Nordic Design Competition: here are the winners

08.11.18 | News
Here are the winning Nordic sustainable chairs
Photographer
The Nordics
Five winners of the competition of Nordic design for sustainable chairs have been chosen. The entries will be prominently featured on the Nordic pavilion at the UN Climate Summit (COP24) to encourage sustainable design thinking in the climate debate.

The Nordic Council of Ministers’ international branding project, The Nordics, has together with the national design associations held a competition for sustainable chairs. The goal is to raise awareness of sustainable design and to encourage design thinking in the climate debate during the UN Climate Summit in December, and now five winners have been chosen by the Nordic jury:

“In a truly democratic way, we have reached out to all Nordic designers to take part of the competition, not just established companies and producers. The five winning chairs will showcase Nordic design to the world leaders and will emphasise the important role design can play in achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The winning chairs move the borders of what is considered to be sustainable design thinking,” says Tobias Grut, Brand Manager for The Nordics.

Five winners

The national winners are:

  • "The Coastal Furniture" by Nikolaj Thrane Carlsen from Denmark
  • "HÅG Capisco" by Peter Opsvik from Norway 
  • "Petite" by David Ericsson from Sweden
  • "KOLLHRIF" by Sölvi Kristjánsson from Island 
  • "Clash 331" by Samuli Naamanka from Finland 

“The winners have managed to combine beautiful and unique Nordic design with sustainable thinking. The chairs are great conversation pieces on how design thinking can contribute to solve complicated issues, such as the climate problems. We also hope they ignite a discussion on the future of sustainable design,” says Grut.

The partners involved in promoting the competition, encouraging participants and judging the entries are the five national design centres: DOGA in Norway, the Danish Design Centre, the Iceland Design Centre, Ornamo in Finland and Svensk Form in Sweden. Each country has had its own national jury who has chosen a winner among many great contributions.

Exhibition at the the UN Climate Summit

The winning Nordic chairs will be sent to the UN Climate Summit (COP24) in Katowice, Poland, where they will be part of an exhibition on sustainability at the 'Nordic Pavilion'. Here the chairs will get significant exposure, as more than 30,000 people are expected to participate during the COP24 in December.

At the conference, a Nordic winner will be chosen through a ‘People’s Choice’ where attendees and delegates will vote on their favourite of the five Nordic winners. After the Climate Summit, the chairs will be displayed for a year at Design Werck in Copenhagen.