Once again, the Henry van de Velde Awards highlight projects, products and services that show the added value of design from its most varied side. Flanders DC asked a professional jury to select 27 winners in 9 categories from over 400 entries. The Gold, Silver and Bronze Award winners within each category will be announced at the ceremony on February 8, 2022 in Bozar. You can decide which project wins the Public Gold Award by voting for your favourite.

At the website henryvandevelde.be, which has been completely renewed, you can find more information about the projects. You can also make your vote for the Public Gold Award. Furthermore you can dive into the archive of 28 years of the Henry van de Velde Awards. 

1. Business Innovation Award

12work, Batterij Inzamel Recipiënten, Morphemat

12work, Batterij Inzamel Recipiënten, Morphemat

  • 12work, Studio Dott. for city of Mechelen
    With 12work, the city of Mechelen wants to eliminate the thresholds in the traditional recruitment process. Thanks to a thorough service design approach, every possible angle of both the job-seeker and the employer was examined and tested.

  • Batterij Inzamel Recipiënten, Pars Pro Toto for Bebat
    Pars Pro Toto analysed the entire Bebat battery collection chain and developed a series of new containers and procedures to make the collection process safer, smarter and easier. Steel drums, a smart transportation lid and an active Internet of Things (IOT) controlled monitoring system provide an optimized collection system.

  • Morphemat, Voxdale for Ergotrics
    Morphemat® is a medical device that allows healthcare providers in the Intensive Care Department (ICU) to lift patients of up to 150 kg effortlessly from a reclined position to a stable side position. Morphemat® minimizes both the work time and the physical strain on the caregiver.

2. Consumer Award

Åska Bike, Minze Diary Pod, OYO Baby Monitor

Åska Bike, Minze Diary Pod, OYO Baby Monitor

  • Åska Bike, Achilles Design for Åska Bike
    Åska Bike is the real deal in terms of sustainability. Longevity, local production and a European supply chain combined with ground-breaking and patent-pending production technologies, product architecture and design make this the ideal alternative to the car.

  • Minze Dairy Pod, Minze Health
    Minze Diary Pod is a medical device that helps patients with urinary problems keep a bladder diary. The hand-held and ergonomic reservoir automatically measures the volume and time of each urination and sends it to a smartphone app.

  • OYO Baby Monitor, Pars Pro Toto for QLEVR
    OYO Baby Monitor is a smart monitor that helps keep an eye on new-borns and toddlers. The monitor tracks the child’s breathing rate, temperature and body position, among other things, and shows the data in the OYO app. The goal was to make the monitor look not like a surveillance product, but rather like a cute baby product.

3. Crafts Award

Bite Me, Kontour, Woven Connection

Bite Me, Kontour, Woven Connection

  • Bite Me, Sam Druant 
    In her work, Sam Druant provides a feminist critique of the narratives, gender roles and sexism embedded in Western culture and that women still face on a daily basis. The rug Bite Me plays on the historical female connotation with textiles, crafts and soft materials.

  • Kontour, Pinkoliv
    Kontour starts from used saddle frames that until recently ended up in residual waste and gives them a new life. Kontour combines authentic leather craftsmanship with digital design. Thanks to the integration of the digital processes, it remains affordable for the customer to buy unique, handmade saddles.

  • Woven Connection, Delphine Cobbaert
    Delphine Cobbaert developed Woven Connection based on a specific request to produce different sizes of carpets. Each design starts with a single thread in different colours, textures and materials, which in turn are weaved manually into different pieces that are ultimately joined together using her unique embroidery technique.

4. Design Research Award

Braille Meets Emoticons, Ecology of Colour, The Exploded View

Braille Meets Emoticons, Ecology of Colour, The Exploded View

  • Braille Meets Emoticons, Walda Verbaenen/Readsearch PXL MAD School of Arts/UHasselt
    People who use the Braille language to read and write have no alternative to emoticons, which are language-independent universal symbols. In this typographic experiment Walda Verbaenen designed emoticons as an addition to the Braille alphabet.

  • Ecology of Colour, Laboratorium for KASK & Conservatorium/HOGENT School of Arts/Howest
    At the intersection between art, design and biotechnology, this research identifies the environmental impact of the color industry and creates the shift to a sustainable approach to color. Ecology of Colour develops ecological inks with pigments from microalgae on the one hand and a sustainable palette of structural colors on the other.

  • The Exploded View, Biobased Creations/Stichting Nieuwe Helden for Dutch Design Foundation/The Embassy of Circular & Biobased Building
    The Exploded View is the result of a research in which designers, entrepreneurs, researchers, policymakers and storytellers join forces to look for sustainable answers to the building challenge that the Netherlands currently faces. Using the metaphor of a house, The Exploded View materialises its vision on affordable, sustainable and circular living.

5. Digital Product Award

BabelAR, Digiphy, Silver

BabelAR, Digiphy, Silver

  • BabelAR, Thomas Meynen/Wim Forceville/LUCA School of Arts
    BabelAR is a multilingual puzzle adventure in Augmented Reality (AR). The game teaches children between the age of 7 and 12 the value of the languages they speak (or do not speak) and strengthens language and cultural awareness. The game is part of the VirtuaLApp and can be played free of charge in 14 languages.

