I just caught wind of the results from Design21′s competitions that focused on pressing social issues. Three simultaneous challenges were issued:

• Heated Issue: Design an awareness campaign to educate the public on the issue of global warming.
• Child’s Play: Design an object that encourages children to cultivate their own imagination and creativity.
• ShelterMe: Design a temporary emergency shelter for deployment in a natural disaster.

The winner of Heated Issue, Hwani Lee, reimagined Aesop’s Fables to convey the pressing nature of the message via metaphor and analogy. Hwani chose the stories for their ability to relate the notion of cause and effect.

Child’s Play was won by Barro de Gast, who designed “simple yogurt packaging that doubles as a modular construction toy.” In other words, once empty, the containers can be reassembled into new shapes. He achieved multiple goals through his design, including encouraging children to habituate to reuse early on, and diminishing toy expenditures for underprivileged families.

The ShelterMe category was won by a design made of recycled polyester mesh and aluminum, that comes in one piece and is foldable and thus easily nomadic. Large enough to house 6 to 8 people, it utilizes conventional technologies, cutting both production costs and usability frustrations. It should be noted that judge Emilano Godoy cited “many issues regarding stability, weatherproofing, manufacturing, locking mechanisms and its ability to resist severe environmental conditions that should be developed to fully evaluate this design.”

You can check out all the finalists, including those that received the most votes from the public, and those given awards of excellence on the competition’s website.

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