The final phase of the Salão Design Award 2020, the main Brazilian furniture design award, will begin this Monday. The aesthetic-creative judges are gathered in Bento Gonçalves to evaluate each of the finalists and choose the winners of this 22nd award, held since 1988 by the Furniture Industry Association of Bento Gonçalves (Sindmóveis)

This judging panel for this phase consists of critic, historian and design curator Adélia Borges; architect, designer and cabinetmaker Fernando Mendes; award-winning designer, judge of numerous competitions, author and translator Freddy Van Camp; artist and designer Heloísa Crocco; the content director of Casa Vogue Taissa Buescu. They will meet this Monday and Tuesday for the evaluations, but the announcement of the winners will take place on February 10. The exhibition of the winning products and the award ceremony will be held at Movelsul Brasil 2020, from March 16 to 19, in Bento Gonçalves

In the first phase of the competition, a group of technical-functional judges, formed by academics and design professionals, evaluated the 827 projects entered by students and professionals, choosing 104 finalists from Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay for the second phase. They were responsible for analyzing the technical conditions of the entered projects and aspects such as safety, materials used, production feasibility and sustainability. Now, the required criteria include concept, creativity, originality, innovation, materials used and compliance with the project presented in the first phase

This year, the products compete in five categories: Spaces in transformation challenge; 2020 Brazilian identity challenge; Panel use challenge; Embedded technology challenge and Positivist experience challenge. The traditional awards that are still given include the Master Teacher trophy for the students’ best products and also the Alternative Woods Award, the latter in partnership with the Brazilian Forest Service, which recognizes the use of woods that are not widely used. 

Sponsored by Berneck, Interprint do Brasil and Brasmacol, the Salão Design Award offers R$ 10 thousand prizes for each professional winner and R$ 6 thousand for students. The award, established as a concurrent project of Movelsul Brasil in the 1980s, has already received 15,040 entries along its 32-year history.

More about the judges:

– Adélia Borges: craft and design historian, critic, and curator. She has written more than a dozen books, including Design + Crafts: The Brazilian Path (2011). A frequent speaker, she has lectured in 22 countries. Since 1994, she has organized and/or curated more than 40 exhibitions in cultural spaces in Brazil and abroad. She takes part in several institutions including the international board of the London Design Bienniale.

– Fernando Mendes: architect, designer and cabinetmaker. Presently, he runs his contemporary carpentry, using hand tools and handcraft techniques in the production of furniture and objects designed by himself and master Sergio Rodrigues, who he worked and lived with for over twenty years. Besides managing his Atelier, he is currently the president of the Sergio Rodrigues Institute.

– Freddy Van Camp: with a designer career of over 50 years, award winner of numerous prizes, a judge in several competitions, author and translator of books on design. An advocate of Design Policies and Regulations for Professional Designers, he has been the coordinator of the Regional Campus of UERJ / ESDI, in the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism since 2014, in Petrópolis, RJ where he lives

– Heloísa Crocco: artist and designer, she develops Topomorfose (shaping the top) and its application to different supports: utilitarian objects and panels. With experience in the arts of fiber and having traveled throughout Latin America and the Amazon Forest – which caused a significant change in her work – Heloisa Crocco is currently involved in work inspired directly by nature.

– Taissa Buescu: as a journalist, she has written articles to several Italian, Brazilian and British magazines specialized in design, architecture and lifestyle. She has also curated exhibitions in Italy and Brazil, traveling around the world in search of new design trends in all their forms. Since 2010, she has been the Content Director of Casa Vogue.

>> SALÃO DESIGN AWARD 2020 SCHEDULE

Final phase of the evaluation: January 27 and 28, 2020

Announcement of the award winners: February 10, 2020

Exhibition of the award winners and honorable mentions: Movelsul Brasil 2020, March 16 – 19, 2020 in Bento Gonçalves

Award ceremony: March 18, 2020 in Bento Gonçalves

Second exhibition of the award winners: São Paulo Design Weekend, August 2020

Follow the Salão Design Award on the social media: @premiosalaodesign