From permanent installations to temporary structures, perhaps no area of design reflects our current cultural disposition more than the deesign of space itself. This year's submissions for the Interiors & Exhibitions category of the 2014 Core77 Design Awards did a fantastic job of reminding us of the many ways it can be interpreted. The jury team, led by Geoff Manaugh, recognized a dozen entries this year, from thought-provoking student concepts to impactful improvements to extant spaces.

Professional Winner: Sustainability Treehouse, by Volume Inc. and Studio Terpeluk

Volume Inc. and Studio Terpeluk teamed up to bring sustainability to an organization known for its commitment to tradition. Not only does their Sustainability Treehouse for the Boy Scouts of America place visitors in a sustainable environment, it also tells a story through important facts and suggestions. "While the project risks falling into kitsch or even cliché, it nonetheless manages to be an imaginative and highly inspiring sequence of spaces for just the right age of user, the young Scouts who are its intended audience," says Jury Captain Geoff Manaugh. "The Treehouse also brings a message of sustainability—of personal responsibility, recognition of one's own environmental limits and respect for the needs of others, both now and in the future—to an organization that might normally skip that message in favor of the Boy Scouts' traditional focus on masculine self-determination. That makes this an important yet playful space, and one that's beautifully designed both architecturally and graphically."

» Learn more about Sustainability Treehouse

Student Winner: Blastproof: A Hands-on Exhibition about Humanitarian Mine Removal, by Chris Natt

Landmines are but a vicarious news item (or metaphor) for most of us, but they are a daily reality for residents of war-torn nations. Royal College of Art student Chris Natt brings us an interactive look into the daily lives of the people responsible for removing the weapons from conflict-affected areas. Throughout the exhibit, visitors can interact with electronic replicas of the devices and experience the visuals that go hand-in-hand with the explosives. "Fascinating R&D with a critical subtext: Reactive training tools that enhance the perception of mine hazards," says juror Hayley Eber. "The museum-based detonation triggers a range of auditory, visual and tactile stimuli to communicate the event. It would be great if the installation could find a permanent home, and the prototypes went beyond 3D printing." Fellow juror Jake Barton appreciates the attention to the sensitive material: "It's really, really hard to make something that horrific be both experiential, impactful, and also respectful. I think it's the right mix and a great achievement."

» Learn more about Blastproof: A Hands-on Exhibition about Humanitarian Mine Removal

Professional Runner Up: Breaking the Mold—VarVac Wall, by HouMinn Practice

It goes unsaid that an architecture school has to be housed within a memorable structure. The University of Minnesota School of Architecture looked to HouMinn Practice to give them a front office worthy of a a few photo ops. The VarVac Wall works specifically with sound—some sections of the wall absorb it while others reflect noise. The ultra-textured surface is made of vacuum-formed panels that are either solid or perforated, depending on their function. "This strikingly realized tweaking of a relatively common manufacturing process shows at least one way for new architectural designs to be realized in the tooling and fabrication stage, where aesthetic results—and these wall panels are definitely gorgeous—emerge less from a designer's own palate and more from the materials themselves," says Manaugh. "On a technical level, as well, this system points toward intriguing future overlaps between the realization of architectural systems and the production of industrial products."

» Learn more about Breaking the Mold—VarVac Wall

Professional Runner Up: Architecture Factory, by Marc O Riain (CIT) and Neil Tobin (RKD)

We live in a time where shipping containers are finding more applications—or at least more media exposure—as trendy space solutions beyond the shipping industry. Marc O'Riain of the Cork Institute of Technology (CIC) and Neil Tobin of RKD Architects have incorporated a series of containers into an open office space plan. Architecture Factory turns the CIC's Department of Architecture into a collaborative space despite the claustrophobic size constraints of a single shipping container. Jurors Yen Ha and Michi Yanagishita appreciated this contrast: "The project presents a different approach to shipping containers by using them not just as containers, but as walls and dividers of space. A great project that defines space without creating barriers, providing visual interest and continuity."

