Campus for Design and Art

German Sustainability Award, Federal Ecodesign Award and Green Product Award

[Translate to Englisch:] © Laura Ullmann. Cocolette

At the end of the year 2020, several innovative and particularly sustainable ideas from students of communication design were awarded prizes at the national level.

More than ever, role models are needed to promote change in the climate crisis. As in many other areas and institutions, the topics of sustainability and resource conservation have also come increasingly into focus at the Campus of Art and Design in recent years. Time and again, student projects deal with topics such as upcycling, waste avoidance and environmental protection. For not only typical areas such as technology and research, but also design makes a valuable contribution to changing society and is in a constant process of further development. Digitalisation opens up new possibilities and forms a perfect complement to traditional means of design. It calls for a rethink, the use of new materials or the rediscovery of old techniques.

1) German Sustainability Award and Green Product Award for the "Cocolette"
In December 2020, the German Sustainability Award honoured the best ideas and concepts on the topic of sustainability and ecological change for the 13th time. With five competitions and over 800 applicants, it is the largest award of its kind in Europe. The winner of this prestigious award at the national level in the category "Future Visions" is graduate Laura Ullmann from the Communication Design Department, who was supervised by Prof. Anita Burgard in the product development of the ecological sandal "Cocolette".

Every year, tons of used plastic slippers end up as waste in the sea worldwide. With "Cocolette", designer Laura Ullmann has created an intelligent counter design that is not only convincing from an ecological point of view, but is also fashionable. The "Cocolettes" are made of purely natural materials and are completely compostable at the end of their product life. The soles made of coconut fibres are produced in Germany's only mechanical coconut weaving mill: the Schär weaving mill in the Eifel village of Eisenschmitt/Salmtal has already been working with the natural material since 1938. The straps are made of Pinatex®, an innovative natural textile made from the fibres of pineapple leaves. The leather of the insole is vegetable tanned with renewable tanning agents. Each piece is a unique handmade item that can be returned 100% to nature at the end of the shoe's life. "Cocolette" also received the Green Product Award in 2020.
https://www.instagram.com/cocolette_shoes

2) Green Product Award for tresta®: Wine press waste becomes lamps, wine coolers and shopfitting elements
The innovative product development "tresta®" by Katharina Hölz, also a communication design graduate, was also honoured with this sustainability award. 200,000 tonnes of wine press waste (stems, seeds, skins) - so-called pomace - are produced in Germany every year. Most of it remains unused. As a sustainable designer, Katharina Hölz introduces this biomass into a new life cycle. She uses pomace to develop materials and products that are naturally renewable and biodegradable. The press residues are combined with natural binders - the material for wine coolers and lamps that are visually and haptically convincing. Depending on the grape variety and pressing, the material is lighter or darker. The product development was supervised by Prof. Anita Burgard.
www.tresta-design.de

3) "Old Varieties - Newly Discovered" wins the Federal Ecodesign Award 2020 in the category "Newcomers
The Federal Ministry for the Environment and the Federal Environment Agency have been awarding the Federal Ecodesign Prize together with the International Design Centre Berlin every year since 2012. The award honours outstandingly designed, sustainable products, services and concepts. A total of 147 submissions were reviewed and evaluated. The winners were honoured by Federal Environment Minister Svenja Schulze on 30 November 2020 at the Federal Ministry for the Environment.

The Bachelor's thesis "Old Varieties - Rediscovered" by Jana Hoffmann was awarded in the "Young Talent" category. The modular sales and information system brings vanished vegetable varieties back to life: booklets, seed packets and bed plugs provide information about long-forgotten crops such as tuberous zest, cardy or melde - varieties that were largely replaced by hybrid seeds in the course of industrialisation. In contrast to today's supermarket vegetables, the old varieties are seed-resistant and easy to propagate. The project motivates people in an appealing way to cultivate old varieties in their own gardens and thus contributes to the preservation of crop diversity, which is so important for a functioning ecosystem. The project was supervised by Prof. Andreas Hogan from the Department of Communication Design and Prof. Ingo Krapf from the Department of Interior Architecture.

14. December 2020 Created by: SK Dekanat