“Attention” 2024 Design Award
Winners Announcement
International design competition honors projects encouraging thought leadership in design with “Attention” Theme
(June 3, 2024 – San Francisco, Calif.) San Francisco Design Week (SFDW) announced winners of the seventh annual 2024 DESIGN AWARDS today. This year’s theme, “ATTENTION” was met by award winners from leading design firms, in-house teams, and creative individuals, for their ground-breaking design and commitment to thought leadership in meeting the needs of a positive future for society.
“We are extremely excited San Francisco Design Week Awards is returning this year,” says SFDW Director Dawn Zidonis. “As with previous years, the quality of the many entries exceeded our expectations of our theme, ‘ATTENTION’. Congratulations to this year’s outstanding winners!”
San Francisco Design Week 2024 Award Winners and Honorable Mentions
San Francisco Design Week (SFDW), is the premier gathering of the world’s most active design community. The theme, “Attention” was met by award winners from leading design firms, in-house teams, and creative individuals, who are honored today.
SFDW Design Awards is an international design competition seeking to encourage thought leadership by supporting designers whose works can contribute towards a positive future for society. The Design Awards celebrates and recognizes exemplary work in all fields of design, including architecture, interior design, industrial design, communication design, and emerging technology design.
Twelve award winning projects and twelve honorable mentions were selected by a jury comprised of distinguished professionals, who reviewed submissions from an exceptionally competitive pool of applicants from USA, Europe and Asia.
The winning projects were selected from design submissions in the following categories: Architecture; Interior Design; Industrial Design; Communication Design; Emerging Technology; Health & Wellness; Fintech; and Wild Card.
The 2024 Design Awards are juried by top industry Bay Area professionals and seek to encourage thought leadership by supporting designers whose work can contribute to a positive future for society.
Learn more about this year’s theme ‘Attention’ at the SFDW blog.
2024 San Francisco Design Week Award Winners:
2024 SFDW Award Winner – Architecture: Commercial, AIA San Francisco and the Center for Architecture + Design by Aidlin Darling Design. AIA San Francisco and the Center for Architecture + Design Headquarters moved to a storefront in the Hallidie Building, gaining public visibility and expanding its program to include a café, gallery, lecture hall, meeting rooms, and offices. The historic building’s raw concrete ceiling ribs and columns were exposed, with new elements reinforcing the space’s primacy. Circulation balances movement and pause, with a skylight illuminating a green wall, creating a living beacon for visitors. In-kind donations from the design/build industry funded over half of the project, with elite artisans contributing high-quality craftsmanship. The Center aims to raise public awareness of multi-disciplinary design and catalyze the reoccupation of the city’s center. Image Credit: Richard Barnes Photography
2024 SFDW Award Winner -Architecture: Residential. Hale Kiawe project by Walker Warnerarchitects. The design of this new retreat in Hawaii respects history and environment, creating a soulful home that is both unique and rooted in its location. The owners desired a warm, welcoming, and expressive minimalist space that incorporates the principles of Vastu Shastra, an ancient Indian architectural system. Built on a barren tract of land with remnants of a forgotten building and kiawe trees, the home honors the site’s history, where lava once flowed from mountain to ocean. The architecture echoes this past, with the house hovering above grasses and molten rock, symbolizing the site’s volcanic history. Photo Credit: Matthew Millman
2024 SFDW Award Winner – Emerging Technology: Product Design & Retail Experience, EcoSafi BetterStove by Enlisted Design. Each day, over 2 billion people use harmful fuels like charcoal for cooking, contributing to global carbon emissions, deforestation, and severe household air pollution. Enlisted Design collaborated with EcoSafi to create a sustainable brand and develop BetterStove, an innovative biomass cooking stove for emerging markets. Fueled by biomass pellets made from sugarcane waste in Africa, BetterStove saves trees, reduces household air pollution by 95%, and makes food preparation safer and less time-intensive. The EcoSafi brand was designed to resonate with people in emerging countries, making them feel valued and understood, and empowering local communities. Photo Credit: courtesy of Enlisted Design
2024 SFDW Award Winner – Health & Wellness, Help-full community network by Help-Full/Sohaj Singh Brar. Widespread loneliness poses significant health risks comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes daily, linked to high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, weakened immune function, anxiety, depression, cognitive decline, and premature mortality, especially among older adults. Help-Full is a community network where members of all ages offer and receive practical help and engage in activities with like-minded individuals. Its affordable and engaging support, combined with a recommendation engine for meaningful connections, has led to over 1,500 members exchanging 10,000 service hours through its pilots.. Photo Credit: courtesy of Help-Full, Sohaj Singh Brar.
