The 2025 Core77 Design Awards season has ended, finishing as always with the shipment of trophies to our winners. Once again congratulations to all the winners of the 2025 Core77 Design Awards as well as to our Jury Teams.

We also want to take this opportunity to thank our trophy manufacturing partner 3ERP, who we've had the pleasure of working with over the past several years. The team at 3ERP does an outstanding job fabricating and finishing each trophy in their state-of-the-art CNC machining facility. While our trophies are milled from aluminum billets, 3ERP provides a wide range of production services, including 3D Printing, Injection Molding, Sheet Metal Fabrication and more.

The quality of this year's trophies is second to none, as usual. Indeed the polished surface on each trophy has such a clean mirror finish that they are hard to photograph, but we did our best to take a few snaps you can check out below.

We're really happy working with 3ERP this year on our trophy production project. If you're seeking a manufacturing partner that can deliver high quality parts quickly and affordably we encourage you to give them a try.

And mark your calendars for the 2026 Core77 Design Awards - open for entries in January, 2026!

Here's what we looked at this week:

Starlink's new D2C capability can deliver broadband directly to your phone—anywhere.

Ronon Bouroullec's Ancora tables give concrete a new look.

Experimental kinetic furniture design: Aaron Preyer's Blooming project.

Form follows function: Ruvim Kubsky's 3D-printed tool accessories.

A clever design for removable café tables, by New-Zealand-based design studio George & Willy.

Unusual hardware: Eurotec's quick-release lifting anchor.

Minimum viable car: The NIUMM, coming to Europe.

Industrial designer Takamitsu Ikoma has invented a Transformers-inspired folding scooter. It's in production.

The XTAPE1 is a digital tape measure with an interesting UI choice.

An Architecture student project disaster and recovery.

When a charging cable clocks $600K because it's actually durable.

What does it say about our product landscape, when a charging cable lands over $600,000 on Kickstarter because it's guaranteed to last?

I can see the allure, as we've all gotten so used to cheap crap that breaks. Swiss company Rolling Square says if you buy their inCharge Life cable, what you're really purchasing is a "lifetime right to own a cable," which makes me a bit queasy—there was a time, though not in this century, that most things were built that way.

The cables are said to be extremely durable, being reinforced with graphene, jacketed in silicone and sleeved in nylon braiding. The company guarantees them for life, offering free replacements upon proof of destruction. (You have to send them a video of you snipping your theoretically-failed cable in half.)

The cables start at €25 (USD $29), and you can order them in larger kits containing variants that you can join with connectors.

At press time there was 24 days left in the campaign.

This reminds me so much of ID school, when last-minute disaster would strike in the studio.

Here we see the Fabrication Workshop, a 7,000-square-foot facility at SUNY Buffalo's School of Architecture and Planning.

Students taking the Structures III course investigate structural members as design elements themselves, and build their projects in the Fabrication Workshop in teams.

Student Team Group 04 had an unlucky break this week, with their Tensioned Sheet project: They were attempting to cast concrete using a burlap form, hoisting the form upright from a ring as the concrete set. Then disaster struck:

"Sometimes projects don't go as planned, but with a little teamwork big things can happen," writes the Fab Workshop. "The team worked together quickly to reattach the fabric form to the frame, before the concrete could set."

"The final photo is it pulled back into shape!"

"The remaining concrete coats will go on this week to solidify the form further. Then it will be released to stand on its own. Once it is complete we can post the finished piece along with the other full scale concrete tests from the course! The project will be finishing up this week."

Student Team Group 04 consists of: Emily Bombardier, Madison Stafford, Alli Presutti, Irfanul Chowdhury, Ryan Allgaier, Juliet Luers, Dom Peracciny, and Jessica Renn.

The XTAPE1 is a newfangled tape measure that uses both tape and lasers. Produced by Chinese manufacturer Mileseey, its designers made an interesting UX choice: While the screen can display the measurement values numerically, as you'd expect…

…you can also opt to see a slightly magnified digital representation of the physical tape:

I can see the appeal for those with eyesight that isn't what it used to be, but it seems to me there'd be a disconnect between reading the green line on-screen and marking the green laser on-workpiece.