» Learn more about Architecture Factory

Student Runner Up: Cocoon, by Tanya Shukstelinsky

Our living spaces are becoming smaller, but at least our floorplans are keeping up with the trend and more creative ways to embrace (and use every inch of) the space we have are popping up. You won't want to make a permanent home out of Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design student Tanya Shukstelinsky's Cocoon, but it is an intriguing look at the way our public spaces define our personal territories. The structure is made of textiles sewn together to create stairs, sleeping areas and other living areas. The jury team had a few situational suggestions for this design: "the implications for things like tent design or portable camping shelters—let alone children's play rooms—are fascinating to consider," says Manaugh. Ha and Yanagishita had another idea: "Cocoon reduces the idea of what it means to be in a space to the bare minimum. Definitely the new hammock for start up tech offices."

» Learn more about Cocoon

This weekend saw the unveiling of the collaborative bicycle designs that are going head to head in the third edition of the Oregon Manifest, in which five teams in as many cities set out to create and craft the best urban utility bike. As of Monday morning, the public is invited to vote on their favorite one, which may well be produced by Fuji Bikes in the near future. We are pleased to present exclusive Q&As with each team so they have a chance to explain why their bicycle is the best before the voting period closes this Sunday, August 3.

Yesterday, we featured Teague × Sizemore Bicycle of Seattle; our final stop is Chicago, where MNML× Method designed the Blackline.

Core77: Did you and Method know of each other before the collaboration? What was the matchmaking process like?

Chris Watson (Project Manager & New Product Strategist, MINMAL): MINIMAL and Method were paired by Oregon Manifest. Coincidentally, our studio and Method's shop were located only blocks away. Our proximity made collaboration much easier during the early stages of the design process.

By its very nature, the design-fabrication relationship for this collaboration is far more intimate than your average designer's relationship with a contractor or manufacturer. To what degree did you educate each other on your respective areas of expertise?

We relied on Garry to keep us grounded. From the beginning, we made the decision to showcase Garry's craft on our frame. Rather than limiting our design, choosing to make the entire frame using traditional craft was a good counterweight to our team's desire to push boundaries with different forms and materials. Conversely, the design team pushed Garry to experiment with different frame architectures that were outside of his comfort zone. Our collaboration was a constant exchange of ideas in which we arrived at a solution that could have only been realized through our joint efforts.

Has the collaboration yielded broader lessons? What was a particularly memorable area of difficulty when translating the design into fabrication?

A major element of our frame design is the single main tube, which is constructed by mitering and brazing several tubes together. It was not clear from our original drawings if the frame would hold up to the abuse of city riding. No amount of analysis could have helped; we needed to build and test a frame. Garry did an amazing job translating our ideas into a working prototype in order to confirm our design would work for the final product.

Ask your doctor if Silk Leaf is right for you

Stop the Green Dream presses. Julian Melchiorri has built a leaf that absorbs CO2 and sunlight and produces oxygen. Rather than just growing a plant like most of us who want leaves in our lives, Melchiorri's work got positively semi-scientific. By breaking down the tough proteins in silk, and plucking out useful chloroplasts from plant matter, the end product "lives" on light and water, and produces what we breathe. Produced as a part of the Royal College of Art course "Innovation Design Engineering," the Silk Leaf project was conceived as a way to manage emissions and neutralize environmental impact with a space efficient, "biological" material.

When it comes to lights that retail for tens of thousands of dollars, you better believe every detail is excruciatingly considered. That's certainly the case with Bec Brittain's line of high-end lighting, luxury pieces thoughtfully designed and painstakingly assembled in her studio in Bushwick, Brooklyn. A prime example: During New York Design Week last May, the designer launched her latest iteration of Echo—a series of pendants with a price tag of around $40K each—which uses fins of glass around a central axis to reflect and diffuse beams of light.

