Trends in Japan - CScout Japan Blog » Fake robot among this year’s Good Design Award winners

Fake robot among this year’s Good Design Award winners

Written by: Rebecca Milner on October 25, 2008 at 2:21 am | In Fashion & Lifestyle Trends, Technology & Gadget Trends |

Last week the Japan Industrial Design Promotion Organization announced the winners of this year’s Good Design Award. The 51-year-old award actually consistently gives due props to some really cool stuff, some of which are already hit items and some of which will be now. The judging committee, made up of a couple dozen designers, journalists, architects, and marketers, also showed a sense of humor by awarding Zarigani Works’ Korejanai Robo a prize this year.

Korejanai Robo translates literally to “not this robot” and is created as an ode to all those kids who once really wanted something, like say a toy robot, and got something decidedly less high-tech, like another He-Man action figure. As the name suggests, the Korejanai Robo is not really a robot, but rather a hand-made looking wooden robot doll. The cult item, which has received many devoted odes of its own on the web, became a USB drive (naturally) last year.

In an excellent nod to irony, Takara Tomy’s i-Sobot, which also landed a 2007 Guinness World Record for being the smallest two-legged walking robot, received a grand prize.

Other top prize winners included the Muji Window House, a prefabricated house that allows the owners to choose freely where windows will be placed, and a do-it-yourself Japanese room Sakamoto Urushi Manufacturing, that fits nicely in your existing dwelling.

Meanwhile the ThermoRender-3 Pro, an architect design tool from A and A Co. that simulates outdoor thermal environments and includes functions for calculating a structure’s potential energy consumption, and the FCX Clarity zero-emissions car from Honda earned top marks for environmental impact.

The Lessev Mobile Station and Tokyo Traffic Control Center we covered on these pages also got a mention. To browse the complete list of GDA winners, see the archive search page here.