2024 SFDW Award Winner – Architecture: Restaurant/Hospitality. Kona Village resort, Hawaii, by Walker Warner architects. Carefully conceived to exude organic, approachable luxury, the resort’s second chapter is inspired by the nuances of the destination and the original property that captured the hearts of travelers. Working to maintain the site’s structural integrity and archaeological landmarks, the original property’s relaxed Pacific Island style was respectfully restored while being elevated with modern touches and sustainable innovations. Photo Credit: Douglas Friedman.
2024 SFDW Award Winner – Industrial Design: The IonQ Quantum Computer by Whipsaw. The IonQ Quantum Computer is an extremely advanced computer that uses quantum mechanics and “qubits” to perform calculations. It is exponentially faster than classical computers, increasing computational power by one quintillion. It is often used in conjunction with AI to tackle the world’s most difficult problems such as climate change research, disease research, drug interaction simulation, and much more. Photo Credit: courtesy of Whipsaw
2024 SFDW Award Winner – Interior Design: Residential. Corner Villa, Iran by Arash Madani House. The “Corner Villa” design balances communal spaces with private sanctuaries, featuring a secluded courtyard at the back. Private spaces and bedrooms are on a single floor, connected by a deep balcony that enhances energy efficiency during lower occupancy. The villa’s shape, with broken lines and geometric lozenges, provides expansive balconies and shading for thermal comfort while offering captivating views. Prominent display of construction materials showcases the architecture, reducing the need for meticulous finishing and supporting environmental sustainability. Image Credit: Mash Mostajeran.
2024 SFDW Award Winner – FinTech: Middle Finance by Noomo agency. Photo Credit: courtesy of Noomo agency. Middle Finance is a fintech company revolutionizing the mortgage process in Australia. In 18 months, the company created a groundbreaking solution now used by 2,500 brokers, featuring a user-friendly interface that reduces application submission time to 15 minutes while ensuring security and regulatory compliance. They tackled design challenges across three platforms—public website, broker platform, and client platform—by developing a comprehensive design system for a consistent and seamless user experience. This collaboration allows brokers to securely access borrower details within minutes, drastically improving efficiency compared to market alternatives.
2024 SFDW Award Winner – Wild Card: The Future’s Happening: Democracy Edition at the Stanford d.school.“We can’t build a future we haven’t first imagined,” says Lisa Kay Solomon, Futurist in Residence at Stanford d.school. In April, the Stanford d.school hosted The Futures Happening: Democracy Edition, a gathering for democracy innovators. The event aimed to foster positive civic futures by expanding participants’ capacity for civic imagination and creative agency. Collaborating with Kreatives, a global design strategy firm, the event focused on inspiring bold ideas, unexpected connections, and new possibilities. Emphasizing experiential learning, The Futures Happening served as a “civic springboard” for building new futures. Photo credit: courtesy of Stanford d.school.
2024 SFDW Award Winner – Interior Design, Commercial: Goodwater Collective by Atelier Cho Thompson. Created by Goodwater Capital, Goldwater Collective is a visionary “third space” that blends elements of coffee shops, lobbies, and social clubs to address the need for community and flexible, inspiring environments despite the rise in remote work. It offers the VC firm’s portfolio leaders a venue for learning and collaboration while serving the broader community and outside companies for meetings and events. A library wall showcases portfolio products and includes board games, highlighting the role of recreation in building relationships and ideas. This forward-looking project integrates work, wellness, community, and culture to stay relevant in today’s world. Photo credit: Bess Friday.
2024 SFDW Award Winner – Architecture, Commercial: Rosa Parks Elementary School Chicken Coop & Garden by Aidlin Darling. Visible from Japantown’s Peace Plaza, the Coop and Garden bring joy and vitality to the area, inspiring children and passersby. This all-volunteer project, part of an effort to mend a historically divided urban area, enhances Rosa Parks Elementary’s outdoor education program. The display includes a chicken coop, rainwater catchment system, water garden, and solar-powered irrigation. Resident chickens teach animal care and empathy for nature. Donated cedar ensures the coop’s durability, and its roof collects rainwater to irrigate the garden, showcasing stormwater management in an engaging way.
