The Social-use Products Category this year received 137 entries from 89 companies, of which nearly half, or 73 entries from 49 companies, were selected for the Good Design Award, yielding an acceptance rate of 53.28%. As in the other Categories, we could find many entries that gave consideration to ecological design and universal design. We have now reached the stage at which these kinds of products are no longer unusual but are acknowledged as basic standards that every product has to clear.
The screening began with our asking ourselves once again how we interpreted the phrase "social use" with respect to design. Even though the concept of the Social-use Category could be summarized as "the Category that deals with products that posit use by large numbers of people," the entries certainly covered a broad range: facilities and devices for educational institutions, facilities for societal education, social welfare-related implements and machines, furniture and facilities for public spaces and related products, facilities and devices for outdoor lighting, park facilities, public and social infrastructure facilities, emergency tools and facilities, railway rolling stock, rolling stock for public transportation, and so on. We judged the entries according to our ten screening criteria. However, we also took a number of other points into consideration during screening, such as items that will cause social settings or systems or our daily lives to improve if large numbers of people use them at once or items that have some sort of symbolic presence and will improve people's lives or the society that they live in, even though the items themselves are used by few people. This is just a minor point, but we would like to report that we had doubts about excessive use of skeletons design, and we pointed out a decrease in the quality of the pictographic signage. It is believed that the role of pictographic signs is especially vital in the most public facilities, but for some reason, we found a number of examples of signs whose design quality, comprehensibility, or attractiveness left something to be desired.

 
Evaluation of Design

The Gold Prize was awarded to "Subaru," the Large-Scale Optical Infrared Telescope at the Hawaii Monitoring Station of the National Astronomical Observatory of the Ministry of Education, developed jointly by Mitsubishi Electric and the National Astronomical Observatory of the Ministry of Education. It is a transmission device for taking the most advanced information that technology can elucidate and using information technology to share it with the broadest possible cross-section of the general public, including children. It therefore received high marks for presaging shared development and shared systems for knowledge, technology, and information in the 21st century. In addition, this design also attracted notice in a world where cupola-shaped observatories are the general rule by proposing a new shape that suggests the future, and by being based on a design development scenario that viewed the monitoring station as a total system.

Chosen for the Ecology Design Prize was the "Aura 500" wind-powered generator from Nasu denki-Tekko. Through the auspices of Art Front Gallery the company contracted with the French artist Jean-François Blanc to handle the design aspects, which resulted in a lightweight and beautiful style. Especially impressive were the use of a clearly visible skeleton for the blades and beauty of the joint that connected the axle with the other materials. In addition, housing the generating unit inside the rotor allows the generator to maintain a compact size, so unlike previous wind-powered generators for general use, there are no limits on where this one can be used. Moreover, despite being the smallest size class for a generator, it has the highest generation performance for its class, and furthermore, it can be used both symbolically as a piece of public art and as a source of power for emergency lighting during a disaster. These features push the "Aura 500" a step or two beyond the confines of ecological design. If we imagine these miniature wind-powered generators set up here and there along residential streets or in a public square with a gently rolling surface, it almost seems like the Umbrella Project of the Bulgarian artist Christo, in that it remakes a familiar landscape into something fresh and new.
The Small and Medium Enterprises Prize went to the "Koreder Line Series," a hanging system from Nakamura Takiya. This is one of the prizes that seems to be long overdue. These are the standard metal fittings for exhibits, used in many museums and galleries, both domestically and overseas. These hangers were developed with unique technology in order to display important artworks quickly and safely without damaging the walls. The product line includes picture rails, hooks, and hangers, which can be combined in a wide variety of ways to meet the needs of the users. Even though the parts viewed one by one are of extremely simple and modest design, they are exquisitely finished, and the product line received high marks for giving us a sense of the new spirit abroad among designers and small and medium enterprises.
In addition, Mitsubishi Electric's track lighting "KSH1701" is a type of display lighting whose installation has been mandated by the Fire Prevention Law, but unlike previous models, it is unexpectedly small, thin, and lightweight, and despite its size, the white LED light source achieves uniform brightness. During emergencies, it switches over to battery power. Even though we had thought that it would be difficult to move the function and design of this kind of lighting beyond that of previous products, we were amazed at the perceptive way in which the designers zeroed in on aspects that could be improved.
Finally, I would like to add that in the Social-use Product Category, opinions were expressed about the necessity of evaluating design for being epoch-making. By this we mean a design that is so attractive and original that it spawns imitators and needs to be reevaluated to determine its distinct place in the history of design.