The tree of life in Micropia. Photo: Thijs Wolzak.
SBID International Design Excellence Awards
The SBID International Design Excellence Awards serve to recognise, reward and celebrate design excellence across a broad range of categories. It is an annual award with one winner in each category. The category Public Space is dedicated to all interiors of public spaces created as a service for the greater community.
Winning a SBID Award is a high achievement as they are voted for exclusively by leading industry experts both for technical content and aesthetic creativity using two tiers of judging processes. The panel of judges will choose the winning entries accounting for 70% of the overall score. The remaining 30% is determined by votes from the public. The 27th of November the winners will be announced.
from interactive exhibits to a soundscape
In creating the exhibition design studio Kossmann.deJong worked in close collaboration with ART+COM , a Berlinbased media design firm. Lots of Micropia’s exhibits are interactive, although the designers were at pains not to make things interactive just for the sake of it. Mark de Jong, owner of Kossman.dejong: “Interactivity has to add something to the experience and not distract from the content.” The ART+COM designers point to the body scan as a successful example of this. The visitor not only works the interface in this exhibit but is also the subject of it. The soundscape which fills the space is an important unifying factor. Sound designer Peter Flamman makes use of analogue noises to give the visitor the idea that he or she is entering an unknown and amazing world.
After visiting Micropia, you will never see yourself and the world in the same way again.