In its sixth year, the Shaw Contract Group Design Is… Award program honors architect and design firms that are shifting the very idea of what design is. Through these winning projects, selected from commercial and hospitality spaces from around the globe, design is teaching, inspiring, healing, and uniting.
The six Design Is… Award winning firms for 2011 are: RDG Planning and Design (Omaha), Park Plaza Hotels (London), Gensler (Atlanta), AECOM (Phoenix), Gensler (Santa Monica), and id+s Design Solutions (Montreal).
“The Design Is… Award program celebrates more than just beautiful spaces. It speaks to the power of design to transform any space in any environment, across the commercial and hospitality landscape,” says John Stephens, vice president of marketing for Shaw Contract Group. “Every project is unique except for the uniting factor of how design can impact people working, people healing, people learning, and people creating. After six years and more than 1,100 entries from 22 countries, the Design Is… Award continues to champion design excellence across market segments and around the world.”
Five distinguished members of the design community evaluated each project based on its design solutions beyond aesthetic quality. Judges reviewed the challenges, processes and results of each project and how each design team defined design.
The judging panel included:
- D.B. Kim associate principal, Pierre-Yves Rochon
- Gayle Lane director of interior design, EwingCole
- Fedora Peschard principal, Peschard Architects
- Eileen Jones principal, Perkins+Will
- John Peterson founder, Public Architecture
Winning firms will be recognized in an upcoming advertising campaign in leading industry publications and receive an original award sculpture. A $2,000 scholarship in the name of each winning firm will be awarded to the program or organization of the firm’s choosing. Shaw Contract Group will also promote its winners through promotional and marketing materials.
Firms can currently enter the 2012 Design Is… Award competition at www.shawcontractgroup.com.