Started in 2013, the Echo series is an exploration of light directed inward, toward mirror and glass. Thus Echo 1 has five angled LED arms that shine light toward the center, where it is reflected by bronze mirrors. The next version, Echo 2, employs opal white glass panels to softly diffuse light, while Echo 3 uses gray mirrored panels to create a much stronger, brighter glow. This year's addition to the series, Echo 4, introduces custom-cut perforations to break up its mirrored panels.

The perforated mirror is a first for Brittain's lighting work, chosen for how it works with linear light. "The lines are segmented and thrown, to create an effect we had hoped for but could barely anticipate," explains the designer. "This is one of our most exciting new fixtures, as the visual impact is at a maximum. The perforated mirror panels work with each other in a way that makes the fixture undefinable; it becomes a concentrated optical illusion."

When approaching a new idea for lighting, Brittain always begins by sketching—allowing the fixture to take form in these sketches, before moving to physical models. "We look at proportions, feasibility, concept; we try to understand the project as best we can with these methods, and then bring it to a digital model to work out the details and individual parts," she says. For the Echo 4, that meant prototyping the fixture in foam core and mocking it up using hardware from her SHY light series. Some sample glass was cut. In other cases, Brittain's team has 3D-printed hardware prototypes." It's a really great way to see the pieces and test them," Brittain says. "We move between the computer and these prototypes, and then order a small run of machined parts before moving into production."

The numbers don't lie: In 2012, 4,628 construction workers were killed on the job from a number of hazards—falls, scaffold collapse, electric shock, failure to use proper personal equipment. Pensar and Illumagear took note of that last threat and got to work.

The HALO Light is an LED light ring that attaches to a number of hard hat styles for increased visibility—and the Professional Winner in the Equipment category of the 2014 Core77 Design Awards. Take note of that universal fit mention, because according to the designers it wasn't an easy task. "Attaching to any hard hat quickly and easily was a serious challenge," says Pensar's Creative Director Alex Diener. "We evaluated 50+ hardhats to ensure the Halo fits almost any hard hat. The most popular hard hats were scanned and brought into CAD. We held cross-disciplinary brainstorms to explore many options—from ratcheting bands and elastic straps to cam systems. A trial-and-error process of iterative model making followed. There were many failures, but it refined our approach and priorities: simple, no tools and fast to install/remove."

Check out the light in action:

Despite the first part of their name, Brooklyn Boulders is a Massachusetts-based organization that runs the oddest co-working space we've ever seen. Their Active Collaborative Workspace has got the desks, tables, counters, couches, lounges and Wi-Fi you'd expect, but it's located atop an enormous climbing wall in a 40,000-square-foot "hybrid climbing facility."

While workspaces have traditionally been about focusing on tasks, either alone or with others, the ACW is designed with physical distractions aplenty: Standing-desk-height counters are topped with pull-up bars, and in addition to the rock climbing wall there are cardio machines, a weight room, a yoga studio, a slackline facility and a variety of fitness classes and personal training sessions one can sign up for.

The company's thinking is that these diversions will not only get you into shape, but ultimately boost, not curtail, productivity. "Positive disruption of sedentary work sessions," they write, "in the form of play, movement, and exercise fuels creative thought, encourages collaboration and results in a happy and healthy work environment."

Since the dawn of the radio, over a century ago, there has been buzz about the invisible rays that make our tech go 'round... and what they're doing to our bodies, and as our lives become more wireless, the myths and rumors presumably expand into an ever denser unseen web. Perhaps the most unsettling thing about those "invisible killers" is that they are, indeed, invisible. But add another layer to the equation and you'll discover that those unseen signals are actually beautiful pieces of art (not that that'll make you feel better about what they may or may not be doing to your health). Newcastle University's Luis Hernan is giving us a peek into the concealed world of wireless signals with his project, Digital Ethereal.

