The 2011 Avenue Design Contest Grand Prize Winners

For the second year, Avenue Calgary tapped into the Calgary's community of decor and accessory designers with its Design In the Box Competition.

The rules were simple; design a piece of home furnishing or accessory that would fit into a four-foot cube. It was an open call to professionals and non-professionals.

The entries were narrowed down to five finalists and those designs were put on display at BoConcept for the month of February. The public voted for their favourite and our panel of judges revisited the work to make their final assessment.

On Thursday February 24, Avenue Calgary and BoConcept hosted a party and announced Alison MacLachlan’s AdapTable as the winner of the 2011 Design Competition. Her piece of furniture can be opened or closed and set up upright or on its side to become a desk and chair or a coffee table with storage compartments.

The judges assessed each entry based on its form, function and finish with MacLachlan’s table being a runaway hit in all three areas.

“This was a really smart piece,” says Anders Knudsen, creative director at RedPoint Media, Avenue’s art director and one of the judges. “The key to this piece is who it was built for. It is not for people who want fine furniture. It is for college students who don’t have much space. Everyone goes through that IKEA phase and this is for those people.”

MacLachlan created the piece for herself. She designed the table as part of a school project five years ago while she was studying at Ryerson University. Her parents encouraged her to enter it into design competitions. Her hesitation in sending the one of a kind object away to a competition came down to its function. MacLachlan had been using the AdapTable as a workstation in her apartment up until a few months ago when Avenue borrowed it to show it off to Calgary.

“I have been missing it lately,” she says. So far there are no definite plans to build more of the box, but MacLachlan says it is a possibility.

The panel of judges included Knudsen, Loraine Fowlow, associate professor in architecture at the University of Calgary, Janice Smith, associate professor in interior design and art history at Mount Royal University, Laura Fenniak. Interior designer and co-owner of the design firm Smith + Co., Daniel Doz, president and CEO of Alberta College of Art + Design and Käthe Lemon, editor of Avenue.

In addition to getting kudos from some of Calgary’s most influential design professionals, MacLachlan won a trip for two to New York City with airfare courtesy of WestJet. She heads to the Big Apple from May 14 to 17 for the International Contemporary Furniture Fair where she will hobnob with 550 exhibitors.

Taking home the competitions People’s Choice Award and walking away with a gift package from BoConcept was Greg Ball’s Subsonic Chair. His brilliant and loud piece of furniture has two subwoofers installed within its curves. The party gets started when an iPod, MP3 player or gaming system is hooked up to the chair, which vibrates as the beats start pumping. Designed for teenagers, it was a crowd pleaser among the slightly older Avenue crowd.

Other finalists in the competition include the turntable clock by Natalie Robertson and Wayne Sandor.

The awards party was also the kick-off for the 2012 Avenue Design Competition. For the third year, Avenue is looking for functional decor and accessories, but this time we are thinking outside the box. There are no size restrictions.

For more information on the competition and how you can win a trip to the 2012 International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York City, visit avenuecalgary.com/design-2012.