The laser, meanwhile, can be used to take point-to-point measurements—which is frankly shocking, given the $300 pricepoint; a Leica offering with the same P2P ability runs $1,500. The question is whether Mileseey, which has only been around since 2009, can build the same reputation for accuracy as market leader Leica has.

Here's the product demo video:

In the 1980s, Japanese toymakers invented the transforming robots that we, in the west, know as Transformers. Here in the 2020s, industrial designer (and former toy designer) Takamitsu Ikoma has designed a scooter inspired by the Transformers.

Called the Icoma Tatamel Bike, it's an electric scooter that folds down to the size of a rolling carry-on.

In its suitcase form, the bike is meant to be wheeled, not carried; it weighs 139 lbs, so this is for those who live in elevator buildings.

Unfurled, it will carry a passenger up to 220 lbs. It has an 18.6-mile range, and can top out around 25 mph.

The side panels can be customized with graphics.

The bike is currently in production, with a 2-3 week lead time and an asking price of ¥498,000 (USD $3,300).

I know this looks like Photoshop manipulation, but these are the actual dimensions of the NIUMM, an electric microcar.

Produced by NIU Technologies, a Chinese scooter manufacturer, the vehicle marks the company's push into four-wheeled vehicles.

The NIUMM runs off of up to four removable lithium-ion battery packs, the same batteries that power the company's electric scooters. There's enough room inside for two adults to sit side-by-side (though it's surely a tight fit).

The frunk will hold 26 liters (just under 1 cubic foot), which is more in line with European daily grocery shopping rather than American CostCo runs; which makes sense, as this vehicle is targeted for urban markets in Europe. The street-legal vehicle is classified as a light quadricycle, meaning only a moped or scooter license is required—and drivers can be as young as 14.

The vehicle tops out at 45 km/h (28 mph), and with all four batteries, has a range of up to 118km (73 miles).

The NIUMM should be available in Europe next year, with a projected price of €7,600 (USD $8,300). We won't be seeing these on this side of the pond.

This strange-looking object is the HebeFix, by German fastener manufacturer Eurotec.

It mates with a bolt, which locks into place with ball bearings.

As for what it's for: It's a quick-release lifting anchor, designed for the European market. This is used when houses are constructed on-site out of pre-fabricated components, i.e. the walls are nailed up but not yet attached to each other. A crane uses the HebeFix points to lift the walls in place:

George Wilkins and Will McCallum run George & Willy, a New-Zealand-based signage design studio. Originally specializing in signage for restaurants and cafes, the firm has branched out into café furniture. Here's their Wall Mounted Café Table:

It can be ordered with a bracket, allowing the entire table to be quickly removed. That makes it handy for cafes that need to bring outdoor furniture inside at night…

…or flexible-use indoor spaces:

The tables are made of aluminum and zinc-coated steel. The tabletops come in two sizes.

Two more clever bits of design: Users can choose which way to orient the leg, changing the disposition of the table, and the tabletops are pre-drilled for both centered and offset mountings.

This Airlock Dust Port Adapter for DeWalt miter saws is by Ruvim Kubsky, an Ohio-based carpenter. Kubsky 3D-prints tool accessories to make his day job easier. It consists of a simple elbow, a locking mechanism, and a notched fin that perfectly accepts the handle of a 5-gallon bucket.

This larger, beefier version is for DeWalt jobsite table saws. The bucket handle notch has been moved to accommodate the larger shape, and there's a helpful graphic on the side to help you properly orient the accessory.

These have proved useful and popular enough that Kubsky now sells them, along with other workshop inventions, on Etsy.

In a business built on expertise—deep, domain-specific knowledge of product development—the rise of AI challenges some of our most fundamental assumptions. If expertise is suddenly more widely accessible and automated, we must ask: How do we, as experts, continue to differentiate ourselves? How do we evolve in a world where information and insights are no longer scarce but instantly retrievable?