Using what's being described around the blogosphere as "a piece of equipment that translates the strength of the Wi-fi signal into colors" (blue being the strongest and red coming in as the weakest—like flames in a fire), Hernan captures time-lapsed shots of these waves at work. That description is about as vague as the ghost-hunting tools we see paranormal scientists toting around on the sci-fi channel—which actually makes sense considering Hernan compares the waves to ghosts, thanks to their invisible qualities.

When you picture an ordinary filmmaker's workspace, you picture piles of camera and grip gear alongside coffee-table tomes on the French New Wave. But Casey Neistat is no ordinary filmmaker, and his lower Manhattan workspace looks more than a little like the Industrial Design studio spaces you remember from design school. Part art supply store and part hardware store, Neistat's workshop allows him to quickly cobble together everything from iPhone docks to camera fixes to marker-scrawled animation slides.

Neistat's just launched his Studio Series, where he's going to presumably show us the inner workings of this amazing makerspace. First up: His red-box organization system and the thinking behind it, presented in his signature explanatory style:

Since 1999, Taphandles has helped breweries sell more beer. They are a high energy and collaborative award winning beer marketing firm based in Seattle. Their products consist of tap handles, promotional items, point-of-sale displays, and signage for breweries across the globe and their design to production cycle is short. They want an equally high energy Junior Product Designer to join their team and help them continue to help breweries sell more beer!

What's so great about working at Taphandles? They are based in downtown Seattle close to transportation, restaurants, bars, and the waterfront, they have a daily happy hour with 3 taps to select from at our bar and they like to play darts and ping pong. If you possess a positive 'can-do' attitude, take direction well and are an us first, me second person with the skills listed on the next page, Apply Now.

Tartan samples from Kinloch Anderson

Humankind has been weaving textiles for nearly 37,000 years, and no place in the world has as rich a history and tradition with woven fabrics as Scotland does. But the Scots take enormous pride in invention and discovery and their willingness to experiment has in textiles alone created revolutionary results such as Tartan, first recorded in history from 16–18th century; cable knit sweaters, featuring braided patterns that identify the occupation and home village of the wearer; and Coco Chanel's tweeds and jersey fabrics.
But long before the Industrial Revolution, Scots have been at the forefront of innovation and discovery across a wide range of spheres and continue this tradition today.

Another area they seek to explore and exploit is the development of miniaturized wireless Body Sensor Networks (BSN), which, when combined with textiles, can provide real-time feedback and in situ analysis of the biomechanical indices of athletes during training and performance.

So with strategic convergence in mind, on Tuesday, July 29, the Scottish Enterprise Textiles Team, held an event entitled "Textiles and Telemetry" at Scotland House, the business event venue in Glasgow during the XX Commonwealth Games. This event sought to explore and confirm business opportunities for Scotland in the design and development of sports clothing with telemetric sensor technology that will broadcast performance data to handheld devices. This allows for the monitoring of individual performance by coaching staff and governing bodies.

The information derived from such devices will allow coaches and organisers to spot performance dips, potential injuries or even cheating. Combined measurement of heart rate, breathing, footfall impact, blood sugar levels, sweat analysis even mental performance could be assessed from a distance to inform decisions and advice offered to the athlete.

Of all the categories of the Core77 Design Awards, the Writing & Commentary category is perhaps nearest and dearest to us.

After all, Core77 has been an outlet for the ever-evolving conversation of design thinking and criticism for nearly two decades now, and we are excited to recognize these signification contributions to the discourse. Led by design writer Alissa Walker, the energetic jury team selected winners that range from
bread-and-butter topics such as typography and scale models to esoteric essays on the likes of Zoolander and Russian sausages.

