Nippon Paint (India) Private Limited (Decorative Division), Asia’s leading paint manufacturer today announced the winners of AYDA (Asia Young Designer Award) 2019, India Edition. In the grand finale, held at Feathers Hotel, Chennai, renowned architects Ar. Swanzal Kak Kapoor, Ms. Shabnam Gupta, Ar. Eugene Pandala, Ar. Arun Karthik and Ar. CR Raju were invited to judge the shortlisted projects, and award the title winners.
The 4th edition saw the participation of more than 2000 architecture, interior design students and young professionals across India. Out of the 21 shortlisted candidates, 4 students emerged winners. The event was organised with the able support of Ethos, the brainchild of Ar. Gita Balakrishnan – an organisation that works towards motivating young minds on the built environment. One winner from each category (Architecture and Interior Design) were awarded the gold and silver award and cash prizes of Rs. 50,000 and Rs. 25,000 respectively. The Gold winners will now receive a fully paid trip to compete at the grand finale of Nippon Paint’s Asia Young Designer Awards 2020, to be held in Vietnam between March 11th – 14th 2020 competing with 14 other Asian Countries.
Mihir Desai of KRVIA – ES, Mumbai won the Gold Award in the Architecture category for the concept titled ‘Land & Architecture’ – a project that challenges the idea of land as ‘Real Estate’ and reconsider it as an ecosystem; while Purvi Tank of Ahmedabad won the Gold Award in the Interior design category for her project ‘Dacha’ in the city: S M L & XL which is an attempt to reduce social fragmentation in urban dwellings. Both received a cash prize of Rs. 50,000 and a paid trip to compete in grand finale of Asia Young Designer Awards 2019 (Asia edition), in Vietnam in March.
All the respective AYDA 2019 GOLD WINNERS from 15 Asian countries will compete for the coveted Asia Young Designer of the Year Award 2019, (Asia edition) and win a chance to attend a 6-week Harvard Design Discovery Summer Programme at Harvard University – U.S.A, worth more than USD 10,000.
Talking about the event, Mr. S Mahesh Anand, President – Decorative Paint, Nippon Paint (India) commented, “Following the phenomenal success of AYDA 2018 which celebrated India’s win at the global finale for the first time, we are very thrilled to yet again host the AYDA 2019 (India edition). This year, we were overwhelmed by the finalist’s unique design concepts which focused on sustainability and their efforts to benefit the local societies and communities at large. This holds great architectural relevance in present times. Over the years, Nippon Paint’s AYDA has established a close-knit community of design professionals, industry associations and leading design schools. We are very optimistic that our efforts through AYDA will continue to inspire talented students of architecture and interior design students, encouraging them to act as a catalyst and transform the future of our built environments.”
Speaking about the association with Nippon Paint, Ar. Gita Balakrishnan, Director – Ethos – an organisation that aims at empowering the architectural fraternity with hands-on industry knowledge – commented, “We at Ethos are very excited to collaborate with Nippon Paint for AYDA 2019. The theme for this year is Forward: A Sustainable Future, a reflection of the need to provide practical design solutions for an emerging new world. Great efforts have gone into shortlisting the 21 finalists from across the country, each design concept addressing current ecological, sociological, and architectural aspects that may contribute to the well-being of humanity”.
As part of the event, an expert session was conducted by Ar. Pramod Balakrishnan on the topic ‘Sustainability as a practise in architecture and lifestyle of students’’ which threw light on ways to incorporate sustainable design ideas. Following this, a curtain raiser talk was given by renowned color expert Dr. Kaustav SenGupta titled, ‘Colorvision 20×21 a brief ’, to explain the impact of color in business and how to explore key color themes from the recent color forecast developed by Nippon Paint India in association with NIFT , Chennai.
