Press Release
UnLimited Backpack by Kuan-Hua Chou Wins the Bronze A' Design Award in Sustainable Products, Projects and Green Design
Kuan-Hua Chou honored for sustainable products, projects and green design by the international grand jury of the 2019 - 2020 A' Design Award & Competition
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COMO, Italy, April 23, 2020 /DesignNewswire/ A' Design Award & Competition has announced that UnLimited Backpack by Kuan-Hua Chou has been granted the Bronze A' Design Award in the Sustainable Products, Projects and Green Design category. The result belongs to the 2019 - 2020 A' Design Award & Competition and was decided through blind peer review by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members, who assessed anonymized entries against predetermined criteria.
What the Bronze A' Design Award Means
The Bronze A' Design Award is given to outstanding designs that showcase a high degree of creativity and practicality. It recognizes the dedication and skill of designers who produce work that stands out for its thoughtful development and innovative use of materials and technology. These designs are acknowledged for their professional execution and potential to influence industry standards positively. Winning this award highlights the designer's ability to blend form and function effectively, offering solutions that enhance people's lives and wellbeing.
Regarding UnLimited Backpack
UnLimited is a recyclable backpack designed for urban cyclists. The backpack is fully waterproof and adjustable in size. A concertina structure allows the bag to expand for unexpected items and to compress into a slim shape that improves mobility. UnLimited is made of one material, a recyclable thermoplastic elastomer with different levels of hardness, and is sealed by heat welding. Most backpacks combine several materials and are hard to recycle. The single material construction supports reuse and recycling at the end of the service life.
About Kuan-Hua Chou
Kuan-hua Chou is an industrial designer from Taiwan, also an alumna of the Design Products program at the Royal College of Art in London. Chou is fascinated by the design process of products as well as its system. She has several years of work experience in prototypes and colour/material/finish for consumer electronics, which cultivates her with sharp eyes and an alert mind on design. She considers design as a medium to explore the world and believes that communication and decision making among users, designers and manufacturers are equally important. Hope the good collaboration will inspire and benefit our society and environment.
Award Record
With this recognition, Kuan-Hua Chou is a winner of 1 A' Design Award.
About the A' Sustainable Products, Projects and Green Design Award
The A' Sustainable Product Design Award is an international design competition recognizing good sustainable products by leading designers and brands worldwide. The competition is organized within the A' Design Award & Competition and is open to sustainable product designers, green product manufacturers, eco-friendly product brands and industrial designers from all countries. Entries typically include sustainable projects, environment friendly designs, recycled, upcycled and bio-degradable products. Awarded sustainable product designs are published at https://dezigners.org/design-category/sustainable-product
About A' Design Award & Competition
A' Design Award & Competition is an international, juried design accolade organized annually since 2008. The competition is open to entries from all countries. The A' Design Award has a philanthropic mission to advance society through good design by recognizing and promoting superior products, projects and services that benefit society, and by creating a global awareness and appreciation for good design practices and principles. Entries are peer reviewed and anonymously evaluated by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members against predetermined criteria such as functionality, ergonomics, engineering, presentation, innovation, usability, sustainability and technology, with score normalization applied to remove biases. Awards are conferred at Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron levels. The A' Design Prize granted to eligible laureates includes the award trophy, the certificate of design excellence, the hardcover yearbook, a lifetime license to use the A' Design Award winner logo, exhibition of awarded works, an invitation to the gala night and award ceremony in Italy, inclusion in the World Design Rankings and Designer Rankings, and public relations and publicity services. Registration, the upload of a work and the preliminary score are free of charge, and Professional and Digital Edition laureates are not contractually obliged to pay further fees to claim the A' Design Prize. Further information is available at https://competition.adesignaward.com
Press Resources
- Winner Page: https://dezigners.org/95138
- A' Design Award Page: https://competition.adesignaward.com/95138
- Media Showcase: https://www.designnewsroom.com/!95138
- Laureate Profile: https://dezigners.org/d/231784
- Further Information from the Laureate: http://www.choukuanhua.com
Media Contact
Giulia Ferrari, Press Office
Designers.Org
Via Leone Leoni 32, 22100 Como, Italy
press@designers.org
+39 031 4491953
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Fact Sheet
The Work
- Project
- UnLimited Backpack
- Function
- Backpack
- Category
- Sustainable Products, Projects and Green Design
- Discipline
- Industrial Design
- Industry
- Sustainability
- Colors
- White, Black, Dark Slate Gray, Silver and Dark Gray
- Images
- 5
The Recognition
- Laureate
- Kuan-Hua Chou
- Country
- Taiwan (China)
- Recognition
- Bronze A' Design Award
- Edition
- 2019 - 2020
- Design ID
- #95138
Credits
- Image Credits
- Photographer: Kuan-hua Chou VIDEO CREDITS: Filmmaker: Hiroki Yokoyama Composer: Eternity Bro Starring: Victoria Lynn-Hamilton, Anthony Fanna, Beatrice Maione
Design Details
- Unique Properties
- UnLimited is a recyclable, fully waterproof and size adjustable backpack tailored to the needs of an urban slow cyclist. This project aims to demonstrate the unlimited and limited requirements of space and material through a daily backpack. It can both expand to accommodate unexpected items and compress to keep the backpack streamlined to allow for better mobility.
- Inspiration
- Plastics that improve with age. The project is to design a product, with recyclable plastic, that is sustainable and creates a genuine bond with the user. An object that improves with age and counters some of the negative attributes often attributed to plastics such as cheap, transient and unemotional. Considering the longevity of a solution but also its place in a circular economy. What is its service life, how can it be reused, recycled or repurposed if it comes to the end of its useful life?
- Research
- The design research was conducted through material exploration firstly and discovering the target audience and market through survey, road observation and 1:1 interview.
- Challenge
- How to bring DuPont Hytrel from industrial usages to daily life market is the first challenge of this project. Another barrier is to search suitable hardness and thickness for the concertina structure, which should provide an instantly positive user experience.
- Realization and Technology
- The concept and production focus on concertina structure, material features and plastic production methods. Following the design philosophy for 'design of reduction', the backpack is sealed by heat welding and made of mono-material DuPont Hytrel, or similar recyclable thermoplastic elastomers with different levels of hardness. This feature is in stark contrast to the backpacks on the market today, which are multi-material and hard to recycle.
- Operation and Interaction
- Enough? Enough! UnLimited provides cyclists space depends on their needs. However, for the limitation of a bike, cyclists should not be a greedy user. They have to ensure the load they carry can keep their journey comfortable, not an obstacle. The project reflects balance and interaction between cyclists and their freedom of bringing as much as they can or as less as they can.
- Project Duration and Location
- The material research started from visiting DuPont Geneva Innovation Center in October 2016. The concept development was implemented during the springs of 2017 and 2018 in London, following a release in the 2018 degree show at the Royal College of Art. The latest prototype was made in November 2019 in Tainan.
- Specifications
- 290 mm x 410 mm x (20~150) mm, 860 g
- Keywords
- backpack, material, exploration, sustainable, plastics, responsible consumption and production, slow cycling, commuting, unlimited, limited