Professional Winner: Arts and Letters, by Aileen Kwun

Taking a cue from Wallace Steven's "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird," Aileen Kwun's "Arts and Letters" explores 26 different thought processes on typography. The essay was published in Colophone Foundry's "FIVE YEARS," also served as an accompanying catalogue to an exhibit of the same name. The jury appreciated the essay's memorable content: "The innovative format of this unusual essay is what made it such a standout from all the other entries: It's a piece on design that plays with the design of the storytelling, as well. It's a reminder to all writers that the story isn't simply in the words, it's in how they are presented—sometimes in the most literal ways. Although some of us initially felt skeptical about this essay, right around the donuts, we were hooked. This is the line that turned us: 'Not all donuts are created equally; some are unholey.' Also, this was the only essay that had lines we actually wanted to remember: 'Letters are tools for words, and words are tools for meaning. If a house is a machine for living, a book is a machine for thinking, and a typeface is a machine for writing. We are always building.'"

» Learn more about Arts and Letters

Student Winner: Super Models or: Some (Scale) Models That I'd Like to Know, by Ian Besler

To many, the scale model is the beginning of a project. To Art Center College of Design student Ian Besler, it's grounds for an entire investigation. His essay, "Super Models or: Some (Scale) Models That I'd Like to Know" is a dive into the bigger topics scale models bring to design, like digital vs. handmade and relative size in digital space. His piece stands behind the idea that scale models are used more as accuracy tools and a means to explore spatial relationships. "Fantastic! A new way of looking at a common thing, smart without using convoluted academic language—hooray! Out of all the entries submitted for the Core77 writing awards (both student and professional), this was the best piece we read. It combined solid writing with the unique exploration of the practical and cultural purposes a scale model serves. The tone was conversational and the observations illuminating. The best part: The reference to Zoolander was quite irresistible."

» Learn more about Super Models or: Some (Scale) Models That I'd Like to Know

Integration of robots into our daily lives is growing, and fast. Siri's stilted guidance is no longer surprising, your toothbrush can track your behavior via bluetooth and there are virtually no tasks left without an according app. Though the recent Turing Test dust-up was mostly hot air, it highlighted the world's continued fascination with artificial intelligence and proved that we have come a long way towards their eventual uprising.

Questions about quantifying digital intelligence and the ethical boundaries about sentience are being left to specialists, while the rest of us discuss how adorable a robot needs to be before we become emotionally attached to it. We're still pre-Jetsons and a reasonable stretch from I, Robot, but accessible technology and information are bringing robots into new niches all the time. Automation and smart technology barrel on behind factory doors and inside our phones, but we're most interested in how robots serve—or seem like—us. Fortunately charismatic digital dudes abound. Here's a handful of our favorite recent robotic friends and trends.

Newscasters are are a stiff and inhuman breed, as close to pod-people as you can get on live TV, so it's understandable that robots would look up to them. As per usual, we have Japanese developers to thank for some of the profoundly weird members of the robotic working class. These beautiful super-humanoid ladies are cool and collected enough to crack a hard interviewee, and even crack jokes when they flub a line or get a glitch. Maybe a justification for the cold voice, immobile hair and plastic smile would help viewers relate.

Every semester, a group of students and faculty from the University of Massachusetts embark on a task of sustainable proportions, otherwise known as the Semester in Sustainable Design/Build program. Their project from Fall 2013, Carton House, was recently named a Professional Notable in the Educational Initiatives category of the 2014 Core77 Design Awards. That specific semester, 11 students and three faculty members were assigned to help their client in Bennington, Vermont, take on a more sustainable lifestyle through the home she lived in and worked from. Within 16 weeks (barely—more on that later), the team designed and created a 350 sq. ft. mobile home that also incorporates an office space. "There are really two tough aspects to our design," says the design team. "Building something that is (legally) portable and making sure our process allows broad ownership throughout our group."

The team had to take note of the height, width and length restrictions enforced by Vermont's Department of Transportation, as well as restrictions on the size of the trailer they use to transport the house. "The trick was making a volumetric constraint a catalyst for good design," says the faculty team. "The Carton House was able to really create an engaging space while maximizing area and architectural interest. I can't commend our students highly enough on this one."

