Monash University was certainly a headline act at Good Design Week, with its Department of Design taking out a bunch of Good Design Awards for 2021.

Six of the university’s designs that were submitted for a number of categories were given accolades for their efforts. The projects span across hand hygiene, aircraft cabins and  mechanical ventilators, to codesign tools, urban safety and ‘i-conic’ exhibitions. 

Many of the winning projects were the subject of multidisciplinary teams and external partners, outlining the importance of collaboration for groundbreaking projects.

Associate Professor and Head of Monash’s Design Department, Gene Bawden says the university is delighted to have been championed for its efforts across a range of categories.

“Securing this number of awards is a real boost for our design researchers, practitioners, students and collaborators,” he says.

“They are evidence that the Monash design community continues to confront significant challenges, not only the ones we faced together in lockdown, but those that need to be addressed beyond the pandemic, including urban safety, health and hygiene, and authentic community engagement.”

The Dean of Monash Art, Design and Architecture, Professor Shane Murray, says he wishes to extend congratulations to the team. 

“These are impactful projects in themselves and I’m pleased these awards have recognised the contribution the team is making, generating outcomes through design,” he says. 

“With the appointment of Dr Leah Heiss, our new International Research Chair in Design and recipient of one of the awards, we are looking forward to more great work and collaborations in the future.”

The Good Design Awards, presented last week, are seen as a major honour for design and innovation in the country. To find out the full list of winners, head to good-design.org.

 

Please find the full list of Monash University’s Good Design Awards winners below.

 

Gold Accolades

Clean Hands, Save Lives: Designed Hand Hygiene for Improved Healthcare

Monash Design Health Collab with Enware, Monash Health, Monash Electrical & Data Engineering and Oracle Healthcare

The Hand Hygiene Management system assists health care facilities’ transition from enforced and indiscernible hand hygiene compliance to one where sustainable hand hygiene behaviour is second-nature.

Tactile Tools

Associate Professor Leah Heiss and Dr Marius Foley  

The Tactile Tools co-design method brings together diverse groups of people to solve complex problems. The toolkit draws from human-centred design research and has been used by over 250 professionals in aged care and healthcare to solve complex problems, including redesigning end-of-life experience.

I-conic Australian Design

Ian Wong and Tim Isaacson

A design research project and enduring archive contributing to the understanding of the practice of industrial design in Australia.  

Hypersext City

Monash XYX Lab (Gene Bawden, Nicole Kalms, Isabella Webb, Gill Mathewson, Jess Berry, Timothy Moore, Hayden Doward, Ella Mitchell)

An immersive typographic installation, video series and participatory website. The project is both a representation of and repository for research pertaining to gendered harassment, violence and unsafe behaviour as it occurs in our cities.

 

Good Design Award

Repose: an economy class aircraft cabin designed for sleep

Nyein Aung (and his PhD supervisors Mark Armstrong, Arthur de Bono, Robbie Napper, Monash Design Health Collab)

Repose is an aircraft cabin that improves the inflight sleep of economy passengers through cabin design instead of seat design.

 

Next Generation Award

Addivent

Aman Bhatti and Ben Fraser (Monash Industrial Design & Engineering students)

A low-cost and easy-to-manufacture mechanical ventilator, primarily made through additive manufacturing, which can easily be crowdsourced to members of the community.