Global automotive design and engineering consultancy Contechs has launched a new award to celebrate and highlight design stars of the future.
The new Contechs Design Award places a spotlight on exceptional automotive design students at Coventry University, providing a platform to showcase their creative design skills to potential employers through recognition from automotive design leaders.
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The award forms a key part of a long-term collaboration between Contechs and Coventry University that spans almost two decades. The Midlands-based university is located in the heart of the UK’s automotive industry and is globally recognised as a leading choice for aspiring automotive designers from around the world.
Hosted recently for the first time at Coventry University’s Delia Derbyshire building, the Contechs Design Award gave the final-year Transport Design course students the opportunity to present their creative design projects to a distinguished group of judges.
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Chris Hamilton, design director for Contechs and a former graduate of Coventry University’s Transport Design course, was joined by Carsten Astheimer, founder and managing director of Astheimer Design, and Jordan Demkiw, exterior design manager at Ford of Europe, to select the inaugural winners of the Contechs Design Award.
Diogo Goncalves was awarded first place after impressing the judges with an innovative solution to human organ transportation. The autonomous vehicle design featured superbike proportions and housed an organic care system in the centre for reliable transportation of organs (pictured below).
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Laszlo Csizmadia took second place, presenting a creative future motorsport concept that has the ability to race on the ground and in the air (pictured below), while Jaeun Park secured third place with a multifunctional SUV vehicle concept named ‘Concept Midway’.
‘Contechs has been a proud sponsor of the Coventry Transport Design course for more than 17 years,’ said Hamilton. ‘It is important to us that we are engaged in the design community and supporting young designers at the beginning of their careers. This new award recognises the very best young design talent and helps them get recognition within the industry.’
Contechs’ commitment to recognising and inspiring the next generation of automotive designers extends beyond the Contechs Design Award. The award-winning automotive consultancy also creates and supports several integrated student projects throughout the students’ academic studies.
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This academic year’s second-year project saw students design and propose a new Contechs electric vehicle brand, encompassing Contechs’ four key brand pillars: design, engineering, technology and innovation. The students were encouraged to utilise the power of AI alongside traditional design skills to enhance and inspire their design efforts.
‘We pride ourselves on the employability of our students, and our close collaboration with Chris and Contechs has been invaluable in helping us to design a course that is industry approved and helps our students achieve their goals,’ said Shaun Hutchinson, automotive and transport design deputy course director and an assistant professor at Coventry University. ‘Our course is flexible so we can adapt it in line with latest industry developments such as AI. Chris was integral in helping us to understand how AI is applied, allowing us to integrate it into our modules, giving our students the right skillsets for the jobs they want.’
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‘Working closely with valued industry collaborators like Contechs allows students to apply learnings from the course to relevant and relatable projects, said James Ayre, assistant professor, automotive and transport design. ‘Building portfolios, networks and new techniques creates valuable employment opportunities within the industry, facilitated by such collaborations. This project was a success because of its wide scope and the freedom that students had to answer the brief, along with continuous efforts from Chris Hamilton to support students and encourage strong reasoning and decision making throughout.’