seoul design award’s winners climb the sustainability ladder through amphorae and oysters

Seoul Design Award 2025 is open for submissions

Design has long shaped the objects we use and the spaces we move through, but more and more, it’s also shaping the way we respond to the world’s shared challenges. The Seoul Design Award, entering its sixth year in 2025, celebrates design not only as a creative discipline, but as a practical tool for social impact. By spotlighting projects that engage with sustainability, community, and innovation, the award offers a glimpse into how thoughtfully designed solutions can improve lives, bridge cultures, and support more harmonious ways of living. It’s a space where aesthetics meet solutions—where global ideas, often rooted in local stories, come together to create lasting change.

From the Tunisian Kumulus Amphora, the air-to-water machine, to the Thai Angsila Oyster Scaffolding Pavilion, used for harvesting and eating oysters directly from the sea, the projects aim to become part of a global narrative where creativity meets responsibility.

Entries for the Seoul Design Award 2025 are open until on June 30, 2025 – submit your project here!

Angsila Oyster Scaffolding Pavilion (Thailand) | all images courtesy of

the platform that fuels Global Stories of Sustainability

Organized by the Seoul Design Foundation, the Seoul Design Award is a global initiative that celebrates creative solutions addressing social challenges through sustainable design. With categories aligned to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals—Health & Peace, Equal Opportunities, Energy & Environment, and Cities & Communities—the award invites entries from designers, companies, and collectives. 2025 brings expanded eligibility, increased prize money, and a live judging format, inviting citizens to help crown the Grand Prize winner in real time.

With 61 prizes up for grabs, including Main Awards, Concept Awards, and an Honorary Prize, the 2025 Award creates space for both tangible projects and visionary prototypes. Winners gain not only global visibility but also the validation of some of the most esteemed figures in international design, including professor Ezio Manzini, Birgit Lohmann, co-founder of designboom, Martin Zelger, CEO of DAAily Platforms AG, and Pradyumna Vyas, President-Elect of the World Design Organization. But the magic begins after the trophies are handed out as past winners are actively rewriting the story of what design can do.

Chaki Wasi, Handicrafts Center by La Cabina de la Curiosidad (Ecuador, France)

past winners that continue to grow and make an impact

Among the standout past winners reshaping the world is the Kumulus Amphora, an elegant air-to-water machine designed by Tunisian designer Zouhair Ben Jannet. Inspired by the Mediterranean tradition of amphorae used to carry water, the Amphora reimagines utilitarian form into something symbolic, emotive, and inherently local. It has been praised not just for its clean water-producing technology, but for the cultural intelligence embedded in its shape. Since receiving the Seoul Design Award, Kumulus has been installed on rooftops in Tunis, served 700 liters of fresh, air-sourced water at a public event in Hammamet, and gained food-grade certification from the Tunisian National Food Safety Authority.

The design was also launched in Valencia in partnership with MSC Shipping, demonstrating its maritime potential, and was recently featured during Earth Day 2025 at exhibitions in Paris’s Station F and Tunis’s Startup Village. An interview on Express FM further highlighted the project’s ecological and social contributions. Ben Jannet describes the Amphora as a living object—still evolving in its form, still deeply tied to the communities it serves. Design, in his vision, is not embellishment; it is expression and empathy, and it has made Kumulus a movement rather than just a machine.

Amphora: Water machine design shape (Tunisia)

Along the coastline of Chonburi Province in Thailand, the Angsila Oyster Scaffolding Pavilion began as a bold experiment in reimagining local heritage. Conceived by Chat Architects, the structure borrowed from traditional bamboo scaffolding used in oyster cultivation, transforming it into a sea-to-table dining platform where visitors could harvest and eat oysters directly from the sea. It also served as a recreational fishing spot for the local community. However, severe rains in 2024 damaged the original pavilion beyond repair.

Thanks to contributions from local businesses and partial funding from the 2023 Seoul Design Award, a second iteration—Angsila 2—was built. More compact and weather-resistant, the new version features a central oyster void used for cultivation demonstrations and community engagement. This circular design, still rooted in the 2.5×2.5-meter bamboo grid, embodies resilience and reinvention. Through Angsila 2, design not only preserved cultural memory but created a shared stage for ecological tourism, local economy, and storytelling.

In Uganda, the Seoul Design Award helped Jerrybag move from a product-based initiative to a full-fledged creative ecosystem. Originally known for its distinctive water-carrying backpacks that enhanced the safety of African children, Jerrybag marked its 10th anniversary by launching the Sustainable Design Centre (SDC) in Kampala in 2024. The center is a dynamic hub offering design and tailoring training, product research and development, and commercial space—all with a focus on empowering women and young entrepreneurs.

Visitors explored the modern facilities, joined hands-on workshops, and witnessed the graduation of trainees from the tailoring and design programs. Rooted in local materials and skills, the studio continues to develop products while now serving as an incubator for community-led innovation. Jerrybag’s evolution reflects how design-led thinking can drive long-term, systemic change through access, education, and enterprise.

Jerrybag / Safe way solution for Africa children (Uganda)

The 2025 judging panel features 32 leading voices in global design. Among them are Pradyumna Vyas of India, the incoming president of the World Design Organization; Ezio Manzini of Italy, a pioneer in design for social innovation and president of DESIS; Patricia Moore of the United States, president and founder of MooreDesign Associates; and Birgit Lohmann of Italy, founder of designboom; Martin Zelger the CEO of DAAily platforms AG.

They are joined by Mugendi M’Rithaa of Kenya, a professor at Machakos University and former WDO president; Mimi Yan of China, editor-in-chief of Elle Decoration China; Kun-Pyo Lee of Korea, a trailblazer in UX design and professor at Hong Kong Polytechnic University; and EunSook Kwon of Korea, who leads the industrial design program at Georgia Institute of Technology. Together, this international jury ensures that design’s most urgent, inspired, and inclusive ideas receive the recognition they deserve.

EYELIKE PLATFORM by LABSD, INC. (India, South Korea)

SEOUL DESIGN AWARD 2025 IS ACCEPTING SUBMISSIONS HERE

Water Hyacinth Floating Garden by AC/AL studio (Cambodia, France)

Lighthouse & Buoys: Dementia Friendly Neighbourhood by SOULab – SUTD Social Urban Lab (Singapore)

Classe rouge by ACTA – Action through architecture (Niger, Italy)

Solar Cow & AYANTU by YOLK (Ethiopia, South Korea)

the award has also introduced live judging for the first time to select the grand prize

the 2025 edition has been organized into four categories to reflect the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: Health & Peace, Equal Opportunities, Energy & Environment, and Cities & Communities

project info:

name: Seoul Design Award 2025 | @seouldesignaward

organization: Seoul Design Foundation

submission deadline: June 30, 2025

submission link: https://seouldesignaward.awardsplatform.com/

award conference & ceremony info:

date: October 24, 2025

venue: DDP (Dongdaemun Design Plaza)

programs: Seoul Design Award 2025 conference and winner ceremony