But the more difficult of the considerations was keeping cohesive communication throughout the entire project. "The grace of the dynamic really comes in our individual abilities to relinquish control of ideas to the group," says the faculty team. "If we do this well—again, my hat goes off to our team this year—the design is owned collectively. While we all start to focus on different aspects (kitchen layout, siding details, roof assembly), we maintain appropriate levels of group input and response. It's a pretty remarkable process that we discuss at the beginning of the course and keep our eyes on throughout."

In addition to the communication challenges and government constraints, the experience of working with physical boundaries of mobility makes this much more than a study in sustainable materials. The group encountered transportation issues part the government ordinances on trailer and house size. "It was a pretty humbling dose of reality when we considered overhead wires and low bridges as wildly concrete design constraints.

Usually when you pull something out of your bag that deploys two prongs, you're about to tase somebody. But this here is a smartphone case, and one of the cooler ideas I've seen in that arena.

The PocketPlug smartphone case not only contains a battery, but features two flip-out prongs that can go right into an outlet, no cables necessary. You can leave the phone in the case while it charges, or pull it out to continue using it; either way juice is flowing into the case's battery.

If this project sounds familiar to you...maybe it is. The JuiceTank, as it was initially called, was successfully Kickstarted—back in May of 2012, when it was designed for the iPhone 4. Now it's 5s-compatible, or at least will be when you get it; it's currently up for pre-orders, at $64 a pop versus the $80 projected retail.

After all of the design, engineering, manufacturing, sales and marketing work for a car was completed, automakers then faced a logistical problem: how to get the product from their centralized factories to the consumers scattered across the country. In the early days of the automobile, when buyers were few, it was a viable option to stick two autos in a train boxcar and ship them off.

But as demand began to grow, the shipping capacity had to match. Sometime in the 1940 America's auto manufacturers, in collaboration with the railroads, developed a special car-carrying boxcar that would utilize the overhead space. At 50 feet in length, it had ten extra feet on the standard 40-foot boxcars of the time.

Loading the thing was a pain in the neck, as a car was manually pushed inside, then jacked up towards the ceiling at an angle to accommodate a car coming in underneath it. (You can see that the illustration above is clearly incorrect; each set of cars should be flipped horizontally, or there would be no way to drive the lower cars in from each end.)

If you are a highly motivated Industrial Designer looking for a career changing opportunity, explore Twisthink, a premier Design, Technology, and Strategy firm in Holland, Michigan. Founded in 2001 from a concept that melds together the traditionally separate disciplines of design and electronics engineering, Twisthink operates as a solutions firm turning problems into opportunities. They are looking for a Sr. Industrial Designer with confidence and passion for original ideas; someone with a respect for the reality of constraints (materials, process, time, and budget), and the who holds their work to the same standard of excellence as the team.

At Twisthink, you will work alongside our brilliant in-house team, extended network of experts, and clients who are hungry for innovation in areas such as consumer electronics, medical equipment, automotive, durable goods, housewares and wearable technology. Apply Now.

Further developments from the eerie future we're inhabiting: Roambotics wants a wheeling robot to patrol your home. Their first concept robot "Jr." is the winner of the Proto Labs Cool Idea! Award, and is a pretty good-looking object. Designed as an autonomous, self-leveling, wheel-shaped robot with video and audio monitoring abilities, it will identify intruders or changes within the home. Data is wirelessly streamed to the cloud and the Roambotics network, and will update the homeowner via an app or email. The software uses machine learning to better understand the environment over time, and they hope to integrate 3D mapping of spaces. According to their description on Crunchbase, "Jr. features a base station with inductive charging, multi-surface slip and cliff detection, self-stabilization, Bluetooth 4.0, 802.11 A-N, and a NVIDIA tegra 4 microcontroller." That's right, we're one (wheeled) step closer to Robocop.