  • Digiphy, Lowie Vermeersch for Granstudio
    Digiphy is a Mixed Reality design and communication tool as a logical next step towards further digitisation of the design and review process in the automotive industry. Digiphy was designed as an open-ended platform for designers and allows a wide range of physical carriers to be integrated, making it suitable for many applications.

  • Silver, Create.eu for Vlaams Expertisecentrum Suïcidepreventie/UGent
    Silver is a mobile serious game that focuses on strengthening the mental health of young people between the ages of 12 and 16. The game helps players to better understand thoughts, feelings and thinking patterns. Silver was developed in a co-creation with young people, child psychologists and psychiatrists and two authors.

6. Environment Award

Biodiversiteit, Materialisme Met Emotie, ONTketen

Biodiversiteit, Materialisme Met Emotie, ONTketen

  • Biodiversiteit in bos, stad en tuin, Utilise Objects for Wood Design
    Utilise Objects seeks aesthetic solutions that are of added value for both nature and humans. These solutions are available not only for nature reserves but also for our urbanised living environment such as parcs, gardens and the city.

  • Materialisme met Emotie, Onbetaalbaar
    Every product that Onbetaalbaar develops tells its own story and offers the most ecological possible answer to a specific question. Onbetaalbaar is a think tank and a research and workplace that focuses on reuse and the application of sustainable and circular materials.

  • ONTketen, Livable Platform/Circular Matters
    Within this project, cleantech start-up Circular Matters, design platform Livable are joining forces for a circular, bio-based future. As a green start-up, Circular Matters developed an alternative to hard plastics and wood-based boards: a biopolymer completely free of fossil and mined resources.

7. Graphics Award

Huisstijl GUM, The Icon Project, The Poster House Campaign

Huisstijl GUM, The Icon Project, The Poster House Campaign

  • Huisstijl GUM, Pjotr for GUM (Gents Universiteitsmuseum)
    The style that Pjotr developed for GUM is inviting and accessible and contains references to scientific elements. The concept consists of a series of scientific references and collages based on photographs or scans of objects from the museum’s rich collection.

  • The Icon Project, Kern 02 for Cisco Systems
    For IT supplier Cisco, graphic agency Kern02 developed a set of simple and inclusive icons that was deliberately kept plain and abstract. The graphically consistent style of the icons has now become Cisco’s corporate product icon style.

  • The Poster House Campaign, Klaas Verplancke for Poster House
    Klaas Verplancke designed illustrations and animations for a communication campaign following the reopening of the Poster House Museum in New York, after the first COVID-19 lockdown in 2020. The posters and animations appeared on all 1.800 digital billboards on the streets of New York.

8. Habitat Award

Gradient Rug, Inti, Space-R

Gradient Rug, Inti, Space-R

  • Gradient Rug, Emma Terweduwe
    Gradient Rug is a multifunctional jacquard woven and felt rug, made from merino wool, mohair, linen and cotton recovered from deadstock. The combination of techniques shows off the qualities of these materials to their best advantage.

  • Inti, Kristof Pycke for Kreon
    Kreon Inti sets out to give the lighting designer a tool to create different atmospheres within the architecture with one single downlight without creating unnecessary ‘noise’ within the space. Two different light patterns are created from a single light point: directional point illumination and diffuse illumination.

  • Space-R, Roel Vandebeek for AVC Gemino 
    The challenge in developing Space-R was to be able to arrange and rearrange offices vertically in a quick and sustainable way. The result is a circular plug-and-play solution with profiles, panels and doors that are easy to install and move, without permanent damage to the ceiling and floor.

9. Spaces Award

Muziekcentrum De Bijloke, Scenographies, Tunneltaal

Muziekcentrum De Bijloke, Scenographies, Tunneltaal

  • Muziekcentrum De Bijloke, DRDH Architects together wit Julian Harrap Architects/Studio Helder/Onbetaalbaar for Muziekcentrum De Bijloke 
    DRDH Architects combines in the new concert hall design the qualities of the original space with the strengths of contemporary concert halls. For the foyers they collaborated with young designers using recycled and circular elements and materials and giving them a new interpretation.

  • Scenographies, decoratelier Jozef Wouters
    Scenographies is a modular grandstand system that can be used over and over again for different projects or clients who want to transform a (public) space. The basis of the grandstand system consists of second-hand pallet racks and a timber frame made from recovered wood that can easily be (re)recycled.

  • Tunneltaal, Studio Manon for the municipality of Rotselaar
    Tunneltaal is part of the master study The Social Game by Manon Lambeens. She involved as many local young people as possible to turn a dark, unsafe tunnel into a social bonding symbol. The tunnel is a metaphor for the time in which research was made a reality: connecting and illuminating in socially difficult times.


Within each category, a Gold, Silver and Bronze winner will be announced during the ceremony on February 8, 2022 in Bozar, together with the Lifetime Achievement, Young Talent, Company, Ecodesign by OVAM and Public Gold Award. Mark this date in your agenda! More information at henryvandevelde.be.