Scott Thielman - CTO and Co-Founder of Product Creation Studio

That was the starting point for me. I began asking my team: How are we using these tools? What's happening under the hood? It turned out quite a bit. Our software engineers—those writing code for embedded systems or user interfaces—were already tapping into AI to debug, generate test scripts, and validate their logic. "You mean it's building code?" I marvelled. And that was my moment. I had to jump in.

I'm a mechanical engineer, not a programmer. But I wondered if AI could enable me to instantly become a JavaScript expert. At least enough of one to build a checkers game. One May 2023 afternoon later, I had a working prototype and an epiphany on par with the first time I saw Netscape in 1995. Watching ChatGPT create functional scripts was a personal eye-opener. I saw, firsthand, how AI democratizes access to tools and knowledge. Practically, it's no longer about whether you've studied a subject for years; it's about whether you are curious enough to create the first prompt and follow through on the necessary iterations to achieve something new.

Editor's Note: This essay is part of a new series exploring how AI is transforming the way physical products are imagined, designed, and built. Hardware is the New Salt will spotlight several thinkers and makers at the intersection of AI and product design and their insights into this dynamic technology ecosystem. This series is supported by Enzzo, who offers an AI-first product development platform created to support the next generation of builders.

I don't mean to imply that this last realization settled in instantly. Initially, my reaction to AI was to fear the new world order. But over time, that gave way to curiosity—and now, optimism. What we've gained is not just a faster way to code or draft, but a fundamentally new way to access, structure, and navigate knowledge. In our line of work, where entrepreneurs walk in the door with wildly diverse backgrounds—surgeons, chemists, software developers—AI lets me rapidly get up to speed. In just a few prompts, I can synthesize enough of their world to ask better questions and add more value. We hear about frontier labs working to "align" their models to expectations of etiquette, bias and safety. A consulting firm must re-align constantly, with customer A talking fluid dynamics and customer B diving deep on medical power systems. The faster we can get past the vocabulary to a place of shared understanding of priorities the sooner we get to the meaningful human interactions. Used correctly, AI facilitates this, and that is transformative.

There's no question AI democratizes design. Anyone with the right prompt can gain vocabulary, context, and ideas in fields they've never worked in. That can be extraordinary—or chaotic. The beauty is that AI can organize disordered inputs, establish structure, and frame problems in new ways. Where we used to spend the first two weeks of a product engagement just framing the challenge, AI can now do that in minutes.

Am I upset about losing that billable time? Not at all. The real value lies in moving faster toward the next decision. Product development is, after all, a series of decisions. Use metal or glass? Mold or machine? Merge or separate functions? Our job is to design and learn until we can answer those questions with confidence.

People always ask about speed. It's become the headline feature of AI. But speed is nuanced. What I've seen isn't that teams want to crank out more products—they want to do one product better. That's where I see AI having the most significant impact: allowing us to go deeper, not just faster.

AI is already helping in the early and late stages of product development—intake, analysis, communication. Need to summarize data for stakeholders? Explain performance to a cross-functional team? We have great tools that really help by reducing time spent on those tasks. With that assistance we gain space to explore more options, test more hypotheses, and build a stronger product.

But let's be honest: there's still inertia. Product development isn't just a process—it's a culture. Expertise is built over decades. Teams rely on legacy workflows. And even when AI tools promise efficiency, they still require human trust to be used effectively.

One of the biggest hurdles is trust. As someone who's immersed myself in these tools—building games, teaching courses, trying to stay at the bleeding edge—I've seen both the power and the pitfalls. Engineers are right to be cautious. Hallucinations are real. Bias is real. You can chase a bad idea for hours before realizing it's just well-worded nonsense.

To build trust, we need processes that treat AI as a collaborator, not a decider. It should generate ideas, not conclusions. Experts still need to review, refine, and approve. The signature on the final product still belongs to a human. That accountability doesn't go away.

