From five candidates who presented their entry to the jury on 1 September, two nominees were selected for the Maritime Designer Award 2016: Justin Rietveld and Etienne Duchateau.
According to the jury, their design approach was both innovative and inspiring. The winner will be announced at the Maritime Awards Gala on 31 October.
Maritime Designer Award
Dutch maritime industry stands a lot to gain from renewing the way in which designs come into being. The vision, creativity and determination of individual designers is often decisive for breakthroughs in the area of design technology. The Maritime Designer Award (former Wim Timmers Designer Award) is meant to stimulate innovation in maritime design.
The nominated designers:
- Justin Rietveld – Engineer Shipbuilding at Damen Shipyards Gorinchem: Rietveld has developed a new concept for the offshore decommissioning industry. This concept will allow Damen Shipyards to take its first steps in this specialty market. Rietveld recently graduated on this topic from the Rotterdam Mainport University. He has described the decommissioning process in detail. Removal of platforms' topsides was indicated as the most profitable niche market. After multiple iterations, a concept ship design was developed that can remove and transport topsides in an innovative way and is able to service 75 per cent of the global market. In addition, to meet client specific demands, two design variations were also developed.
- Etienne Duchateau – Maritime Systems Department at the Defence Materiel Organisation: As part of his PhD, Duchateau developed a method for an interactive and controllable exploration of ship concepts. With this method, the designer is able to generate, identify and select promising designs during concept exploration based on insights acquired during the process. The design criteria are gradually adjusted by the acquired insights from the exploration. This allows the direction of the concept exploration to be modified interactively based on what the designer deems important. This process advances acceptance of the eventual solution.