On Saturday August 16 at 12:20ET, Ford and IDSA's 'Designing Innovation' series will continue with its third panel discussion. This time around, the panelists will examine customer driven design, connected performance and the deeper role of design expanding past aesthetic appeal. Onstage will be designers Eric Anderson, Associate Professor of Industrial Design in the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University and panel moderator; Austen Angell, Founder of Modern Edge; Ed Boyd, VP of Experience Design Group at Dell; and Kevin George, Exterior Design Manager at Ford Motor Company.

Growing off of the two previous discussions ('Decoding Design' and the debut panel discussion also titled 'Designing Innovation'), this month's 'Designing Innovation' panel will be a part of The Exchange—the annual IDSA Conference, taking place this year in Austin, Texas. Even if you're missing the event in-person, tune into our Designing Innovation channel to see the event live on Saturday, August 16 at 12:20ET.

Don't forget: Just like the previous discussions, you can get involved and ask your own questions using the hashtag #designinginnovation on Twitter for a chance to hear your query onstage.

Once again, Core77 is pleased to be the media partner for the Bike Cult Show, which will once again bring the very best custom framebuilders in the Northeast region to New York City this month. Set to take place on August 16–17 at the Knockdown Center in Queens, the second annual Bike Cult Show promises be bigger and better than before. In anticipation of the event, Bryan Hollingsworth of Royal H Cycles shared his story.

Text and images courtesy of Bryan Hollingsworth.

I grew up riding on the beautiful roads of northwestern New Jersey. No one believes me when I tell them this, but it's true. My first bike-related memories involve riding up and down our dirt road on an old Raleigh Rampar coaster-brake-equipped "BMX" bike. I wasn't a daredevil, though, so I was happy when I upgraded to another hand-me-down, my mom's 10 speed Super Grand Prix, so I could focus on getting places. I definitely inherited my love of bikes from my family—I did my first century with my parents and uncle on my 14th birthday, and my mom and sister have biked cross-country. Barring a brief lapse from riding after I got my driver's license, I've been riding with my family for as long as I can remember.

I studied to be an engineer, but had a hard time finding the right job. The pay was good, but the work was divorced from practical applications and [the results were] anything but beautiful. I saw an ad for the United Bicycle Institute and put it together that perhaps it was possible to build the machines I'd found so beautiful my whole life. I kind of assumed that bikes were either built by ancient Italian men or made in factories overseas up until that point, and though it seems obvious now, it opened my eyes to a lot of custom American builders who were doing interesting things with steel. It was a bit of a risk, but I enrolled and headed out to Oregon.

Long story short, I loved the course, crashed my car and decided to go car-free, gave up eating animal products after long talks in the dorms with Jordan Hufnagel (we were in the same UBI class, along with Taylor Sizemore), and came back changed and ready to live the bike-building lifestyle. I was an outsider to the industry though, so I applied incessantly to Independent Fabrications and Seven Cycles, and ended up landing a job at the latter.

The honorees of the Equipment category in the 2014 Core77 Design Awards do a great job keeping us more aware of and resilient to the unknowns of living life. Their preventative properties allow us to independently manage ourselves and help others in need, depending on the function. Whether it's helping a person in need or staying safe on the job, the equipment we use on a daily basis can easily be the one tool that's keeping us—or the person/environment we're attending to—alive and thriving.

From life-saving medical equipment to stylish retail tools, this year's honorees cover all types of situations, making this consistently one of the most well-received categories of the program. See what the jury—led by Sohrab Vossoughi of Ziba Design—had to say about their selections:

Professional Winner: Illumagear Halo, by Pensar and Illumagear

Illumagear and Pensar's Halo light works to keep construction workers more visible in a helmet lamp that fits most existing hardhats. Not only is the design fairly indestructible—the team puts it through a rigorous abuse test—the light is powered by a rechargeable battery attached to a belt or pocket via flexible, safety-release cord. The jury appreciates its necessity: "We all agree that this product is spot-on; it is clever and simple and solves a real need. The way this idea is executed is brilliant—it's high level of functionality and straightforward interface allows it to easily integrate into the daily routine of a worker. Though simple, the final solution takes into consideration various usage scenarios. Where some may have stopped at the iconic halo of light this entrant continues to add various lighting modes to suit the task at hand."

