By Suhayl Afzal

In just a few weeks Blackwood will be hosting its 2015 AGM in Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh. This year is set to be bigger than ever with innovation, and the future of housing and care at the heart of the event.

The AGM will also include the second round of voting in the Blackwood Design Awards 2015, with the remaining 6 entries being whittled down to just 4…

bespoken asked Blackwood staff about their views on the six finalists in the Blackwood Design Awards 2015 in an effort to find the ‘popular vote’ and maybe get a hint of what the eventual result might look like. (Please note that this vote is merely indicative of popular opinion in Blackwood and will have no bearing on the final result).

The six designs remaining in the competition are: Sentino – a cooking solution for visually impaired people; SAT – an accessible bus design, jamLIFT – a lifting aid; Kinesic Mouse – a way of controlling computers with facial gestures; POSTA – a chair designed for more streamlined airplane transfers; and S’up Spoon – a spoon designed to help people eat independently.

The results proved interesting;

Elaine Darling, Regional Manager for the West voted for Sentino. She explains why it got her vote: “It encourages independence for those who are blind or visually impaired and it allows them to make use of their other senses when cooking; it also means they would be able to cook things other than what they know or are used to.”

Head of Marketing, Colleen Robertson, voted likewise but her reasons were a little different, she said: “I voted for [Sentino] because I thought it would look great in the concept house,” Blackwood’s vision for the future of housing.

Lorraine Rice works as an Admin Officer and holds the distinction of being one of Blackwood’s longest serving members of staff. Of the six finalists she favoured the S’up spoon, saying “I saw the video of it in use and I just thought it was such a simple yet brilliant idea and it could really help people get that little extra independence which is so vital.”

There appears to be an overall favourite amongst Blackwood’s staff but it remains to be seen how the judges vote come the decision day, and the competition is still very much wide open.

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