Dezeen Wire: five winners of the bi-annual Index Awards have been announced at a ceremony in Copenhagen, including See Better to Learn Better by fuseproject, which won the Body category, and Elemental Monterrey by Elemental, winner of the Home category.

Read more about the 2011 winners here. See our story about the 2009 winners here. The following text is from the Index Awards website:

Last night, 27 countries competed to take home the world’s biggest design prize, as the winners of the world’s largest – and perhaps the most important – design award, the Danish INDEX: Award, were unveiled at a spectacular award ceremony in the Copenhagen Opera attended by HRH The Crown Prince and HRH The Crown Princess of Denmark along with 1,200 official guests from 48 countries.

The winners of INDEX: Award is not traditional design, but rather design that vastly improves the lives of people all over the world. The Danish, non-profit design organization INDEX: Design to Improve Life received almost 1,000 nominations for the competition from 78 countries and among these, the International INDEX: Jury initially selected 60 finalist designs, from which the five winners were announced last night.

INDEX: Award is awarded in five categories: Body, Home, Work, Play and Community, and the five winners share a total purse of more than $800.000.

INDEX: Award shows us how design can be a decisive factor when coming up with solutions for some of the world’s major challenges like climate changes, pollution, natural disasters, loneliness, elderly care, poverty, over-consumption and other important issues.

AND THE WINNERS ARE…
In the BODY Category, the winner was See Better to Learn Better (VerBien) – a free eyeglasses program for Mexican children designed by former INDEX: Award winner Yves Behar (Switzerland).

In the HOME Category, the winner is ELEMENTAL Monterrey – a revolutionary new model for social housing, also in Mexico.

In the WORK Category, the winner is Design for Change from India – a design based school competition designed to give children an opportunity to express their own ideas for a better world and put them into action.

In the PLAY Category, the winner is Swedish Hövding – an invisible airbag for cyclists’ head, shaped as a collar worn around the neck.

In the COMMUNITY Category, the winner is Design Seoul from South Korea – the first ever coherent design based approach to improve life for citizens in a very large city.

Back to Dezeenwire »
Back to Dezeen »