2008 winner - Max Fordham
In a career spanning four decades, Max Fordham has pioneered the thinking that underpins green building design.
Professor Fordham and the practice that bears his name have helped create and define the discipline of environmental design and engineering for buildings, though he admitted, 'I never believed it was possible to get anyone interested in it'. Nevertheless, he has helped ensure that giving buildings heat, water, power and ventilation has become integral to their design, not a barrier to it.
It’s a contribution that has earned him the Prince Philip Designers Prize, awarded annually in recognition of outstanding lifetime achievement in design and presented by H.R.H the Duke of Edinburgh at a special ceremony at the Design Council on 5 November. Prof Fordham said: 'The honour is special because the engineering of service installations in buildings is not usually associated with design, so I am grateful for the acknowledgement that it really is design and should be encouraged. I hope that my winning of the prize helps to promote the view that engineers are designers in the widest sense.'
Special commendations were awarded to product design duo Richard Seymour and Dick Powell, and to Sir John and Lady Frances Sorrell, who have promoted the value of design through ventures such as their charitable Sorrell Foundation. Other nominees included product designer Sam Hecht, car designer Ian Callum, architects Jeremy Dixon, Edward Jones and Amanda Levete, branding specialist Mary Lewis and fashion designer Betty Jackson.
At the ceremony, Design Council Chief Executive David Kester said: ‘All these great names in British design envision and shape our future. They help make our world better by redefining and designing the objects and systems around us. In their different ways, they all have a positive impact on our lives and they inspire us with their vision and their ability to realise it.’
Prof Fordham said his career had been driven by the search for 'new ways to solve old problems' and that sustainability, rather than being an objective in itself was 'just part of the problem'. He added that he found the detailed contemplation of a problem more rewarding than 'grandiose concepts'. 'It's very nitty-gritty, non-visual work but it makes the building run better - and it's good fun.'
David Kester said: ‘Max Fordham is a true pioneer of sustainable design – the “Intel inside” at the heart of groundbreaking low and zero carbon projects in the UK and around the world. Building services are responsible for almost half the UK’s CO2 emissions so it’s timely that the prize should got to someone whose legacy is genuinely environmental and sustainable design.’
Max Fordham and his practice have worked on high profile projects including the Tate Gallery in St Ives and the National Botanic Garden of Wales. The firm, which employs more than 150 engineers, has won many awards including the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in Sustainable Development. Recent projects include the natural lighting scheme for the Indoor Cricket School at Lord’s and ventilation systems for the National Trust’s offices in Swindon.
Richard Seymour and Dick Powell
Richard Seymour and Dick Powell are one of the UK’s most high profile design duos. A partnership between a polymath and a purist industrial designer, their practice Seymourpowell was set up in 1984 and since then has created successful products for international clients including Tefal, Lynx, Stannah Stairlifts, Samsung and Unilever.
The firm now employs 65 people and has developed the world’s first purpose-built hydrogen fuel cell motorcycle as well as interiors for the first tourist spacecraft. Both Seymour and Powell also use their enthusiasm about design to engage the general public in debates about good design – in their Channel 4 television series – and to inspire the next generation of designers as visiting lecturers in industrial design.
Sir John Sorrell CBE and Lady Frances Sorrell
John and Frances Sorrell have worked together for more than thirty years, first at the brand house Newell and Sorrell and, since 1999, in the educational charity The Sorrell Foundation. Newell and Sorrell was responsible for highly successful corporate identity programmes for clients including Waterstones, Selfridges, InterCity, Parcelforce and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
The Sorrell Foundation, which aims to inspire creativity in young people and improve the quality of life through good design, has engaged school pupils as clients in the joinedupdesignforschools programme and is currently connecting design students with school pupils and providing them with mentoring from professional designers. Sir John Sorrell has promoted British design for more than twenty years, and is Chair of the London Design Festival which he devised and founded in 2003.
Ian Callum RDI
Ian Callum has made a high profile contribution to automotive design, first at Ford, where he worked on models from the RS200 to the Escort Cosworth, and later at TWR where he set up the design studio that designed and built the Aston Martin DB7 and the Ford Puma.
Since 1999 he has been Director of Design at Jaguar, taking a classic marque in a new and commercially successful direction with models such as the XK, launched in 2005, which combined stylistic trademarks with contemporary design features. The new XF continues the quest for new territory, combining visual sophistication and a nod to the 60s Jaguar Mk2 with the pragmatism of the family saloon.
Sir Jeremy Dixon and Edward Jones
Jeremy Dixon and Edward Jones are architects whose modernist work takes on board many elements of the classical tradition. Their work fuses many of the best ideas that have been current in architecture over the past three decades, and projects including extensions to the National Portrait Gallery and the Royal Opera House appeal to a broad public.
