Kitchen industry backs RSA student design competition

The prestigious Royal Society of Arts (RSA) Student Design Awards has once again partnered with The Kitchen Education Trust (TKET) and a number of industry sponsors to launch a competition brief to reimagine the kitchen space.

The Beyond the Kitchen Table brief calls for innovative products and spatial concepts that will make kitchens desirable places for a multigenerational household.

Specifically, it requests that participants design a “convivial kitchen product or spatial solution that enables people of diverse generations and needs to prepare and eat food, entertain, engage in hobbies or work, and enjoy being together.”

Industry sponsors include AEG, Blum, Symphony, Blanco, Kesseböhmer, the Office for Disability Issues and the National Innovation Centre for Ageing (NICA).

The RSA Student Design Awards is a global curriculum and annual competition for higher education engineering and design students and recent graduates.

Beyond the Kitchen Table is one of 10 real-world challenges focused on how design can address big social challenges, like loneliness, hidden disability and sustainability.

More than £30,000 of prize money is at stake, as well as paid placements.

Beyond the Kitchen Table was developed in consultation with NICA and NICA design ambassador, Johnny Grey, visiting professor, foundation degree in kitchen design at Buckinghamshire New University (BNU), TKET and industry partners.

Grey said: “Multigenerational design is going mainstream. In this brief, we are asking for innovative products and spatial concepts that will make kitchens desirable places no one wants to leave.

“Clever thinking that has emotional and functional appeal. The partnership between TKET, Blum, Blanco, Kesseböhmer, NICA and RSA aims to connect university-educated students to the heart of the industry to create a kitchen design profession.”

Winners join a global community of alumni that includes Apple design chief Jonathan Ive, digital public services mastermind Ben Terrett and Forbes ‘30 Under 30’ social entrepreneurs Elena Dieckmann and Ryan Robinson.

The competition will open for submissions in January 2019 and prizes of up to £2,500 are available for winning entries.

Students on the BNU kitchen design degree course gain access to respected competitions like this.

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