WantedDesign is a platform dedicated to promoting design and fostering the local and international creative community throughout the year.

This Year, We All Want to Go to The Garden Beach: Interview with the winners of the Conscious Design Awards 2022

This Year, We All Want to Go to The Garden Beach: Interview with the winners of the Conscious Design Awards 2022

The Garden Beach, a landscape project focused on the issue of soil wins Best Conscious Design Award project for 2022

As part of WantedDesign Online’s International Schools Show, WantedDesign maintains its annual Conscious Design Awards presented with Metropolis magazine. The award encourages and recognizes students who embrace the notions of sustainable design and social impact.

The jury, led by Avinash Rajagopal, editor-in-chief of Metropolis, including Humberto Campana, Gregg Buchbinder, Simone Rothman, Laurence Carr, Odile Hainaut, and Claire Pijoulat, reviewed and discussed the 116 student projects featured in this online exhibit via zoom. They unanimously selected The Garden Beach by Margot Dubrana for Best Conscious Design Award. 

Margot is a student of the Paris school Ensaama in Spatial Design Architecture, Furniture & Environment.

Learn more about the Best Conscious Design Award recipient and the 4 other Awards given to the students for the categories of Original Concept and Design, Sustainable Solution, Project with Social Impact, and Ready to Be Implemented.

Why do you think your project especially appealed to the Jury?

Margot Dubrana: “This is a project close to my heart on which I spent a lot of time. I wanted to make a most meaningful presentation, best reflecting the atmosphere I imagined : a more natural environment where people can have fun and enjoy a lost activity again. I think I did a good job of conveying those ideas.”


How would you like the project to evolve and potentially be implemented?

MD: “It would be interesting to study the impact that the submerged structure would have on the water current. Would that change the morphology of the river? By building a sample, one could already make some observations and see how the environment reacts to it.”

How do you and your project relate to the notion of “conscious and responsible design”

MD: “As a designer, I always try to pay particular attention to this notion of conscious and responsible design, which is all the more important with the climate crisis we are experiencing today. It seems to me that the study and understanding of the implantation site is essential in order to respond as accurately as possible to the questions or problems it raises. I am also very interested in materials, and for this occasion, Gwilen was a great discovery. Plants are also the fairly recurring living material in my designs. Finally, the project is above all designed for users in order to offer them the most pleasant experience possible.”

What is your dream career or company you would like to work with?

MD: “After graduating in architecture, I would like to travel to various parts of the world to study different construction techniques, learn about other cultures and see the works of great architects. First of all, I would like to work abroad, without really knowing where exactly yet.”

Portfolio and contact: 
Email: margot.dubrana@ensaama.net
Portfolio: issuu.com/margot.dubrana


We could not resist to dig deeper into the minds of the other four winners of The Conscious Design Awards 2022. Keep reading to discover their work and responses to this single question: How would you like the project to evolve and potentially be implemented? 

Best of Original Concept and Design
The Oasien·ne·s by Solène Meinnel
ENSCI Les Ateliers

Solène Meinnel: “I would love to work on the next stages of the project. The first step would be to find a partner, like Paris City Hall, or any other city’s stakeholders willing to imagine new ways to live. The way I see the Oasien.nes evolving, is through a community. It needs to find a place, and then be discussed and challenged with the inhabitants, to gather their experiences and needs, then a first prototype could be implemented, linked to the local eco-system.”

Portfolio and contact: 
Email: hello@solenemeinnel.com
Social media: @solenemnl
Website: www.solenemeinnel.com

Best of Sustainable Solution
(dis)assembling by Julie Amira
Ensaama

Julie Amira: “As I said, a project is a matter of trying and being able to overcome fails. I think this project could to be developed even more in the experimentation phase to reach an ultimate proposition of a set of joints. I would like to develop them and implement them as a catalog. It can be envisioned as a tool for a company aiming for a more sustainable method to assemble and disassemble products.”

Portfolio and contact: 
Email: julie.amira@ensaama.net
Social media: @creerdulien
Portfolio: www.pdffiller.com

Best of Social Impact
Lesbos Refugee Camp by Naroa Zabaleta
IED Instituto Europeo di Design

Naroa Zabaleta: “I would like to volunteer in more refugee camps to take advantage of and understand how they work and to be able to compare and see differences with the Lesvos camp I was in, in order to be able to make changes or modifications if required. With this great opportunity and visibility that it offers us, it would be great if someone was interested in the project and offered their help to implement it. I believe that the project will always be in constant evolution, since the same idea that now helps a group of women in the future, different modules could be designed to help a different group.”

Portfolio and contact: 
Email: naroa.zabaleta@ied.edu
Portfolio: linkedin.com/naroa-zabaleta/

Best of Ready to implement
Wood Studio: RULPA | Anna Aleksejeva
Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture

Anna Aleksejeva: “It will be a pleasure to start the production of the RULPA stool & mat. To give to the world the product which will help people to relax and feel well, to increase and support a healthy lifestyle.”

Portfolio and contact: 
Email: anna.aleksejeva@artun.ee
Social media: @nannnake
Portfolio: www.behance.net/nannna

The International Schools Show is on view at www.wanteddesign.online until June 30, 2022.