San Francisco Design Week 2024 Design Awards: Honorable Mentions:
2024 SFDW Honorable Mention – Emerging Technology: The Halo by Card79. The Halo is a non-invasive neural interface device developed by PropheticAI to stabilize & induce naturally occurring lucid dreams to control them.
2024 SFDW Honorable Mention –Architecture: Commercial – 1275 Folsom Street, William Duff Architects
2024 SFDW Honorable Mention –Architecture: Commercial – Google Charleston East – Retail store, Aidlin Darling Design
2024 SFDW Honorable Mention –Architecture: Residential – Wahi Lani, Walker Warner
2024 SFDW Honorable Mention –Architecture: Residential – The Phoenix, Feldman Architecture
2024 SFDW Honorable Mention –Interior Design: Residential – Noe residence, Studio Collins Weir
2024 SFDW Honorable Mention –Interior Design: Commercial – Rockpoint, Fennie + Mehl Architecture
2024 SFDW Honorable Mention –Industrial Design – Nex Playground, Level Design
2024 SFDW Honorable Mention –Communication Design – Obvious World Positive Report 2024, Solving the Puzzle, Pineapple SF
2024 SFDW Honorable Mention –Communication Design – Nike SebCoe Building Graphics, Hybrid Design
2024 SFDW Honorable Mention –Communication Design – Gardens of Golden Gate Park, Office
2024 SFDW Honorable Mention – Wild Card – Purple Origin, Tiange Wang
The 2024 San Francisco Design Week Awards:
Where Innovation Meets Social Responsibility
Not just another design competition. The San Francisco Design Week Awards is an international design competition seeking to encourage thought leadership by supporting designers whose works can contribute towards a positive future for society. SFDW is the premier gathering of the world’s most active design community. Entries for the prestigious SFDW Awards are judged by a jury composed of leading Bay Area design professionals; those selected are showcased and have a permanent presence on the SFDW Awards website. For more than 17 years SFDW has provided design professionals with the opportunity to grow their networks, enhance their visibility, find investors for future products that are shaping the future and build their careers. We welcome applicants from across the entire range of design industries.
Jury of top industry professionals:
- Jay Ganaden, Director, Adobe Firefly
- Karin Hibma Cronan, Co-Founder, Hibma::Cronan “100 Most Creative People in Business” Fast Company
- John Clarke, Founder, John Clarke Architects
- Sabra Ballon, Principal of ballonSTUDIO
- Xiaobi Iris Pan, Sr. Product Designer, Amazon
- Sheldon Eaton, Founder, Vicinity Architects
- Homan Rajai and Elena Dendiberia, Co-Founders, Studio AHEAD
Awards identity designed by Mucho.
The 2024 winning entries are displayed prominently and permanently online at San Francisco Design Week.
About San Francisco Design Week
The Future Started Here:
Launched in 2006, San Francisco Design Week (SFDW) is an essential week-long regional festival that showcases the unique intersection of ideas, design, business & entrepreneurism that makes the Bay Area the birthplace of the future.
Now a global phenomenon, San Francisco’s international success is born from a historically free-spirited entrepreneurialism, coupled with the imaginative vision of contemporary design and state-of-the-art technology. Pioneers of new ways of looking at the world, nimble Bay Area start-ups are now among the world’s most influential design-led companies, producing products, services and experiences that profoundly influence the daily lives of billions of people globally.
Through approximately 150 events, SFDW celebrates this spirit of newness by providing approximately attendees unique access to conversations and virtual tours with the designers who are shaping the future — from architecture to fashion, product design to digital services, and everything in between.
San Francisco Design Week is produced by nonprofit organization Design Bay Area in partnership with IDSA, Center for Architecture+Design , AIA, SFFAMA, SEGD, SDN, IXDA,local consulates, design universities, neighborhood associations and museums
2024 THEME PARTNER:
The SFDW theme, visual identity, and campaign has been created in collaboration with design firm Pact Studio, a San Francisco-based branding studio committed to developing distinct and strategic brand identities with intentional points of view.
2024 Major sponsors include: Adobe, Mucho, Pact Studio, Robert Half, and others.
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