The Awards are sponsored by the Aluminium Extruders Association, in conjunction with the Aluminium Federation and are aimed specifically at student designers and engineers.  

Neil James, sales director of Hydro Aluminium Extrusion commented:  The Power of Aluminium Awards were conceived as way of introducing our future product designers and engineers to the benefits of using aluminium over other materials.

The aluminium extrusion process provides virtually unlimited opportunities to a product designer with the added benefit of low tooling costs and short lead times. 

Entries to the 2010 Awards could be any design or product created after Jan 2009 in which aluminium extrusions form an integral part.  The four main criteria taken into account in the assessment of entries were:  novel design based on use of extrusion, elegance or simplicity in re-designing a product by incorporating extrusions and technical and commercial viability.

Grant Riley of Nottingham Trent University won the £1,000 first prize for “Clothing Management” a series of designs for a coat hanger system for use in hotels and cloakrooms. 

This anti-theft coat hanging system includes extruded aluminium brackets, a custom rail and individual anti-theft hangers.  The brackets incorporate c-shaped screw points for self-tapping screws to fix the system into existing wardrobes. 

Extrusion gives the opportunity to cheaply add the extra functionality of a removable snap fit and ball-hook feature.  This feature renders the stolen hanger useless and also eliminates the need for extra parts to achieve this goal. 

The £500 second prize winner was London Southbank University student, Nicholas Camilleri for his “Twist” LED lighting system design.  Twist is a pioneering LED light.  An extruded slider is used to adjust the colour balance of each 10 watt LED lamp, creating both a work lamp and a mood light. 

The judging panel was chaired by top furniture designer Rodney Kinsman of OMK Associates Ltd and also included the Director of the London Design Museum, Deyan Sudjic. 

The rest of the panel were Neil James, of Hydro Aluminium Extrusion, Richard Mahoney of ALFED and David Humphries of Sapa Profiles UK. 

The awards were presented by Baroness Gardner of Parkes to the two winners at Alfed’s Annual Parliamentary Lunch on 7th July 2010 in the House of Lords.

For further information on the awards: www.alfed.org.uk