A partnership of equals, Dixon Jones Ltd was formed in 1989 and the practice has won awards for projects including the Venice Bus Station and Mississauga City Hall, Canada, as well as working on many new-build education schemes in Oxford, Cambridge, Aberdeen and London. Current projects include Salisbury Cathedral and a new concert hall at Kings Place, London
Sam Hecht
Sam Hecht is regarded as one of the most thoughtful and rigorous product designers of his generation. Previously Head of Industrial Design at the consultancy IDEO, in 2002 he co-founded Industrial Facility, with Kim Colin, and since then has brought his logical and modest design style to global corporations including Epson and Whirlpool.
Hecht designs more than 20 items every year for Muji, including the company’s highest volume seller ever – the City in a Bag series – and the award-winning Second Phone. His design approach, which extracts the superfluous from the everyday, creates simple but inspiring – and often technically demanding – products. In 2008 Hecht and Colin were made Design Directors for Herman Miller, the prestigious Michigan-based furniture company.
Find out how Sam Hecht helped revive the fortunes of a Sheffield knife maker
Betty Jackson CBE RDI
Betty Jackson is one of Britain’s best-known fashion designers as well as being an inspirational teacher and advocate of design education. She founded Betty Jackson Ltd in 1981and, as ladieswear consultant to Marks and Spencer, was one of the four original designers to create ranges for the launch of its Autograph collection. Today Betty Jackson produces mainline and diffusion collections of practical, wearable and feminine clothes as well as working with Debenhams on the Betty Jackson Black range. A part-time lecturer at the Royal College of Art, she has also lectured at the V&A where her designs are part of the permanent collection. She was named Contemporary Designer of the Year in 1999 and was awarded the CBE in 2007.
Amanda Levete
Amanda Levete is one of the UK’s leading architects. A co-principal of agenda-setting practice Future Systems, her work has been recognised worldwide for its ability to challenge traditional preconceptions of space. Future Systems’ diverse projects include the iconic Selfridges building in Birmingham and the media centre at Lord’s Cricket Ground – the first all-aluminium building in the world and the winner of the 1999 Stirling Prize for Architecture.
Levete has also designed products, interiors and furniture, and in 2008 exhibited four pieces for Established and Sons that push materials and design to their limits while finding practical solutions to spatial problems. Other recent work includes school buildings in Richmond and (with artist Anish Kapoor) a subway station for the Naples Metro.
Mary Lewis
Mary Lewis formed brand consultancy Lewis Moberly with Robert Moberly in 1984, and the practice remains one of the UK’s most successful design companies. Early work for Asda’s wine and spirits range was a huge creative and commercial success and work for Boots films, sandwiches and bin liners won numerous creative awards. Mary Lewis holds senior consultative positions with Marks and Spencer, B&Q and is a member of the Royal Mail Special Stamps Committee. More recent work includes the identity for St Pancras International, a redesign of Cafe Direct’s identity and the Belu mineral water brand, a joint initiative with the client which gives all its profits back to clean water projects.
Read about Lewis Moberly's design work for Kingsdown water
History
The origins of the Prince Philip Designers Prize go back to 1959, when it was known as the Duke of Edinburgh’s Prize for Elegant Design. The first winner was the Prestcold Packaway refrigerator. Since that time, the focus of the award has shifted from products to designers themselves, and specifically their outstanding lifetime achievement in design and its standing in business and society.
The evolution of the prize has been reflected in successive changes to its name, including the Duke of Edinburgh’s Design Prize and the Prince Philip Prize for Designer of the Year. The prize in its current form began in 1990.
Nominations
The prize is awarded to an individual designer or a leader of a design team, selected from nominations by the following organisations:
Arts Council England, the Chartered Society of Designers, D&AD, the Design Museum, the Design Business Association, the Institution of Engineering Designers, the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Royal College of Art.
Judging criteria
Selection criteria for the Prince Philip Designers Prize take the following into account:
- Contribution to the perception of design by industry and the public, and to the status of designers
- Influence on design standards and trends
- Record of successful design for consumer and industrial products or buildings, especially success in the marketplace
- Originality of concepts, patents and other Intellectual Property Rights
- Aesthetic quality of designs
- Structural, manufacturing or engineering quality of design
- Contribution to design education.
Judges
The selection panel is chaired every year by H.R.H. The Duke of Edinburgh.
This year, the panel comprised: Sir Michael Bichard (Vice-Chairman), Prof Chris Wise, Peter Head, Graham Cartledge, Prof Clive Richards, David Kester and Richard Williams.
Panellists were nominated by the Chartered Society of Designers, the Confederation of British Industry, the Design Council, the RSA, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Designers for Industry.
Prizes
The winner of the Prince Philip Designers Prize is presented personally with a signed certificate by Prince Philip. The selection panel may award 'Specially Commended Certificates' to a limited number of other candidates.
Previous winners
Previous winners of the Prince Philip Designers Prize include architects Sir Michael Hopkins and Lord Foster, multi-disciplinary designer Thomas Heatherwick and graphic designer David Gentleman.
Read about the 2007 Prince Philip Designers Prize
Or find a list of other previous winners here