Theurer bags 'Young Creations' Award at Heimtextil

Three young designers from Stuttgart University of Technology, Weissensee Art Academy and Coburg University received their awards at a ceremony on the first day of the fair, 8 January 2014. A jury of upcycling and design experts chose Jacqueline Theurer from Stuttgart as the winner. Additionally, Heimtextil will give a special award and visitors and exhibitors of the international trade fair for home and contract textiles are invited to vote for their favourite projects before the fair closes on Saturday.

“Whether in the world of fashion or interior design, upcycling is extremely cool. With this competition for young people, Heimtextil aims to promote young design talents at the same time as drawing the attention of visitors and exhibitors to the principle of sustainability and the circular economy”, explained Heimtextil Director Ulrike Wechsung during the awards ceremony. With over 40 entries, the competition aroused great interest among young designers and interior architects.

Stuttgart, Weissensee and Coburg celebrate

The jury of experts was particularly impressed by the ‘un Tragbar – un Carrieble’ project of budding interior architect Jacqueline Theurer who created a chair using colourful textile scraps held together by a tension belt. In the opinion of the jury, which consisted of Carina Bischof of Upcycling Store Berlin, Corinna Francois of bestofdesign.org powered by rooms for free e.V., Oliver Schübbe of OS2 Designgroup and Prof Auwi

Stübbe of Coburger Designforum Oberfranken e.V., “The combination is very cleverly done and produces an extremely attractive object.” The experts were delighted by the interplay of colours of the textile seat and the ingeniously simple design principle of the chair.

Additionally, the Heimtextil management presented two commendations. Irita Ozolina of Weissensee Art Academy was chosen for her ‘Static Loop’ project, which could have been taken straight from an upcycling textbook: using grey board, a recycled material, she has produced an upgraded fabric with undreamt of variety of applications. For this, she used two textile technologies: a laser process and a weaving technique. “The result is a textile surface with sensational supplementary functions that can do more than just divide a room”, say the judges.

The second commendation went to David Küffner of Coburg University for an aspect of his ‘Drucha’ project: a lamp made using a wire clothes hanger. This project is also the result of an outstanding upcycling process: to this end, a wire clothes hanger was given a new shape and, at the same time, a new, astonishing purpose. The lamp thus created is distinguished by a reduced, perfectly thoughtout design.

Special award: voting open until Friday

Heimtextil visitors and exhibitors can gain inspiration from the student’s ideas until Friday, 2 p.m. The creative projects are on show in a special exhibition in the vicinity of the ‘Design live’ designer area in Hall 4.2 (Stand B91/B93). For the special award, visitors and exhibitors have up to and including Saturday to vote for their favourite project.

Messe Frankfurt