San Francisco Design Week includes talks, webinars, exhibitions and a contest for designers from all over the world
The 15th edition of San Francisco Design Week was held online June 7-13, 2021. The first edition of SFDW took place in 2006 and its goal was to transform the entire Bay Area into a hub for design excellence. This event is aimed at professionals, industry experts and design enthusiasts from around the world, looking for new inspiration for their projects. But also at designers, architecture firms and students who wish to meet the global design community, presenting their ideas and promoting their projects.
Due to pandemic restrictions, also this year’s edition consisted of exclusively virtual conversations, webinars, conferences and exhibitions. The event concluded with the announcement of the winners of this year’s design competition.
Design as a means to change the world
For the 2021 edition, titled ‘Power’, San Francisco Design Week’s contest invited the design community to reconsider the idea of power. Professionals from around the world were invited to question existing institutions and use their collective abilities to help distribute and delegate power with equitable intentions.
“Power is everywhere. It’s local and global, personal and public, selfish and selfless. There is power in the food we eat, the music we make, and the ideas we share. Power is ‘a seat at the table’, a movement, a path forward, and a new beginning.”
“This year, we as designers and design leaders are revisiting and adapting our mission to better reflect the world around us,” says SFDW Executive Director Dawn Zidonis. “By sharing resources, amplifying marginalized voices, and celebrating our differences, we’re reinventing and redistributing the power we hold, giving access to ideas born here in the Bay Area region. We stand with solidarity against white supremacy, racism, police brutality, and injustice. We are designers, masters of communication and meaning, and can use our voices to create change. With great power comes great possibility.”
Discover virtual design exhibitions to visit again
The jury selected 25 winning projects and gave 7 honorable mentions in the following categories: Architecture; Civic Design; Communications Design; Data; Health and Wellness; FinTech; Future of Foods; Industrial Design; Interior Design; Social Impact; Student Category; Systems Design; Travel & Hospitality; Urban Mobility; User Experience; VR/AR/XR; and Wild Card.
Each winning project perfectly embodied one or more of the following characteristics:
Impact: Design that represents a substantial shift in the way a particular process is created, executed, perceived, or experienced.
Singularity: Products and ideas that go above and beyond contemporaneous work being done within distinct fields of design.
Inclusiveness: Work that empowers those previously underrepresented in the design community and emboldens social mobility at all levels.
Social Responsibility: Design that offers solutions for people with needlessly insurmountable barriers to entry in all walks of life.
Ease of Use: Design that can be easily understood and applied by the end user.
Visual Appeal: Projects, ideas, and processes that not only solve problems, but do so with aesthetics that accentuate and elevate the experience from start to finish.
Feasibility: Design that can be sensibly funded, implemented and embraced.
San Francisco Design Week 2021: all the winners
Architecture
Aidlin Darling Design (US)
Geneva Car Barn and Powerhouse
Architecture
Connect Homes (US)
Mar Vista Connect 11
Architecture
Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney Architects (US)
Mighty House
Civic Design
City and County of San Francisco (US)
COVID Emergency Response Communications
Communication Design
CoLab (US)
Zip
Data
Cisco (US)
Accessible Colors for Data Visualization
FinTech
Pilot (US)
Pilot Accounting Semantic Model and Decision Engine
Future of Foods
Gould Evans (US)
Agricultural Institute of Marin – The Center for Food and Agriculture
Health and Wellness
Samsung Research America (US)
My Heart Lab
Health and Wellness
Samsung Research America (US)
My Lung Health
Industrial Design
Otelier (US)
Eat-Work Table
Interior Design
Form + Field (US)
Sweet July
Interior Design
Fennie + Mehl Architects (US)
OLLY Headquarters
Social Impact
Connect Homes (US)
The Connect Shelters System
Social Impact
Prana (US)
Prana: Multi-Patient Ventilator Splitter
Social Impact
Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney Architects (US)
Leimert Park Community Fridge
Student Category
Milu (US)
Senior’s Wellbeing: Insight Through Storytelling and Ethical AI
Student Category
Maryland Institute College of the Arts (US)
Dayz: The Future of a Day
Travel & Hospitality
Olivier Turon Design (US)
Le Colibri
Systems Design
Intuitive Surgical (US)
Intuitive Design System
Urban Mobility
REE Automotive (US)
REE’s Next Generation EV Platforms
User Experience
Blink (US)
Special Olympics
User Experience
Oracle (US)
Reimagine: The Enterprise User Experience
VR/AR/XR
BroadAR, Inc. (US)
Smell Revived
Wild Card
University of California Berkeley (US)
Euphemia
2021 Honorable Mentions
Architecture
Connect Homes (US)
Santa Ynez Connect 4
Architecture
Gould Evans (US)
Timber Town: for San Francisco, by San Francisco
Architecture
Gustave Carlson Design (US)
Canyon House
Industrial Design
Ammunition (US)
Ammunition x Gantri
Interior Design
Ogrydziak Prillinger Architects (US)
Softie
Social Impact
California College of the Arts (US)
On-Boarding Kit for Pediatric Cancer Patient
Student Category
California College of the Arts (US)
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