The INTERPLAY Competition is brought to you by THE DESIGN EDUCATION TRUST. It is for creative students studying in the UK to propose engaging and beautiful ‘avant-garde’ kinetic designs.
The INTERPLAY Kinetic Design Competition is an annual one for students studying within the UK in creative subjects, such as from the art & design sector, architecture, engineering, and the performing arts. Awards are made to encourage development of ‘kinetic’ aesthetics practice.
INTERPLAY23
Students were invited to challenge the normal with their disruptive design proposals for bringing elegant movement into the built environment. Proposals could be from speculative consumer products that incorporate elegant motion in their forms, architecture with beautiful moving structures, fashion garments with changing features, to expressive and dynamic experimental sculptures.
ROUND 1 resulted in eight shortlisted £1K AWARDS and six Commendation Awards. See further details appended on INTERPLAY23.
The final INTERPLAY23 £8K AWARD went to “URBAN ELEGANCE” – a whimsical pedestrian crossing design concept by Joseph Jones and Holly Souza-Newman. It was developed into a working prototype by Joseph and exhibited in the HOCKNEY GALLERY of the RCA (Kensington) between 15th-19th July 2024. See https://www.josephsmjones.com/urban-elegance/For a magazine feature article on INTERPLAY23
click here on The BCS Journal
InterPlay24
This was a private Competition organised with the RCA & The Dyson School of Design Engineering at IMPERIAL. It had a focus upon movement and light.
Ten short-listed Competition Entries were shown at an exhibition on 6th December 2024 hosted by the RCA. Ten Awards were presented (Download the AWARDS CATALOGUE HERE . The £5K Major Award went to ‘Planetary Projector’ by Tong Zhang and Guannan Liu. The second £2K Award went to ‘Balance Lamp’ by Alex Clark. There were three other Awards of £1K and five Commendation Awards. ’Planetary Projector’ was developed with the award and exhibited on 20th/21st May 2025 at the Royal Society of Sculptors, London.
For a magazine feature article on INTERPLAY click here on The ART HUB.
For videos of all outcomes from INTERPLAY23 and InterPlay24 click for the DET YouTube Channel.
INTERPLAY25
INTERPLAY25 had twelve Awards for experimental kinetic design projects. Details on these projects will appear on YouTube and here in due course.
For an introduction see YouTube video.
