Professional Concept

The iF Design Award has been consistently hand-picking the best, most innovative designs since 1953, honoring top-class achievements in categories spanning Product Design, Transportation Design, Communication Design, Packaging, Service Design, Architecture, Interior Architecture, Professional Concepts, and UI and UX for 67 years in a row. The entire iF Design Award program saw as many as 10,000 submissions this year, which were evaluated by 98 international design experts from 21 countries, on the iF Jury.

Just this year alone, 1,744 designs received the iF Design Award for their creative accomplishments across various categories, while an additional 75 designs went on to win the highly-coveted iF Gold Award for their outstanding work. The iF Design Award always culminates in a grand ceremony in Berlin, although owing to the pandemic and global travel restrictions, award-winning products and projects this year are being celebrated digitally with an international content campaign encapsulated by the slogan “The CreatiFe Power of Design” in cooperation with popular design platforms and seven renowned design museums.

Over the course of the past few months, Yanko Design has curated and featured winning designs from this year’s program too – this time, we’ve hand-picked ten award-winning designs from the ‘Professional Concept’ category below(the list even features TWO iF Gold Award winners!) All the iF Design Award winners can also be viewed on the newly-launched iF Design App that gives you access to a grand database of award-winning design projects and their creators, right at your fingertips!

To view all these designs and many more, visit the website of the iF DESIGN AWARD.

Click Here to download the iF Design App – a new experience in discovering outstanding designs.

Award-Winning Professional Concepts from the iF Design Award 2021

Infinity Mover by büro+staubach for Beijing E.U.K. Co., Ltd.

Modeled on the format of a tram, the Infinity Mover bypasses the tram’s demerits – its need to travel on tracks, its clunky nature, and its reliance on a human driver. The Infinity Mover modernizes this by turning the tram into an electric-powered autonomous vehicle that’s modular, interactive and intuitive for riders, and moves on regular roads. Working off a series of LiDAR sensors, the Infinity Mover can easily be deployed on existing roads with no infrastructural changes, and can help turn public transport into a state-of-the-art human-centric public service!

Lilium Aircraft by Lilium GmbH (iF Gold Award Winner)

With 36 tilting jet engines that give this eVTOL the power of flight, the Lilium Jet is capable of carrying up to 5 passengers for a distance of 300km on a single charge in just a 60-minute ride! It boasts of a wingspan of only 11 meters, with a design that has no tail, rudder, gearboxes, or oil circuits, making its design truly revolutionary. The iF Gold Award-winning design is all set for its debut in 2025, with a hope that future models will be able to fly autonomously too!

OBEX Protective Surf Hood by Design Partners

Concussions are bad enough… combine them with being stranded in a water body and you have a deadly combo that can easily become a life-threatening situation for surfers. The OBEX is a life-saving piece of equipment that helps protect surfers in the event of a rough fall. While the hood can’t prevent concussions, it helps soften the impact with a head-enclosing design. A special pressurized container near the neck also contains an automatically inflating neckband that keeps the surfer’s head above water in the event of a fall. The inflatable flotation device is colored yellow, making it easily visible against the blue of the water, and comes with reflective tape too, to increase visibility and save lives.

BMW i Interaction EASE by DESIGNWORKS for BMW Group

The reason the BMW i Interaction EASE looks the way it does is because it aims at challenging the very notion of how cars will look in the future. Envisioning a future where cars are simply extensions of our homes and our selves, the BMW i Interaction EASE concept comes with a ‘cabin/chariot on wheels’ design that autonomously moves from one point of the city to the other with the passengers sitting inside as they would in a lounge. The i Interaction EASE is powered by the virtual BMW Assistant, which recognizes the passengers as they board, welcoming them by adjusting the interiors to suit their preferences. The warm, welcoming seats with 3D-knit-surfaces awaken on contact with embedded smart materials ready to assist, giving passengers the freedom to move and naturally interact. “Depending on passenger desire, the space adapts using gaze, gesture, and touch for the closest, most natural interaction to transform the entire interior”, mention the DESIGNWORKS team (an in-house subsidiary of the BMW Group).

S I X T Y & T W E L V E by Rosenthal

Sixty years ago, Rosenthal stirred up the porcelain industry – with avant-garde designs by artists, designers and architects. Now the German porcelain manufacturer is celebrating its studio line with a limited anniversary collection and translates 60 iconic vases with twelve contemporary colors (hence the collection’s name). The vases come in a dizzying variety of styles that are the very antithesis of wheel-spun pottery. Designed to look like they were created using generative design techniques (I wouldn’t be surprised if they were), the vases don’t show the same revolved symmetry you’d associate with traditional ceramics. Instead, they’re boldly inventive, unabashedly geometric, and have an artistic quality that brings pottery and ceramics into the 21st century!

Interactive Intelligent Unmanned Sweeper by LanWei for Jilin University (iF Gold Award Winner)

Approaching autonomous vehicles rather differently, the Interactive Intelligent Unmanned Sweeper isn’t your average self-driving vehicle. Instead of providing transportation as a service, it provides cleanliness, working like an oversized Roomba for your streets. “It can clean streets automatically by means of accurate sensors and intelligent algorithms, and it can also do more”, mentions designer LanWei. “Unlike current street sweepers, the new design makes it futuristic and approachable, and also ensures that citizens can safely come into zero-distance contact without danger.” Moreover, the sides of the sweeper can even display important messages, civic announcements, and even traffic guidance.

CITO Liquid Biopsy Analysis for Cancer Treatment by Cambridge Consultants

CITO is a rapid liquid biopsy diagnostics platform that improves patient experience in cancer care. The platform makes it possible for non-specialist technicians in small clinics to monitor patient response to treatment while a patient waits, significantly reducing delays to diagnostic results. The compact device combines functions of three instruments in an easy-to-sterilize form and sub-surface lighting pulses intuitively to alert system status. CITO opens the door to personalized cancer treatment by giving oncologists rapid access to biopsy data so they can make informed adjustments to each patient’s treatment plan.

Atmocube by notAnotherOne for AtmoTech

With its interior-friendly design, Atmocube is a one-stop solution for complex air quality management in private, public, and commercial buildings. It accurately measures the most dangerous air pollutants and vital environmental parameters in real time, while looking less like a complex, technical, bordering-on-industrial appliance and more like a design-forward product that helps blend into the space while giving it a touch of avant-garde tech. Considering the serious impact of indoor environments on people’s well-being and health, the device serves the user by integrating various air pollution sensors into a single neat platform. The wall-mounted device comes in a variety of colors with replaceable swatches (like terrazzo, wood, concrete, metal, glass) to suit different interiors, allowing clients to customize their Atmocube to suit their decor. This approach to design brings products like Atmocube into the forefront, allowing people to place such gadgets in their living rooms and lobbies, instead of relegating them to store-rooms.