The Lexus Design Awards

Lexus as a group has always been excited about innovative and explorative design, from their vehicles such as the LS 500 with Koriko glass and the Structural Blue LC 500 whose paint took 15 years to develop, to the technology pioneering that drives the Lexus innovation. As part of that excitement that drives Lexus, every year for the 7 years Lexus has hosted the Lexus Design Award, which has led to some amazing innovations in design across an abundance of projects.

This year has been an amazing competition, with over 1600 entries, comprising everything from unique art design styles to technological design, and more. But only 6 finalists remain this year, and even these consist of diverse entries, from across the world. Lisa Mark from the USA for example, one of this year’s finalists, introduced a bra made with a product she calls ‘Algorithmic Lace.’ Designed for post-mastectomy women, this bra is crafted with special materials using algorithmic design (hence the name) to create three-dimensional lace. By using this special material and design patterns, the bra avoids the discomforts conventional bras create after surgery, and creates confidence in the women using them.

Other designs for this year’s finalists include the ‘Baluto,’ a housing strategy that will provide habitable spaces on land that can withstand high flooding or ‘Green Blast Jet Energy’ which collects waste energy from jet blasts on aircraft take-off, and repurposes it for different needs of airports across the world. The final entries include ‘Arenophile’ which seeks to use desert sand, widely available, to create composite materials by combining non-toxic binders, which could lead to development of other new products, as well as ‘Hydrus’ which functions as emergency treatment equipment for offshore oil spills, and lastly, ‘Solgami’, origami stylized window blinds that can be fold easily for improved illumination inside, or to generate electricity through solar power when shut!

These finalists will be working through different workshops with Lexus designers to improve their products and discover more uses, efficiencies, and other design philosophies to improve them. Meanwhile, some of the other products developed through the 7 years that the Lexus Design Awards include a wide variety of products. One of the 2018 finalists was CO-RKS, a generative system that uses cork thread, due to it’ sustainability, with computational processes to generate design products. Or the 2016 Grand Prix winner, Agar Plasticity by AMAM, that explores the usage of agar made from marine algae as an environmentally friendly packaging material alternative to plastic.

Many of these design pieces and technologies are currently showcased in smaller forms, but through the assistance of the Lexus Design Awards, they can be fast-tracked to a place that impacts society, just as Lexus tries to impact society through it’s vehicles.