So, where are we in the AI adoption curve? We're in toddlerhood—but what a toddler! AI already shows an astonishing capacity to translate, reason, and organize. It's skipping grades—but it hasn't yet graduated. We have lacked the right tooling to apply the intelligence to the engineering problems. We don't have a "K–12" system for AI to work within but it is coming fast with advancing model capabilities like function calling. The infrastructure—across engineering domains like thermal modelling, materials, and mechanisms—is still catching up.

Yet AI isn't like past design technologies. This isn't AutoCAD replacing Vellum, swapping a pencil for a mouse, or replacing a machine shop with a 3D printer. Those changes were significant but specific and still fit within the development frameworks and paradigms. How to use AI in product design is murkier but the opportunities to augment how we work are everywhere. It may not just be a new tool to replace an old one; it may enable workflows that never existed before. Neural nets are systems that produce outputs without clear explainability, surfacing ideas and insights in unexpected, sometimes unreliable ways. That unpredictability is both a power and a challenge. We don't yet know precisely where it's headed. And that's the source of unease.

AI's most profound impact may not fit within existing workflow paradigms at all. While it's clear that LLMs can enhance discrete development steps like problem definition, research, and prototyping, the deeper question remains: what happens when AI begins generating solutions directly, seemingly from the ether? In the same way that diffusion models create recognizable images by iteratively removing noise, future AI development systems might leap to solutions without following traditional engineering workflows. This isn't just a new tool replacing an old one—it's the potential for entirely new approaches to solution-finding that could bypass steps we've long considered essential.

Yet the potential is real. AI will never fully imagine the future—that remains our job. But it can be the assistant that helps us arrive faster, better equipped, and more informed. Like Jarvis from Iron Man, AI's promise is in augmentation. You still need the human in the loop—asking the questions, steering the direction, making the calls.

The Jarvis paradigm—AI as an augmenting partner rather than a replacement—remains my north star. Our partnership with Enzzo, to provide product management automation via our website, comes out of that same augmentation vision. And project Nancy represents another step toward this vision: an AI companion that knows our project history, understands our clients' contexts, and surfaces relevant insights at decision points. But true partnership requires trust built through consistent, reliable collaboration.

Experiences with Enzzo and Nancy have taught me that successful AI integration isn't about replacing human judgment—it's about maximizing that judgment with better information. When teams can access the right context at the right moment, they make better decisions. When they can explore more options without drowning in possibilities, they arrive at stronger solutions. The signature on the final product still belongs to a human, but that human is now working with unprecedented support.

And maybe, in that evolving partnership between human insight and artificial intelligence, we'll design not just faster products, but solutions to problems we never thought possible.

About the author: Scott Thielman, PhD is Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder of Product Creation Studio, where for over 25 years he has led product development for medical device innovators including Olympus, Cardinal Health, Advanced Bionics, and LumiThera. His work spans critical medical technologies—from deep brain stimulation systems and insulin delivery devices to ophthalmic therapy devices and automated molecular therapy systems. At Product Creation Studio, Scott has guided teams through complex development challenges including human factors research, design for manufacturing, and regulatory preparation for Class II and Class III medical devices. Notable projects include LumiThera's Valeda photobiomodulation device (successfully acquired by Alcon in 2025), neurosurgical repair devices, and needle-free vaccine delivery systems. Scott's technical foundation in control systems and optimization—developed during his PhD work at the University of Washington on electromagnetic suspension and composite flywheel design—provided early exposure to the mathematical principles underlying modern AI. Since 2023, he has actively integrated AI tools into Product Creation Studio's workflows, developing custom applications for CRM reporting and proposal automation. As an Affiliate Assistant Professor at UW Bothell, he created and taught a course on AI in Product Engineering, helping students apply these tools to real-world engineering challenges

Recent Eindhoven grad Aaron Preyer "is a designer with a fascination for movement and transformation," his bio reads. As evidence, check out his exploratory Blooming Furniture project:

Blooming Furniture is a collection of transformative objects and furniture that respond to touch and interaction. This transformation is made possible by an internal mechanism sensitive to pressure and changes in weight. Each piece is uniquely defined by its function and material composition. Imagine a piece with an upholstered top and metal base that shifts effortlessly between two forms, like a pouf or side table that blossoms into a lounge chair.

