BMW Group Design have been awarded four prestigious international Good Design 2010 awards.
The awards, presented annually in recognition of design excellence, were dished out to a quartet of BMW vehicles and concepts: the BMW 5 Series Sedan, the Mini Countryman, the BMW S 1000 RR and the BMW Concept 6.
Award winners are selected based on the criteria of function and aesthetic as originally laid down by Saarinen and Eames. Given the eco-aware times that we now live in, this criteria are now complemented by an environmental stipulation for sustainable design.
The Good Design Awards are also the world’s oldest design awards. They were started in Chicago in 1950 by leading architects Eero Saarinen, Charles and Ray Eames and Edgar Kaufmann Jr., and 60 years on, they are still presented by the Chicago Athenaeum and the European Centre for Architecture, Art Design and Urban Studies.
The prize has been conferred on designers and manufacturers for particularly innovative and visionary products, concepts and ideas that reach beyond the bounds of ordinary product design. Not the least of its aims is to raise public awareness of contemporary design.
The BMW 5 Series Sedan picked up an award for its overall look of athleticism and balanced proportions. The Mini Clubman stands out as the first Mini to have four doors and to be more than four metres in length, but is still recognisably a Mini.
The BMW Concept 6 (pictured at the top of the page) is a motorbike that features a smooth tactile upper half, whereas the lower half reveals its mechanical underpinnings. The two levels of this concept bike are fused together by an organically designed air flow system. Finally, the BMW S 1000 RR (below) is steeped in racing bike heritage and that shows in the design, thanks to a flat, sporty front end.
The prize winners will now be exhibited as part of the annual Good Design Show to be held in June 2011 at the Chicago Athenaeum.
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