Faculty of the Built Environment (FBE) Industrial Design student, Alicia Mintzes, has taken out the Silver Award in the 2008 Australian Design Awards – Dyson Student Award.

The awards, which were presented in Sydney on Friday 30 May, are selected by a panel of design industry experts and recognise and promote design excellence in Australia.

Alicia’s design, Sharpsafe, is a community needle disposal bin for injection drug users that utilises innovations in materials and technology to improve safety, and familiar street furniture design to enable a better, non-threatening, fit in public spaces.

An outstanding component of the Sharpsafe design is its solar-powered ultrasonic distance-sensor system that measures and records bin levels to alert service staff when the bin is nearly full.

Alicia inspiration for the Sharpsafe design came after noticing the large variety of park users in Redfern, she created the bin “so that if you're just a regular park user you don't feel threatened by the design of it."

David Wawrzonek, Alicia Mintzes, Nick Notara, & Reuben Png
enjoy the Awards with lecturers Andrew Fowkes, Oya Demirbilek, Miles Park

UNSW's Industrial Design Program consistently excels in the awards, last year FBE students won first, second and third place. This year there were 13 student finalists from all over Australia including four from UNSW.

Industrial Design Program Head, Oya Demirbilek was delighted by Alicia’s accomplishment, “seeing our students win these awards is one of the best rewards we receive as lecturers”.

“All of our students projects entered into the Awards were based on extensive research around a particular human need, and the great results we achieve in these awards demonstrate the students’ ability as designers and their excellent employability”, added Ms Demirbilek.

Ross Cameron, Managing Director of Dyson SEA reinforced this message when he stated, “the students are a result of their environment and the training they receive with the UNSW consistently producing top achievers in these awards.”

Alicia recently graduated and is now working with one of Australia’s leading design companies, Nielsen Design. She has already received commercial interest for Sharpsafe. For more information (click here) to view Alicia's student profile.