The concept was born from an exploration of mechanics, inspired by a deep fascination with movement and the natural ability of plants and trees to grow, bloom, and evolve. In these designs, the technical elements that enable transformation are not hidden, they are celebrated. The mechanism becomes part of the visual language and is leading for the aesthetic and form.

This innovative chair effortlessly transforms from an upholstered table or ottoman into a comfortable armchair. The base, crafted from aluminum, contains a mechanism that enables the transformation. The upper section is luxuriously upholstered, and both the fabric and the color of the anodized aluminum base can be fully customized.

In the video, you can see how the large surface responds to pressure and weight, activating the mechanism and transforming the chair's shape. A playful combination of functionality and design.Research and collection Blooming Furniture emerged from my research into moving mechanisms within furniture and objects. Through extensive experimentation, I applied this mechanism to a variety of designs. My goal is to move beyond a single chair and create a complete, recognizable collection.

Render and design of an interactive wall shelf, currently in development:

At present, the series already includes several test models, such as coffee tables, a candlestick, a wall shelf, and a fruit bowl. Each piece demonstrates in its own way how movement and functionality come together in a playful and innovative design.

Ronan Bouroullec's sensitive use of concrete makes Brutalism look, well, brutish. His Ancora collection of tables seem impossibly light and airy.

"The collection of tables and low tables owes its name to the section of the base. The curved edge joins the structural element of the rib creating the shape of an anchor (in Italian 'ancora'), a design that balances aesthetics and function."

The tables are available as standalone units, suitable for both indoor and outdoor…

…and as bases for tables topped in either glass, concrete sheets or (boo) MDF with oak veneer.

The Ancora collection is in production by Magis.

Starlink currently has around 8,000 satellites in orbit. These deliver broadband to underserved areas—if users set up a Starlink dish and router at their location.

However, the 600 most-recently launched of those satellites have special equipment that can beam broadband directly to standard LTE-equipped smartphones. They're basically Wi-Fi towers in space.

Starlink began providing this Direct to Cell (D2C) service last year, enabling text messaging in remote areas across five continents. "The service works with existing LTE phones wherever you can see the sky – no changes to hardware, firmware, or special apps are required," the company says.

Now the company has announced plans to launch a further 15,000 D2C-enabled satellites, meaning that by next year, users will be able to have true full-service broadband delivered straight to their phones, no dish required.

This will be a gamechanger. Never mind being able to stream movies in the middle of a lake, participate in video calls from a mountaintop or play games in the desert; the service is literally saving lives. D2C can "connect millions of people around the world in places that have never had cellular connectivity before, and even during emergencies when terrestrial systems are impacted," the company explains.

"Following hurricanes, severe flooding and wildfires in the United States, Starlink Direct to Cell powered life-saving connectivity. In those events alone, more than 1.5 million people were able to communicate with Direct to Cell service when terrestrial networks were down, millions of SMS messages were sent and received, and hundreds of Wireless Emergency Alerts that otherwise would not have been received were successfully delivered."Additionally, people outside of terrestrial cellular network coverage have been able to receive assistance from emergency services when they previously would not. In New Zealand, a woman who came upon a car crash that happened in a cellular dead zone was able to text her partner the location of the accident through a Starlink Direct to Cell connection, and first responders were on the scene within minutes of the text being sent."

"More than 50 percent of the world's land mass remains uncovered by terrestrial services," the company says. Their goal is to "ultimately eliminate mobile dead zones around the world."

Here's what we looked at this week:

The evolution of the HiAce, Japan's work truck.

