Homepage image courtesy Studio O+A.
Yesterday, the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum announced the winners of the 2016 National Design Awards, America’s rough equivalent of the Red Dot Awards in Germany or Japan’s Good Design Awards. First launched in 2000, the Awards program recognizes “excellence, innovation, and enhancement” for both individuals and collectives in the domain of American design. Though the recipients of the coveted honor can come from around the world, qualifications require that they are citizens or at least long-term residents of the United States; companies, meanwhile, must be headquartered there.
This year’s crop of winners includes the design firm Ammunition, responsible for the identity and product design of Beats by Dre among others, Brad Pitt’s nonprofit Make It Right and the fashion company Opening Ceremony. Along with this year’s other recipients, they join the prestigious company of past winners — including Milton Glaser, Apple’s Jonathan Ive, and companies such as Google, TED and Knoll — who, together, enrich the life of Americans through design. Here’s the full list of new winners, along with a look at some of their most notable works.
Moshe Safdie
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Lifetime Achievement: Architect, educator and author Moshe Safdie — founder of Safdie Architects, based in Massachusetts — is known for his architectural theory and dramatic style, incorporating curves and geometric patterns into his buildings. He is perhaps best known for Habitat 67 in Montreal, a housing complex he conceived as part of his thesis while attending McGill University in the 1960s.
