Luxury luggage brand Rimowa gave out its design prize for the second time in Berlin on Monday. The Cologne-based brand’s objective is for the annual contest to become synonymous with the best of young German design.
The prize saw 21 finalists with seven projects chosen from design schools around the country. They then received mentoring from seven expert jury members. Just like last year, the theme was “mobility” and finalists presented the results at a ceremony held at one of the city’s central museums, the James-Simon-Galerie.
This year’s judges included the Vitra Design Museum’s head of collection and archive Susanne Graner, and Matthias Kulla, the head of design management for sports-car style at Porsche. Rimowa chairman Alexandre Arnault and Rimowa chief executive officer Hugues Bonnet-Masimbert were also honorary members of the jury.
The winner of the 20,000-euro prize this year was Janne Kreimer, a design student at the Anhalt University of Applied Science who was mentored by jury member Andreas Murkudis. The latter runs one of Berlin’s most stylish concept stores but was previously the director of the city’s Museum of Things, which focuses on contemporary product design and manufacture.
Kreimer’s winning project was a waistcoat to combat anxiety, a kind of ultimate security blanket. When worn, the waistcoat uses built-in “soft robots” which perform gentle acupressure to try and relax the wearer. Each waistcoat would be made specifically for its owner, using a 3D digital model, because acupressure points vary on different human bodies.
The special mention award, worth 10,000 euros, was given to Daniela Lindenberga, a student at the SRH Berlin University of Applied Sciences. Further prizes of 5,000 euros each were awarded to the five other projects.