives," said Ineke Hans, President of the Designblok 2023 Jury Awards.
Karla Kislingerová, a student of the Studio of Textile Design, won 2nd place in the Best Home Accessories category with her collection of textile paintings Kde domov můj? (Where is my home?) Karla was inspired by the question of home and large-scale tapestries. The motifs of the paintings themselves were drawn from in-depth research conducted in the field of rich internet discussions and columns, hobby websites and other sources of information about material and immaterial pride of our homeland. The final form of the four paintings uses a technique inspired by the Artprotis method, very popular in the 1970s and 1980s for large-scale works. For the realisation, she chose machine sewing of handmade Czech wool from the Krkonoše Mountains into leftover or damaged textiles from defunct Czech factories found there.
The aim of the Designblok Awards is to highlight the best achievements from hundreds of exhibitors across the festival in predetermined categories. The awards were decided by an independent international jury who toured the festival to get to know the exhibited works and their creators in depth.
The list of successes also includes the successful graduates of UMPRUM. Eva Mochalová and Marcel Mochal, studio LLEV, won the Best Home Accessories Award for the PSYCHEE vases and the new INNATURA glass. The objects are created using the technique of blowing glass into moulds made from a local mixture of mycelium material. The Best Installation by a Manufacturer was awarded to Moser glassworks, for which Jan Plecháč, who works there as creative director, created a levitating cloud on which glass vases float.
