Emerging Design Medal 2024 - Harry Blakiston Houston, Insulate Ukraine
Recognises an individual or practice that has made a recent impact on the design scene and has an emerging practice showing design promise.
Harry Blakiston Houston grew up in Northern Ireland!s Sperrin Mountains, before studying engineering mathematics at the University of Bristol, and beginning a PhD in biotechnology at Cambridge University.
In 2023, Blakiston Houston founded Insulate Ukraine, an initiative conceived to install low-cost, triple-glazed temporary polyethylene windows in bomb-damaged homes in the war-torn country – to an innovative design tough enough to survive nearby explosions but built from readily available materials and tools. Insulate Ukraine has liaised with local governments and charities across Ukraine to install several thousand of its windows in homes, schools and orphanages, while setting up window replacement hubs and training local people to run them. It's a humanitarian initiative as simple as it is essential, and a startling example of Houston's brilliant initiative in applying intuitive engineering to the most fundamental of real-world issues.
"I see myself as an inventor who uses systems to solve problems. When I was told I would be awarded the Emerging Design Medal, I asked if it could go to the people on the ground in Ukraine, the civilians who stayed to help their community. They are putting their lives on the line every single day. I didn't win this award. They did.” - Harry Blakiston Houston
Film credit: I AM JACK
