30.06.2022 11:30

Compasso d’Oro 2022: winners from the Politecnico di Milano

Numerous accolades for the university at the prestigious design awards




The award ceremony for the twenty-seventh edition of ADI Design Compasso d’Oro, the most prestigious design awards in the world, took place on 20 June.

This year, many prizes were awarded to designers and projects linked to the Politecnico di Milano.

Michele De Lucchi - Compasso d’Oro Career Award

The full professor at the Politecnico’s Department of Design was acknowledged for a career that “represents the virtuous relationship between scientific and technical culture and poetry in an exemplary fashion”, as stated in the reasons for the award.

The Compasso d’Oro Career Award is presented at each edition to national and international figures that have distinguished themselves in the field of design. 

Designing in Dark Times - Compasso d’Oro

Virginia Tassinari, a professor of Aesthetics and Design at the Politecnico di Milano, is one of the editors of “Designing in Dark Times”, “a book and a new series that provoke a reflection on the purposes and the responsibilities of design today”. 

Team: Virginia Tassinari (Editor) – Politecnico di Milano, Eduardo Staszowski (Editor), Clive Dilnot (Editor), Andrew LeClair (Graphic Design Director), Laura Wing (Managing Editor), Lesley Onstott, Lucas Teixeira Vaqueiro (Social Media Designers)

The international jury awarded an honourable mention to two other projects:

Atlante Calvino (“Calvino Atlas”).  Literature and Visualization - Honourable Mention

The digital platform, which was designed by the research laboratory DensityDesign, serves as a visual guide for exploring Italo Calvino’s body of work, enabling access to a series of literary analyses carried out on the author's stories. 

Team: Michele Mauri, Tommaso Elli, Ángeles Briones, Beatrice Gobbo, Paolo Ciuccarelli - DensityDesign, Department of Design - Politecnico di Milano; Francesca Serra, Valeria Cavallini, Virginia Giustetto and Margherita Parigini - Italian Unit, University of Geneva

AIS/Design Journal History and Research, issue 12/13 “Social Design.  Design and ‘common good’” - Honourable Mention

The journal tackles the theme of “social design” from a historical perspective, an issue relevant to today's design landscape which has never been examined through specific historical research. 

Editorial by Marinella Ferrara, Francesco E. Guida, Chiara Lecce and Mario Piazza - Department of Design - Politecnico di Milano - (with Raimonda Riccini and Paola Proverbio).

Our students received four awards in the Youth Section, which is dedicated to projects created by young people in design schools at Italian universities.

Beatrice Borghi for the thesis “Guide to the design archives across the country.  A widespread archive of unspoken plans” - Youth Section

The design archives, which were created in order to give back the knowledge of architects and designers, are shaped by a strong link to the land and make it possible to identify a national network, a widespread archive of documents, tracks and places.  The goal of the project is to give visibility to places in relation to the archives.

Supervisor Daniela A. Calabi, co-supervisor Anna Steiner.

Rachele Didero for the thesis “Adversarial Knitted Fashion - CAP_able”

A method for obtaining a woven fabric which reproduces an “adversarial image”, enabling the creation of items of clothing that are capable of protecting the privacy of the wearer in the presence of facial recognition faces.

Supervisor Giovanni Maria Conti, co-supervisor Martina Motta.

Emma Gambardella for the thesis "E_Sportswear. A new category of functional apparel” - Youth Section

A study on the design of technical clothing: a postural top devised specifically for those who play e-sports which is capable of correcting the position of the body when at a computer and preventing conditions and injuries through the use of functional clothing.

Supervisor Roberto Liberti, co-supervisor Barbara Del Curto.

Rei Morozumi for the thesis “SU.RE.TOOLS - Designing Surveillance Resilience” - Youth Section

A work inspired by the practice of critical design, which means combining the critical component with the pragmatic and functional dimension, creating products that can be used in real life by the general public.  The outcome is a series of objects which, by subverting surveillance resources and technologies, allow users to regain and protect their privacy without having to refrain from digital social interaction.

Supervisor Massimo Bianchini, co-supervisor Francesco Zurlo. 

Lastly, two Compasso d'Oro awards went to:

Smart scale for blood donation “Milano”

Project resulted from a collaboration between Delcon, an Italian company specialising in the design and production of medical devices and software for the blood supply chain, and Cefriel, a consortium which is headed by the Politecnico di Milano and formed by universities, businesses and local authorities with the aim of promoting the collaboration and distribution of knowledge between the world of research, the economic fabric and society. 

Goliath CNC by Springa

The CNC router machine, created by the Italian startup and spinoff of the Politecnico di Milano Springa, founded in 2016 by three Alumni Davide Cevoli, Lorenzo Frangi and Alessandro Trifoni.Goliath's innovation lies in its portability, allowing the machine tool to be positioned directly on the workpiece, on which it performs the cutting process by moving autonomously.