Emma Olbers is awarded Designer of the Year 2019

A strong commitment to environmentally friendly and sustainable design and carefully selected materials that are both aesthetically pleasing, climate-smart and can be recycled - no matter how small or large projects she undertakes. These are some of the reasons why Emma Olbers is Designer of the Year 2019 of the magazine Rum Design.

The magazines that make up the room are leading trade magazines in design, architecture and interior design. Each year, the Rum newspapers publish, in collaboration with a highly qualified jury, five winners who are awarded the Room of the Year - an award that was awarded for the first time in 2014, and which today is considered a very prestigious design prize in Sweden. When the prize is now awarded for the sixth year, the word democracy is in clear focus - something that is also highly reflected in the climate issue.

The jury's statement states:

High-level furniture design with regard to the planet's resources.

"The planet's resources are a matter of democracy. Emma Olbers has had the environment and ethics in focus for her design work for a long time. Through her consistent choice of sustainable materials and production methods, she affects producers and consumers

make more environmentally friendly choices. It does not matter if she embarks on a classic library interior for the new National Museum or a lamp for the furniture giant Ikea. Emma Olber's work is always permeated by great respect for nature and in recent years she has become known as one of the industry's foremost climate fighters. ”

- It is a great honor to be awarded the Designer of the Year award. For me, it feels extra funny that Rum-papers this year are paying attention to my commitment to the climate. I think that it is precisely this year and next year that awareness and willingness to change will seriously take off in Sweden. We must all now try to lower our carbon dioxide emissions to meet the climate target of 1.5 degrees. Then I hope and believe that the technology will soon catch up, ”says Emma Olbers.

Emma has in recent years made herself known as one of the design industry's foremost environmentalists and advocates for smarter consumption and more thoughtful choices. According to her, good design should last for several generations. Her environmental awareness is more or less innate - Emma is growing up with agriculture and a proximity to nature, which in a natural way has given her insights on how much energy is needed to feed animals or grow crops and forests.

In 2018, Emma Olbers was one of the year's most acclaimed design projects when she remodeled the Nationalmuseum's classic and cultural-protected library interior. Her environmental thinking was also present throughout the project. For example, new chair models were developed based on the IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute's calculations of which types of wood account for the least carbon dioxide consumption. The seats of the chairs were made of fast-growing hemp and seaweed - two materials that are carbon dioxide-positive. In addition, a carpet by Tencel, a cellulose material from fast-growing forest, was taken out in collaboration

with Asplund.

For her work with the Nationalmuseum's library, Emma Olbers was also recently named the Environmental Profile of the Year in the magazine Residence Stora Formpris 2018

About Room of the Year

The Design and Architecture Prize The Year's Room was awarded for the first time in 2014. The prize was presented by the publisher It is Media, in order to draw attention to Sweden's design and architecture scene together with its Rum-magazines. The winners in five categories will be presented during the Gala of the Year, which will be held on Monday during Stockholm Design Week.

This year's jury consisted of the architect and designer Eero Koivisto at CKR, architect Rahel Belatchew Lerdell at Belatchew Architects, Clara von Zweigbergk and Shane Schneck at Hay, John Taylor, Chandra Ahlsell at Malmstens Linköping University and Cecilia Öfverholm, editor-in-chief at Rumstens Linköping University, and Cecilia Öfverholm, editor-in-chief of the magazine Rum, Emelie Strömfors, tf editor-in-chief of Rum Hemma, Susanne Johansson, editor-in-chief of Rum Design, Josefin Udén, editor-in-chief of Nya Rum and Bettina Bieberstein-Lee, editor-in-chief of Rum Ute. The chair of the jury is the architectural historian Martin Rörby