Hypershell's elegant leg exoskeleton for running, cycling, hiking, etc.

Dom Johnson's mobile, wireless sewing machine workstation.

Smart design: The MagMaster universal tool holder, and a lightweight on-body tool storage system by Holstery.

Casio's G-Shock Nano fits on your finger.

An insane Australian invention: The Snowtunnel, a skier's version of a wave pool.

An F1 cockpit gaming chair by Hungarian ID firm Flying Objects.

Nick Sharpes' "gamechanging" drill bits.

A shuttered Japanese prison is re-opening as a luxury hotel.

By James Bruton and Johannes Matsson (separately), robots that use balls to get around.

The flexible-use Penguin x MOEBE Book Stand.

Fyous' incredible "Polymorphic Molding:" A pin-based mold you can reset into any shape.

How would you guess these coathooks are mounted?

Fredericia releases a 75th anniversary edition of Børge Mogensen's Hunting Chair.

In 1950, Danish furniture designer Børge Mogensen designed this Hunting Chair:

The low-slung chair perhaps owes a debt to both Kaare Klint (whom Mogensen once worked for) and the Adirondack Chair, but it's undoubtedly its own thing.

Some 75 years later, the chair is still in production. But Danish manufacturer Fredericia Furniture is also releasing a special 75th anniversary edition, this one made of Ash, and with dark brown saddle leather. (The standard production version is made of Oak.)

"The ash version of The Hunting Chair was produced only once before in the late 1970s," the company explains, "in collaboration with Mogensen and Andreas Graversen, then-owner of Fredericia. This rare edition has remained part of the Graversen family's private collection until now."

The Ash version will still be rare: They're only making 75 of the Anniversary Edition chairs.

This expectation-subverting Wall Hook 60° is by furniture designer Tatsuki Kokubo.

How would you guess it's attached to the wall?

This is one of those things that I couldn't figure out, but which seems obvious once revealed:

The support comes from both the screws and the dowels touching the wall.

It's not in production; Kokubo designed it for the home of a private client.

Here's a simple idea, well-executed. This book stand was designed by Danish design brand MOEBE for book publisher Penguin.

Made of stainless steel, it can either be used as a bookend, a book stand, or a page-holding stand.

They're available in three colors or in their natural finish.

The Penguin x MOEBE Book Stand was created to commemorate Penguin's 90th anniversary, and they run €57 (USD $65).

Whether you're vacuum forming, casting polyurethane or doing a composite layup (i.e. a bent lamination or fiberglass layup), you need a mold. Creating the mold can be time-consuming and expensive, and of course you need a place to store the mold when it's not in use. However, British company Fyous has up-ended this model with their PolyMorphic Mold.

Rather than static molds, the company has developed a reconfigurable pin-based system. You feed your 3D model into their machine, which takes about 20 minutes to set the pins up.

Each pin can handle 6 tons of pressure. You then place the mold into your forming machine of choice and mold away. When you're done, the mold can simply be reset, ready to take a different shape.

Here's their system being used to create a three-part mold for foam-injection orthopedic footwear lasts:

Freaking incredible. And the mold is, the company says, "infinitely reusable."

British toy designer and engineer James Bruton had this vision, for a unique kind of motorbike:

He worked out, in CAD, how it could possibly operate:

Then he built the darn thing.

"I built an omni-directional ball-wheeled bike. This bike balances like a Segway sideways, and drives in all directions, which makes it the ultimate drift bike! I used five ODrive brushless motors driving omni-directional wheels, running on large plastic balls which are intended for circus acts to balance on. Active control keeps it upright and twist grips are used to drive and steer."

Bruton's work inspired Swedish 3D artist Johannes Matsson, who built a much smaller-scale version to see what it could do:

What I find fascinating about both of these designs, is that they use a commonly-available ball as the tires. It's not difficult to imagine a future where companies sell droids that resemble the upper portions of the two designs above, and the user supplies a basketball or soccer ball as the riding platform.