Besenzoni rewards young designers

Giorgio Besenzoni and architect Filippo Rossi, workshop leader with winners Francesca De Feudis and Laura Facchetti for the Alaia footbridge and the Arco staircase-passerelle © Besenzoni

The 'Giovanni Besenzoni Award' was presented yesterday to those students from the Industrial and Research Design Programme at LABA Brescia who submitted the best redesigning project of a brand new gangway.

Last week, 22 March, saw the completion of the first educational project "Collezione Anniversario Giovanni Besenzoni 2023", with the awarding of a prize and scholarship from the company. The project, dedicated to young people, was carried out in collaboration with LABA Academy of Fine Arts Brescia and Trentino, and aimed at promoting new studies and ideas with a focus on creative aspects in the interest of the community and of artistic progress.

'Innovation means looking to the future, holding the past by the hand': these are the words that Giovanni Besenzoni loved to say. The award is dedicated to him, a far-sighted and innovative entrepreneur who founded Besenzoni Spa in 1967. Giovanni's brilliant personality and his company philosophy - to create products of the highest quality which are both technologically advanced and have a unique design - perfectly fit in with the idea of this contest. "We've been able to introduce the 'Giovanni Besenzoni Award' this year thanks to LABA Academy of Fine Arts and the contest has now become part of the company's 55th anniversary celebrations. For us, it has always been very important to engage with young people, by inspiring them and encouraging them to pursue their studies, develop their creativity, and further their development in the field of nautical design, and this award fully reflects this vocation" explains Giorgio Besenzoni, the company's CEO.

The students in the first and second year of the two-year Industrial & Research Design programme had to design a gangway project following specific company guidelines, as part of the course in Innovative Design, Advanced CAD and Rapid Prototyping - Second Level Diploma (equivalent to a Master's Degree) in Industrial & Research Design.

The students were divided into teams of two or three, and each team tried their hand at realizing a project using graphics tablets, renderings, technical diagrams and 3D CAD files as well as 3D printed prototypes.

The commission of jurors made up of Giorgio Besenzoni, designer Francesco Forcellini, Filippo Rossi in charge of the workshop, teachers Marco Ribola and Mauro Martinuz and the director of Laba Valerio Borgonuovo evaluated the works taking into consideration, first and foremost, the potential of the project in the current market.

First place was awarded to two brilliant students, Francesca De Feudis and Laura Facchetti, whose entries - the Alaia gangway and the Arco ladder-gangway - convinced the panel of judges. In particular, the jury evaluated Alaia as a design that brings out a new vision of the "traditional" gangway and the meticulous attention to the details and materials chosen, while Arco convinced for its originality and "deconstruction" of the product.

Three special mentions went to the student pairs Lorenzo Morotti-Andrea Perodi with the project 'Argand', Alessia Marenghi-Francesca Marchesini with 'Horizon', Samuele Bonaventi-Raffaele Panizza with 'Sally'.

Giorgio Besenzoni concluded: "We wanted to engage with the students in the application of one of our iconic products, the gangway, to ask them for new design ideas. The students' work went far beyond our expectations because the projects we evaluated really impressed us. I personally want to congratulate the winners and all the future designers who participated, by cleverly and imaginatively redesigning one of our most important and iconic products".

The gangway, among the essential on-board components, has always received special attention from Besenzoni and is now one of the company's most recognised and iconic products. The range of products goes across-the-board ranging from the telescopic hydraulic gangway to the more complex gangway which features a crane, walkway and ladder, up to the top-of-the-range telescopic three-stage retractable gangways, without forgetting to mention the electric gangways, first introduced to the market by Besenzoni in 2020.