2025-05-15
The Faculty and Student Team of the School of Design and Art Has Won the German IF Design Award, Showcasing Their Innovative Strength and Sh
On 28th April, the 2025 IF Design Award ceremony was grandly held in Berlin, Germany. Under the leadership of teachers Hu Minghui and Yang Li from the School of Design and Art, the faculty and student team of the Product Design Department of the school stood out from nearly 10000 entries worldwide with their work "Live Afloat" and won the 2025 IF Design Gold Award. The work 'Micro floating Boat' won the 2025 IF Product Design Award.
The faculty and student team of the School of Design and Art has won the gold award of the German IF Design Award
The German IF Design Award is the most prestigious design competition in the world and one of the most influential awards in the global industrial design field. It is known as the "Oscar of the design industry" and has become a globally recognized symbol for recognizing excellent design since its establishment in 1953. Among the 75 global gold award-winning works of this year, China won 12 awards, and BIGC is the only university design team to win this honor, fully demonstrating the profound accumulation and professional advantages of product design in practical innovation.
Award Ceremony Moment
This competition brings together top design teams from 56 countries/regions, and the judging panel conducts rigorous evaluations from multiple dimensions such as conceptual innovation, user experience, and social value. The university's award-winning work focuses on the "Urban Flood Disaster Rescue Plan" as the core breakthrough point. With its forward-looking design thinking, humanistic care, and sustainable practice, it has received high praise from international judges for "this design transforms infrastructure from passive disaster bearing to active rescue, redefining the ethical value of public safety facilities".
Winning Team
The winners of this year's IF Design Gold Award include many internationally renowned companies and top design teams such as Ferrari, Apple IBM, Samsung, Sony, Canon, and Fotile. The design team of BIGC, consisting of teachers and students, completed the entire process from theoretical modeling to prototype testing in 17 months with extremely limited space and equipment resources, and ultimately won the world's highest award alongside top international design teams. This award is a breakthrough in the innovative talent cultivation mode of the school's design discipline, and fully demonstrates the excellent achievements of the product design major in recent years, which attaches great importance to practical innovation and continuously explores and achieves in teaching reform.
The School of Design and Art is based on the educational positioning of "integrating creative design, art and engineering" in school art and design education, focusing on the integration of science and technology innovation and education, and building a collaborative education system of "teaching and learning, practice first". Through international competitions, it broadens students' horizons and has won international awards such as the German Red Dot Award, the British Ecological Design Award, and the American IDEA Award over the years. It leads students to understand the forefront of academic majors, promotes teaching and learning through competitions, adapts to the requirements of high-level and innovative art education, and cultivates students' innovative design ability oriented towards practice.
IF Gold Award winning work 'Live Afloat'
Design Introduction: This manhole cover is designed to solve the danger of pedestrians accidentally falling into the well due to the loss of the cover in flood disaster scenarios, and provide reliable life support for those who fall into the water due to disasters. This product uses engineering plastics and professional structural design to create a reliable connection kit, which can not only meet daily road traffic needs, but also automatically detach with the rise of water pressure in the event of floods. With the help of a connecting rope net, it floats around the wellhead, providing a reliable life rescue platform for those in distress.
IF Comment: With climate change leading to frequent extreme weather events, engineers and designers have taken on the responsibility of developing solutions to mitigate the most severe impacts of floods, droughts, and hurricanes. Live Afloat manhole cover is a safe flood control manhole cover that also serves as a floating rescue platform. It can be produced through 3D printing and adapted to different street conditions. This is a design thinking that goes beyond conventional thinking!
IF Product Design Award work "Micro floating Boat"
Design introduction: This design automatically discharges water according to the size of the flood flow during waterlogging, and promptly warns pedestrians to stay away from danger. In the event of a major flood, manhole cover kits transported from underground will float on the surface of the water, warning others and giving drowning victims a chance to self rescue. A large number of manhole covers in the city form a network of life-saving systems, providing drowning victims with opportunities for self rescue and improving their survival rate. This is the direction for the future development of public facilities.
