FOCUS OPEN honours the best design ideas of the year. The highest honour, the FOCUS OPEN Gold 2024, goes to the medienBuddy from Hohenloher for its perfect symbiosis of innovation and design. This is the second high-ranking design award for the mobile media supply system this year: the medienBuddy won the coveted German Innovation Award in Berlin back in May.
The Baden-Württemberg International Design Award FOCUS OPEN is one of the most prestigious German design competitions. A six-member jury appointed by the Design Center Baden-Württemberg with many years of expertise selects the winners. The prizes were presented in Stuttgart on 7 November 2024. The highest award is the FOCUS Gold for all-round outstanding products, an internationally recognised seal of quality. The assessments are based on a holistic view of the submissions - in addition to aesthetics, the focus is on sustainability, usability, meaningfulness, independence and innovation.
Innovation with emotion
Ideally, innovation and design form a symbiosis. And this is exactly what the medienBuddy stands for, the revolutionary media supply for science lessons that brings gas and electricity directly to the experiment table and is designed to be so friendly and approachable. The media ports are located at the user's eye level in the humanoid-inspired device head. The maximum mobility of the medienBuddy, its emotional design and intuitive operation inspire girls and boys for science lessons. Large recessed grips, locking castors and an interface that provides information on the status of connections and fill levels ensure good and safe handling. All functions are activated by teaching staff using RFID.
Modern science lessons
The jury's statement on the medienBuddy: "A totally coherent concept for contemporary teaching that incorporates sensory experiments. The discreet humanoid appearance is not artificial, but results from the logical arrangement of the elements - the neck-like connection to the media head, for example, makes it easier to approach tables."
Flexible room utilisation
Designer Sebastian Rieger, Head of Product Design, UP Designstudio GmbH, says in an interview about the FOCUS OPEN Gold award: "It was clear to us that students would jump at the medienBuddy and want to use it, but the fact that everyone involved immediately got behind the project and understood its usefulness and applicability really impressed us. The solution is suitable for acute needs in terms of flexible room utilisation. And the product system can be perfectly integrated when planning new schools."
Economical and sustainable, the medienBuddy makes rooms versatile and fit for new educational requirements - without structural alterations or complex installation. This makes it ideal for open learning environments, refurbishment projects, listed existing buildings, container and interim solutions - and it remains the perfect media supply for long-term use.
