Taiwanese student team wins prestigious design award

Taipei, Sept. 14 (CNA) A team of two Taiwanese students from National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (NTUST) have won a "Best of the Best" award in the design concept category of the 2010 red dot design competition, the world's largest and most prestigious design contest, the university announced Tuesday. A total of 10 NTUST students won nine awards in the design concept category this year, a record for the school, according to the university. Yeh Ming-Hon and Lai Chung-Ping, the NTUST graduate students who captured the top award, were honored for their design called "Innate Vase, " which turned PET plastic bottles into classical vases. "Both of us like cold drinks, so we left many empty PET plastic bottles on our table. One day, we looked at the empty bottles, and a new idea came to us," Yeh told the Central News Agency. "We experimented by adding specially designed plastic bottle necks to recycled PET containers to enable them to easily be used by adding water," Yeh said. The design, he added, gave the PET bottles a new life and increased their functionality. In addition to the honor of the "Best of the Best, " the two students also won awards for works titled "Relief Light" and "Block Mold," the latter created in collaboration with another student, Chen Po-ho. The concept behind "Block Mold" was inspired by their desire to create a toy that even poor children could afford and one that would also embody the concept of protecting the earth. "It uses paper pulp from old newspapers to make blocks, " Chen said. The design incorporates paper pulp and various molds that parents and children can enjoy together, first creating blocks of different shapes and then painting them, he said. The students will be honored in a ceremony held in Singapore's red dot museum on November 25. The works of the winners also will be exhibited at the museum for one year. The red dot design award is presented by the Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen based in Essen, Germany in three different categories: product design, communication design and design concept. (By Sunnie Chen) enditem/ls

Taiwanese student team wins prestigious design award Taipei, Sept. 14 (CNA) A team of two Taiwanese students from National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (NTUST) have won a "Best of the Best" award in the design concept category of the 2010 red dot design competition, the world's largest and most prestigious design contest, the university announced Tuesday.