Sergi Cabanas, a student in the UIC
Ceramic Studies Department, won first prize in the Cevisama Lab International
Design Competition for his piece “Arpi”. It was the ninth consecutive year that
the ESARQ has won first prize in this international competition.

The multidisciplinary judging panel
made up of renowned professionals in the fields of design, architecture,
journalism and business announced the winning projects in three categories, for
which a total of 187 projects had been submitted. In Category B, ceramic products
made using other methods, the judging panel awarded first prize to Sergi Cabanas
for “Arpi”, “a traditional piece that adapts to new tastes and functions in
current architectural practice". The piece readapts and makes use of a
traditional decorative piece. Through simple transformations, it creates a
system of four pieces in the same family: the piece for plants to provide
shade, the skylight piece, the separating piece and the light piece, which can
be combined randomly to create a pergola.

The judging panel mentioned the
creativity and sustainability of all the projects. This group of experts
selected by Cevisama was made up of Roberto Zancán, the assistant
director of the international journal DOMUS,
and Kumi
Furió, an industrial designer and a cofounder of Limoceramics. Other
members of the jury included Miguel Sánchez,
the new president of the Association of Designers and Interior Designers of the
Autonomous Community of Valencia (CDiCV), and Luis Sendra, the president of the
Association of Architects of Valencia. The other members of this select group
were Javier Mira, the coordinator of Alicer, the design and architecture area
of the Institute of Ceramic Technology (ITC), and Félix Gascón from
the ceramics company Azteca.

The projects presented in the different
categories of the Cevisama design competition will be on display during the
Cevisama international exhibition, which will be held in Valencia from 5 to 8
February 2013. This award highlights the high level of work produced every year
in the ESARQ Ceramic Studies Department, which is sponsored by ASCER.