Awards 21

The Henry van de Velde Awards showcases projects, products and services that demonstrate the added value of design in its most varied aspects. The jury selected 17 winners from 198 submissions in 7 categories. The jury has selected one Gold Award winner per category along with the Lifetime Achievement, Young Talent, Company and Ecodesign by OVAM Gold Awards. The public also participates in the selection and was able to vote for one of the 17 winners to decide the Public Gold Award winner. Below is a list of all the winners. 

The Gold Award winners of each category were announced during the online ceremony on February 5, 2021.

Rewatch the ceremony
Jury
Jury
Katja Craeghs
Katja Craeghs
Chris De Roock
Chris De Roock
Thomas Joos
Thomas Joos
Katrien Laporte
Katrien Laporte
Johan Valcke
Former Director at Design Flanders & Founder Valcke Art Gallery
Johan Valcke

Johan Valcke was appointed director of Design Flanders in 1992. In that function he founded the Henry van de Velde Awards. He also founded the Design Flanders Gallery, the Triennials for Design and established the design magazine Kwintessens. He was elected to the Board of WCC-Europe and the Board of BEDA. Today, he remains active in the sounding board group for Design Museum Gent, the general assembly of HISK Gent and the purchasing committee of DIVA Antwerp. In 2018 he opened his gallery VALCKE Art Gallery.

Marie Pok
Marie Pok
Liv Vaisberg
Liv Vaisberg
Ronald Bastiaens
Academic Director Howest University Applied Science
Ronald Bastiaens

Ronald Bastiaens is an Industrial Product Design Training Coordinator at Howest and a professor of industrial product design, prototyping, sustainable design, design methods, materials and manufacturing. He is also the team leader of the Howest Industrial Design Center and a researcher in the projects Protolab, Protolight, Design for Impact, Innowiz, myMachine and Pro-Fit.

Annelies Thoelen
Head of program, Z33 House for Contemporary Art, Design and Architecture
Annelies Thoelen

Annelies Thoelen is curator at Z33. With a master’s degree in Art History and a PhD she started at Design Flanders in 2013. She is responsible for projects on Flemish design policy and is an international design advisor for the Creative Industries Fund in Rotterdam. She is a member of the editorial board of the ‘Tijdschrift voor Interieurgeschiedenis en Design’ and teaches design history and contemporary design at LUCA School of Arts in Genk.

Hilde Francq
Hilde Francq
Chris Baelus
Professor Design Sciences University of Antwerp
Chris Baelus

Chris Baelus is a professor of product development at the University of Antwerp. He graduated in 1981 as an industrial designer from the NHIBS/Henry van de Velde Institute. After working as an independent designer for several years, he opted for education and research in product development. Since then, he has been affiliated with the Faculty of Design Sciences.

Francis Carpentier
Curatorial Project Coordinator - Architecture & Design at Bozar
Francis Carpentier

Francis Carpentier is the Curatorial Project Coordinator for the architecture and design programme of Bozar. As the exhibition coordinator, he was responsible for, among others, Ado Chale (2017) and Richard Venlet (2019). Francis trained in the Conservation of Monuments and Sites and serves on the boards of directors of the Horta Museum, Docomomo and Europa Nostra Belgium.

Wim Buts
Head of the Department Productdesign LUCA School of Arts (Genk)
Wim Buts

Wim Buts is a product designer and researcher and was head of the Product Design programme at LUCA School of Arts Genk until September 2021. He recently started a PhD study, “Design 4.0: a research into strategies for designers in the 4th industrial revolution”, in which he examines which new roles designers can take on and wants to discuss the abstract conceptual framework with the various stakeholders via tangible future scenarios.

Siegrid Demyttenaere
Creative director, co-editor, co-owner DAMN° Magazine
Siegrid Demyttenaere

Siegrid Demyttenaere is a founding partner, publisher and creative director of DAMN° magazine, and she heads an international visual communication agency, Waterproof. Siegrid Demyttenaere also carries out a number of private assignments as an art director and curator for companies and institutions, works as a design researcher and consultant and teaches at LUCA Ghent.

Max Borka
Art & design journalist and curator
Max Borka

Max Borka was mainly active as a lecturer, journalist, radio producer and art critic when he became the director of the Interior Foundation in 1999 and co-founded DAMn° magazine. In 2011, he launched Mapping the Design World, an international social design platform. He also taught at KASK Ghent, La Cambre Brussels and Fachhochschule Potsdam and became the director of Berlin Design Week. He returned to Belgium in 2017.

Catalogue

Do you want to know more about the winners and the winning projects of the Henry van de Velde Awards 21? In the catalogue design critic and curator Max Borka has written about the changing role of the designer. He also had a conversation with Ann Demeulemeester en Novy's CEO. Curator Annelies Thoelen (Z33) did an interview with Laura Bergans and Sang Vandenbosch (Bureau BoschBerg) and journaliste Elien Haentjens talks with the founders of Facadeclick.

The richly illustrated publication (144 p.) is bilingual (NL-ENG) en was designed by Geoffrey Brusatto. A copy can be purchased online and costs 5 euros (including shipping costs).