The winners of the Prix Émile Hermès 2011 were announced on October 18 2011 by architect Toyo Ito, President of the jury, and Pierre-Alexis Dumas, President of the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès.
– First prize: Arnaud le Cat, Esther Bacot and Luther Quenum (France, Unqui Designers collective) for Shelved Cooking, a low-energy cooktop.
– Second prize: Daniel Abendroth and Andreas Meinhardt (Germany) for the HAgent, an automatic, mobile heating device designed to capture and store excess heat, resdistributing it in cooler areas.
– Third prize: Jarl Fernaeus (Sweden) for the Ecojoe stove, a highly efficient woodburning
stove, designed to reduce the consumption of renewable solid fuel and limit deforestation and pollution in emerging countries.
The jury praised the very high standard of all the projects submitted, and awarded a Special Mention to Mohsen Saleh and Seyed Abdolnasser Taghavi (Iran/Italy)
for their Light Farm, an architectural module using high-density photovoltaic technology capable of generating 40 per cent of a household’s electricity needs.
The triennial prize, awarded by the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, aims to help young designers embark on a new stage in their careers. The second edition of the prize, on the universal theme ‘Heat, me-heat, re-heat’, also highlights forward-looking ‘blue skies’ thinking in support of progress and a more eco-friendly, people-friendly society. Initiatives to optimise energy consumption are a key geopolitical issue in this context: an aspect explored by the award’s participants with intelligence and style.
An interactive, dynamic exhibition will be available online at
www.prixemilehermes.com from October 18, 2011, highlighting the winning designs, from among the twelve shortlisted entries. The exhibition will remain online until the next Prix Émile Hermès, in 2014.