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Post offices for the future and health techniques of tomorrow – students' design concepts win four major awards

Posted on 02/06/2009

Loughborough University Website

Post offices for the future and health techniques of tomorrow – students’ design concepts win four major awards

Four Industrial Design and Technology students from Loughborough University have won top awards at this year’s RSA (Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) Design Direction Awards.

The RSA highlights the best of British and European design. The Design Directions Awards challenge student designers to respond to projects with a strong social context and ask them to question the role of the designer in the modern world.

Laurence Kemball-Cook and Matthew Ward both won awards in the ‘After the post office’ category, which asked the students to develop a new service designed to replace the traditional post office.

Laurence’s design, ‘Post Pod’ – a set of simplified, portable post office equipment – won him the Design Council Award. Matthew was awarded an internship with technology company NCR for his idea – a ‘hub’ which allows post offices to cost-effectively share community spaces such as village halls with other service providers, helping to maintain easy access for customers to vital services.