» Learn more about Ilumagear Halo

Student Winner: Airgo, by Philip Nordmand Andersen

A jackhammer can do damage to much more than the ground beneath it if used incorrectly. Umeâ Institute of Design student Philip Normand Andersen pulls the strain off of the worker with an ergonomic wheel-arm, anti-vibration handles and a vibration monitoring app. The jury was impressed by the problem solving in the design: "The student did a great job identifying an opportunity and solving it in a way that feels natural and simple. Aesthetically, the object feels appropriate for the target industry. The key product differentiator is evident at a glance, while other improvements to the equipment are subtly integrated into the precise and sturdy form. Overall, the design solutions are clever, mature and very well integrated."

» Learn more about Airgo

Professional Runner Up: DS4800 Series Bar Code Scanner, by Motorola Solutions Innovation & Design

It doesn't matter if you're in the fanciest of destination hotels or a hole-in-the-wall vintage shop on the wrong side of town, there's one part of the consumer experience that hasn't changed much in the past decade(s): the barcode scanner. It's a small detail, but Motorola Solutions & Design has introduced an option that offers a bit of customized style without compromising performance. The jury was most captured by the scanner's beautiful design: "The form of this piece is beautiful and elegant and suggests a timeless design. There are some very clever features that add to its functionality, such as the window."

» Learn more about DS4800 Series Bar Code Scanner

Professional Runner Up: DIWire, by Pensa

There's a reason the first comment out of the judge's mouths was, "I want one!" Pensa Lab's DIWire puts the power of precise wire bending into the hands of just about anyone. The Kickstarted product allows users to quickly and simply explore shapes and structures via the first desktop CNC wire bender—from clocks to hanging lamp cages, the opportunities are pretty close to endless. "The solution celebrates the process, showcasing the wire bending mechanism, while establishing attributes of precision and durability in strong supporting roles," says the jury. "Every aspect feels appropriate and precisely crafted. This design is not just about the equipment, it's about what the equipment enables. Extending the solution beyond the wire bender, to mini jigs that aid in final assembly of creations, demonstrates a clear understanding of the user needs and commitment to creative enablement."

» Learn more about DIWire

Student Runner Up: NeoNook Neonatal Infant Care, by Alastair Warren and Dawid Dawod

Umeâ Institute of Design students Alastair Warren and Dawid Dawod redesigned the incubator to become more conducive to helping preterm infants heal in a womb-like environment. The system provides breathing assistance while reducing facial pressure and allowing the parents to hold and interact with their child even during treatment. "This student designed a holistic solution to a very complex problem," says the jury. "We appreciated seeing the expression of the different relationships as design considerations (i.e. doctor and baby, mother and baby). The documentation and rigor of the process was excellent."

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Student Runner Up: Gerridae—Ground Sensitive Harvester, by Ilteris Ilbasan

The Gerridae—Ground Sensitive Harvester is designed to minimize the damage done during forestry operations. Umeâ Institute of Design student Ilteris Ilbasan created a vehicle that's almost half the weight of current harvesters with a flexibility that enables better access to cabin, easier transportation, better visibility and improved articulation. The jury was impressed by the attention to detail in the various cases the machine could be used: "This student demonstrated a really deep level of thinking and very comprehensive solution to a specific problem. The articulation throughout the equipment is impressive. We liked that the student thought through the various use cases and how the object would need to contract and expand depending on what it was doing (i.e. harvesting, being transported)."

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