Michelin Challenge Design Upcycle Winners Announced

Designers from Brazil, South Korea, India and China Take Top Honors

GREENVILLE, S.C., July 17^th, 2020 — The winners of the 2020 Michelin Challenge Design global competition have been announced. Challenge Design is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year and is a featured program of the Movin’On Summit, the world’s premier gathering for sustainable mobility.

The theme, Upcycle, challenged artists, designers, engineers, architects and creatives worldwide to take inspiration or elements from previously-honored Challenge Design entries and create an Upcycled design that added environmental, societal or economic value.

The winning teams came from Brazil, South Korea, India and China.  Additional Upcycle Judge’s Award winners came from China, South Korea, Colombia, India, France, the United Kingdom, Indonesia, Italy and the United States.

“In addition to our timely and relevant themes, an essential part of Challenge Design’s prestige and continued success is due to the support of our jurors, who spent two days in virtual meetings to review the entries and select the winners in these extraordinary times. We are incredibly grateful for their support,” said Nick Mailhiot, chairman of the 2020 Challenge Design.

The Jury for the 20^th Challenge Design was comprised of:

·         Chris Chapman, Senior Chief Designer, Hyundai North America

·         Dave Marek, Acura Executive Creative Director, Honda R&D

·         Craig Metros, Design Director, North American Truck/SUV, Ford Motor Company

·         Louise Pelletier, Director, Center of Design, University of Quebec at Montreal

·         Stewart Reed, Head of Transportation Design, Art Center College of Design

·         Frank Saucedo, Design Director, General Motors

·         Thomas Sycha, Head of MINI Exterior Design, BMW Group

·         Freeman Thomas, Global Strategic Design Director, Ford Motor Company (retired)

The 2020 Michelin Challenge Design Upcycle Winners:

First Place: Dayvid Almeida of Brazil for his entry, “Volkswagen MUT.E”

“It is really important to think about mobility as a complex organism that we could design for our future. The first thought about Upcycle was the idea to make something great and add the value of the solutions that nature has developed,” said Almeida.

“I am very grateful for this kind of challenge, for the importance that you give us designers to imagine the future of the mobility. I think for me and for a lot of people in the auto industry, they say Michelin Challenge Design is the most important in the world. It is very important because it brings innovative solutions,” said Almeida.

Second Place: Young Jae Kim of South Korea and Dinesh Raman of India for “Fargo”

“One of the challenges in 2020 was to understand what Upcycle meant,” said Young Jae Kim.

“Part of what made this Challenge Design different was that it focused on functionality more than aesthetics. You are going to solve greater problems,” said his teammate, Dinesh Raman. The two are graduate students at the Royal College of Art in London.

“We basically felt like jurors. We switched on the projector in our classroom and went through almost all the prior entries. We thought sustainability only made sense if it had massive impact both socially and economically,” said Raman.

“The whole process was really fun. We also took a great amount of inspiration from our memories of the “Top Gear” show in which Jeremy Clarkson had to drive through Vietnam,” said Young Jae Kim. 

Third Place: Chen Mango, from China, for his entry: “Michelin Moving Space” 

“In the near future, due to high population density and limited land resources, the concept of high-density vertical cities will come true in metropolises like New York, Shanghai and other cities,” said Mango.

“Parking fees will be very high. If the private space module can be part of our house, we will never pay for parking. When we want a trip, we just need to book a sharing power module with our phone.”

Judge’s Awards:

In addition to the three winners, the jurors selected the following to receive Upcycle Judge’s awards.

Design Name	Name	Country
Gemini	Fred Yan	China
Multi-Pod Office	Sunghyun Hong	South Korea
Greta	Michael Joell Martínez Tenjo	Colombia
Soul-E	Bonny Sunny	India
Eventyr	Colin Heridel	France
Infiniti Origami	Ailin Yu	China
Pinwheel	Yibo Qiao	China
Circle of Mobility	Seok-woo Choe	United Kingdom
AC-SAR	Made Arya Satria Dewangga	Indonesia
Breath II	Yuan Tian	China
Passage	Xue Zhao	China
Hyperpod	Pratyush Wasule	Italy
ReFramer	Siavash Jafari Jozani	USA

Through its first 20 years, the Challenge Design competition has received more than 14,000 entries from 134 countries. The theme for the 2021 Challenge Design will be announced in early August.

Additional information, including photos, video and juror comments are available here.

About Michelin North America

Michelin, the leading mobility company, is dedicated to sustainably enhancing its clients’ mobility; designing and distributing the most suitable tires, services and solutions for its clients’ needs; providing digital services, maps and guides to help enrich trips and travels and make them unique experiences; and developing high-technology materials that serve a variety of industries. Headquartered in Greenville, S.C., Michelin North America (www.michelinman.com) has more than 21,400 employees and operates 19 major manufacturing plants.