Pioneering and outstanding design achievements are at the heart of Focus Open 2022, one of the most renowned German design competitions with an international orientation. For many years, it has been an exclusive platform for companies and professional designers from around the world – from industrial heavyweights to small enterprises. TThis yearbook presents all the award-winning products of 2022. High-quality images and detailed product descriptions are supplemented by the lively commentary of the jurors. The prize winners come from fi elds such as investment goods, healthcare, bathrooms, kitchens, interiors, lifestyle, lighting, consumer electronics, leisure, building technology, public design, mobility, service design and materials + surfaces.

After over two years of COVID-19, there is now a bright light at the end of the tunnel: most events can take place again. New formats and digital approaches have become established and professionalised and the industry has gathered a wealth of valuable experience. But despite the waning pandemic and the tangible delight about every event, the restart is not proving easy due to a lack of personnel and war along with many still unanswered questions surrounding digital and hybrid experiences. Previous developments and many of the 45 projects in this edition show new approaches, but in some respects still no overall ideal answers. And that is quite alright – because we are in the middle of a learning process!Katharina Stein is a specialist journalist and a connoisseur of the event design scene. In 2009 she founded eveosblog together with Henning Stein, one of the best-known and most widely read event blogs in Germany.

The book describes the potential of both design objects and concepts, as well as design as a process, with a specially strong focus on the process of design engineering in the past, present and future. The book makes a stance by referring to historic and current design parameters in industry in relation to certain training methods. It compares these within Europe, explicitly the approach taken by Germany, Great Britain and Scandinavia – and highlights best-practice examples. The range of design disciplines, especially an in-depth look at classic product and textile design, leads to new “blueprint” possibilities and interactive design methods. As industrial designer and master tailor, Marina-Elena Wachs has been a professor for design theory at Hochschule Niederrhein since 2010 and graduated 2007 from Braunschweig University of Art  with work on the topic “Material mind – new materials in design, art and architecture”. Since 2008 she has been cooperating with European universities.Search inside on ISSUU.com

“We need new concepts for trade fairs as places of chance encounters. This might also be showrooms and brand worlds in places where people and ideas converge. What we need are open forums for critical and competent dialogue.” You will find lots of demands like this one expressed by Ranger Design in this special edition: The industry has given us an outlook of the near future and shows what they have achieved in the last few months, where they had to find alternatives, what new concepts evolved and how the trade fair format has changed in recent months (centuries).Sabine Marinescu and Janina Poesch are both architects, journalists and founders of PLOT – the network in the field of spatial staging. Since 2008 they have been publishing their own print and online magazines and reference books about scenography.The standard reference work in the trade fair design world.Search inside on  ISSUU.com

How do you actually build a popular theatre? It should be as simple as necessary to prevent any threshold fears among the public, and as chic as possible because at the theatre the spotlight is cast not only on the stage. This is the answer given by the architecture firm Lederer, Ragnarsdóttir, Oei (Stuttgart) and the construction firm Resch (Bad Saulgau). Their Münchner Volkstheater presents itself as a powerfully poetic brick building, which gives the quarter an important cultural impulse in a dialogue with the old buildings of the former Munich stockyard.LRO Lederer, Ragnarsdóttir, Oei Architekten was founded in 1979 and currently has around 50 employees. Jürgen Tietz is a freelance architecture critic and publicist.Search inside on ISSUU.com

Lighting Design for ArchitectureLicht Kunst Licht is an international lighting design office with locations in Bonn, Berlin, Barcelona and Bangalore. More than 30 employees work on a diverse portfolio of projects, including mixed-use, office buildings, museums, governmental buildings, traffic and transportation projects, retail and hospitality projects as well as exterior and landscape masterplans. With over 800 completed projects, many of which have been honoured with the most prestigious awards and appreciations, Licht Kunst Licht is one of the world's most successful specialists in lighting design.The publication is a display of their expertise through a select compilation of projects such as the Oscar Niemeyer Sphere in Leipzig, the National Museum of Qatar, or the Baden-Württemberg State Parliament in Stuttgart. Search Inside on ISSUU.com

Pioneering and outstanding design achievements are at the heart of Focus Open 2021, one of the most renowned German design competitions with an international orientation. For many years, it has been an exclusive platform for companies and professional designers from around the world – from industrial heavyweights to small enterprises. This yearbook presents all the award-winning products of 2021. High-quality images and detailed product descriptions are supplemented by the lively commentary of the jurors. The prize winners come from fields such as investment goods, healthcare, kitchens, interiors, lifestyle, lighting, leisure, public design, mobility, service design and materials & surfaces.Search inside on  ISSUU.com

What’s next? The question of whether future retail design will be analogue, digital or hybrid has long since been answered. Especially the mature inner cities are facing enormous innovation pressure. Smart alliances are being formed and daring retail concepts are being tried out that add value in the urban space. The new yearbook shows solutions that accompany us worldwide into the "new normal".Dr. Jons Messedat studied architecture and industrial design in Aachen, Stuttgart and London. He has been teaching the building and space module at the HAWK in Hildesheim with a focus on corporate interior. In 2018, he was appointed onto the jury of the state prize for architecture by the chamber of architects for the federal state of Lower Saxony.Search inside on ISSUU.com