The prestigious SaloneSatellite Award is back

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SaloneSatellite Awards winners Emanuele Ferraro, Djurdja Garčević, Lani Adeoye, Rasmus Palmgren, Gilles Werbrouck with Marva Griffin, SaloneSatellite founder and curator. Photo Ludovica Mangini

Since 2010, SaloneSatellite Award has acted as a further incentive for designers under 35 taking part in their own special Salone del Mobile.Milano event

Over the last 11 editions, more than 50 collective studios and designers have distinguished themselves sufficiently to convince the juries that their work was deserving of a place on the podium. The First, Second and Third prize-winning prototypes and the many Special Mentions at each edition of the SaloneSatellite Award help to reconstruct part of the recent history of what informs contemporary design: safeguarding the environment, experimenting with new materials, inventing new objects for new habits and everyday tools, the evolution of lighting, the focus on rehabilitating craftsmanship, catering for children and pets. Effectively an ABC of 21st century design and lifestyle, composed of many different elements which, with the objects devised by the new generations of designers, is helping to shape a new domestic landscape and the collective priorities that need to be respected.

SaloneSatellite was set up specifically to underpin the relationship between research, design and the industrial dimension, bringing to light those designers who distinguish themselves through the vocabulary of their own ideas. As an incentive to developing their career paths, the SaloneSatellite Award has assigned three cash prizes and two special mentions since 2010. Participation is free and it is up to the designers themselves to propose one of the projects they are showcasing at the special Salone del Mobile.Milano event for designers under 35.

The competing prototypes are brought together in a dedicated exhibition set up inside the SaloneSatellite pavilions at the Rho fairgrounds. They are displayed alongside each other, providing a general overview of what lies in wait in greater detail on the designers’ individual stands. Popular with visitors, this helps the jury carry out their difficult task of identifying objects that embody signs of a change of paradigm, inventive approach and new poetics, and that have demonstrated the design promise of their authors.

jury, salonesatellite, salone milano — Paola Antonelli, President of the Jury of the SaloneSatellite Award, with Dirk Wynants, designer and Extremis founder, and Francesca Taroni, director of Living and Abitare. Photo Ludovica Mangini

From the first edition onwards, the jury, composed of a diverse range of sectoral professionals each year, meets with Paola Antonelli – Senior Curator, Architecture & Design Director, Research & Development at MoMA in New York – at the behest of Marva Griffin, founder and curator of SaloneSatellite, and chair of the jury. The meetings are often keenly debated, but the end results are always agreed unanimously, and everyone takes part in what is always an emotional awards ceremony.

We now look forward to the April 2023 edition of SaloneSatellite, keen to acquaint ourselves with the faces and projects of the award-winners at its 12th edition.