Designers in Residence 2014: Prestigious competition open for entries

One of the UK’s most important competitions for young designers is now open for applications – and entrants are being challenged to shake things up for 2014.

The Design Museum’s Designers in Residence programme has been running for seven years and previous winners to have reaped the benefits include Asif Khan, Giles Miller and Bethan Laura Wood. It is open to designers across the creative spectrum and the four winners selected will display their work at the museum during a special exhibition which opens on 10 September.

The theme this year is disruption, and Design Museum director Deyan Sudjic believes it is a perfect starting point for the 2014 DIR project. “More than most, ‘disruptive’ is a term whose meaning is dependent on the context,” he said. “Conventionally considered almost invariably a bad thing – difficult pupils, bad neighbours, ill-considered town planning – it is now the most sought-after quality in a new product.

“It has completely overtaken the previously well regarded term sustainable, and its slightly more current synonym, resilient. Disruptive technologies are what made Apple’s comeback a decade ago so successful. Disruptive innovation interrupts established ways of thinking, diverges from traditional practices and proposes new, unexpected ideas. This year we are asking the Designers in Residence to reflect on and explore the multiple possibilities expressed by the concept of disruption and the disruptive.”

The deadline for applications is 5pm on 28 Friday February, and Designers in Residence is open to all designers who have graduated from Higher Education within the last five years (in the academic year 2009/10 or more recently) and who have been working professionally (either paid or voluntarily) in some form of design or architecture practice for a minimum of one year.

Visit the website for more information and to apply; best of luck! It’s Nice That is proud to be partnering with Designers in Residence 2014 as broadcast partners – watch this space for more content over the coming months.