Hasta La Ideas

Herzog & de Meuron’s Tate Modern Switch House, Ikea’s flatpack refugee shelter, and the artwork for David Bowie’s final album are among projects nominated for the Design Museum‘s Designs of the Year awards 2016 (+ slideshow).

Dezeen is media partners for the Design Museum‘s annual awards, which celebrate the best design from the last 12 months across six categories: architecture, digital, fashion, graphics, product and transport.

In this year’s architecture category, Herzog & de Meuron‘s recently completed Tate Modern Switch House is up against the gold-painted Fondazione Prada in Milan by Rem Koolhaas’ firm OMA.

The category also includes Bjarke Ingels’ tetrahedron-shaped “courtscraper” in New York,  MAD Architects’ sinuous Harbin Opera House and Wayne Hemingway’s redesign of Margate’s Dreamland.

Among the 11 digital nominations is an online STI testing kit and a smart apartment in Italy furnished with more than 15 different connected or open-source devices.

A number of projects relating to the ongoing refugee crisis feature across the six areas, including Ikea’s flat-pack temporary shelter, and an interactive documentary about everyday life in a Syrian refugee camp in northern Iraq.

Collections by Craig Green, Agi and Sam, and Richard Malone feature in the fashion category, along with a study where schoolchildren decoded images of editorial campaigns and exposed underlying themes of gender inequality and implied violence.

Graphics nominees include the redesign for the Norwegian Passport, David Bowie’s Blackstar album cover and the latest Channel 4 identity by Neville Brody.

The product shortlist features a coffee cup for astronauts, and Adidas’ running shoes made using recycled plastic recovered from the sea.

The Transport list completes the six categories. It includes a digital compass for bicycles and a crowdfunded bicycle helmet.

Each of the projects will be on show in an exhibition at the Design Museum’s new home on Kensington High Street, which opens on the 24 November.

A winner will be selected in each category and one overall winner will be announced on 26 January 2017. Previous winners have included the 2012 Olympic Torch and the Heydar Aliyev Center by Zaha Hadid.

Last year, the accolade was awarded to Human Organs-on-Chips, a microdevice lined with living human cells to mimic the complex tissue structures of the human body.

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