Product Design of the Year
Grand Prix Winner

The DESK MMXX II received the Paris Design Awards in 2020 and was additionally awarded “Grand Prix Winner – Product of the Year” for the best product design of the year.

The design emerged from an exploration of a fundamental question of architectural design: How can a workspace enable concentration rather than generate permanent visual distraction? The starting point was the observation that creative and cognitive processes require calmness — not overlay.

The desk therefore follows a deliberately reduced geometric order. Functions such as storage, cable management, technical connections, and working tools are fully integrated into the internal structure of the body. What remains visible is primarily the empty work surface itself. This reduction does not serve formal strictness alone, but creates a spatial condition in which thoughts, drawings, and ideas can take centre stage.

The extendable writing surface allows direct access to tools and documents without disrupting the calmness of the overall form. Use and function remain present, yet recede visually. Architecture and design are thus not understood as the staging of objects, but as the conscious shaping of conditions for concentration and perception.

The work connects to the attitude that architecture should serve as a background for life. Design should not continuously draw attention to itself, but instead create clarity and support human activity.

The international award also points to the growing relevance of reduced and material-oriented design within contemporary practice. The focus is not on decorative complexity, but on precision, use, and spatial atmosphere.

Among other category winners of the Paris Design Awards was also the artist Ai Weiwei.

Learn more at www.dna.paris