PIXEL BY HIROTO YOSHIZOE IS THE GRAND PRIX WINNER OF THE 2017 LEXUS DESIGN AWARD
Lexus International today announced the Grand Prix winner of the Lexus Design Award 2017 – Pixel by Hiroto Yoshizoe – leading this prestigious international event to a peak of excitement. Lexus Design Award 2017 drew 1,152 entries from 63 countries under the theme of YET.
‘The Lexus Design Award always presents a fascinating survey of the issues currently engaging young designers, and what they consider to be the most important challenges and compelling opportunities for design today. Yet the quality and scale of ambition of the submissions to this year’s award program was truly exceptional. It was very difficult for us to whittle them all down to twelve finalists, then four prototype winners and finally to the Grand Prix winner, although every stage of the process generated a feisty and enjoyable debate’, said Alice Rawsthorn, Lexus Design Award 2017 judge and a design commentator.
‘Each of the four prototype winners has wrestled with complex and significant issues, from the plight of refugees and other homeless people and providing environmental protection for buildings in a beguiling and poetic way, to fusing traditional craftsmanship with emerging technologies and encouraging children to make and play musical instruments. Eclectic and original though their responses are, all the finalists have all addressed the defining theme of the Lexus Design Award 2017, Yet, with tremendous imagination, versatility and aplomb.’
The award was delivered to the winner by Yoshihiro Sawa, President of Lexus International, during the opening cocktail of the annual design exhibit of the brand at the 2017 Milan Design Week, ‘LEXUS YET’.
Hiroto Yoshizoe graduated from Musashino Art University. Currently based in Tokyo, working on art direction and design as a spatial designer for commercial facilities, he focuses on interpreting the ideas of change, movement and time in space to create designs from both modern and analogue approaches. He was already a panel finalist of the 2016 Lexus Design Award with “PLANTS-SKIN”.
PIXEL is a device that lets people experience the existence of light and shadow with their full consciousness. It uses a configuration of visors to create a range of optical effects. Through repeated internal reflection, input images are averaged into square outputs. By converting light and shadow into a clear, sensible form, viewers can experience this beautiful fundamental phenomenon.
Design involving two contrasting elements brings them to resonate with each other to move the viewer. Through this, the contrasts are intertwined with each other. Light and Shadow, inside and outside, one side and another – this screen existing between these two contrasts can be a device for dividing, transforming and ‘connecting’ at the same time.
For the Lexus Design Award contest, Hiroto Yoshizoe was mentored by Snarkitecture.
First launched in 2013 to stimulate ideas for a better tomorrow, Lexus is celebrating the 5th anniversary of this international design competition which supports up-and-coming designers and creators worldwide. The Grand Prix winner was chosen by an elite global creative design panel after presentations by the four prototype finalists revealing how they would apply the ‘YET’ philosophy in original and innovative ways.
The Grand Prix work is displayed in the LEXUS YET pavilion, from Tuesday, April 4th through April 9th at La Triennale di Milano, the Design and Art Museum in Parco Sempione, together with the other 11 finalists’ projects.
Official hashtags: #LexusDesignAward; #MilanDesignWeek; #LexusYet