Pune student wins Asia young designer award

The belief that space can impact emotional well-being led Tanay Bothara, a student of city-based Padmabhushan Vasantdada Patil College of Architecture, to design play spaces for children of war-torn Syria and win the Nippon’s Asia Young Designer Award 2019 in Singapore on Tuesday.

The 23-year-old beat 8,500 students from 14 countries to win the award.

“As students we had to come up with ideas to try and solve problems through design creating sustainable projects with emotional value. For a student this opens up a whole new world as you are exposed to many concepts and themes. We had to design something for the children of war-torn regions like Syria. The main activities of a child are learning and play. So, even in a war ravaged country like Syria, children would make play spaces out of damaged buildings or basements,” said Tanay from Singapore.

The theme for this competition was ‘Forward: Challenging Design Boundaries’.

“I used colour theory and designed spaces for play and learning using, among others green which is a colour that calms and red which is a colour that charges energy into a space. Learning areas had cool colours and play areas had colours that purge energy in my design,” added Tanay.

Tanay was awarded Rs 50,000 as the winner from India and $10,000 for the Asia Young Designer Award.

“I donated Rs 50,000 to non-governmental organisations in Syria that work in the field of children’s education,” said Tanay.

The award also entitles Tanay to a fully-funded design discovery programme at Harvard University.

Established in 2008, the Asia Young Designer Awards is part of Nippon Paint’s vision to nurture the region’s next generation of socially-conscious designers. It is the only award in Asia for young aspiring architects and designers that strives to inspire them to be future beacons of change in our society.

“We believe that as young designers entering the professional field, it is important to retain the mindset of using design to better the lives of the people,” said Wee Siew Kim, CEO, NIPSEA Group.

In the interior design section, Dang Hu Trong, a student from Vietnam, was the winner. A series of awards were also conferred to honour young designers’ dedication and efforts in this competition.

First Published: Mar 28, 2019 00:31 IST