Adrián Larripa is a professor of design at Tecnun and CEO at BigD, a Navarrese consultancy service whose goal is to develop innovative projects through design, with the goal to generate a great positive impact on people and society. Larripa and BigD are these days of congratulations as they have been awarded with the international award IF Design Award 2018.

Since 1954, the IF Design Awards have been recognizing the best designs worldwide in different categories such as consumer products, kitchen, architecture, communication or medicine, among others. This year, more than 6,400 proposals were submitted, and in the automotive category, the Larripa studio was the winner for its project of a crane cabin.

Larripa is clear about what this award means: "First of all, it is a great prestige and recognition for the company. It ratifies our excellence in the design product, not only aesthetically, but also functionally, technically and in terms of innovation. It certifies that our designs are world-class," says the professor at Tecnun. 

The awards ceremony submission took place in Munich on March 9 and, although Larripa was unable to attend attend, he will be sent award in the next few days. But how did it all come about? The award-winning project was conceived two years ago at the request of Comansa, a crane manufacturing company in Navarre. The challenge consisted of redesigning the cabin located at the top of the crane where the crane operator operates. goal With the aim of facilitating the work of the crane operators, BigD developed a co-creative process involving the different agents involved in the product, as well as the crane users themselves, to identify their needs and learn about their day-to-day work.

"It was an immersive phase, from design focused on Username, an important research work. It's not about designing a booth from our studio. You have to work with the Username knowing their needs, involving the different Departments of the company in a process of crocreation, a participatory process," explains Larripa. "And based on this research phase and knowing everything related to the material and technological needs, the designarises", adds the professor of Tecnun.

The new cabins designed by BigD are larger and squarer, thus optimizing usable space. Half of the cab is glazed, allowing the operator greater visibility. "The main twist we have given with respect to what already existed in the market is that the part of the cabin structure where the metal profiles that support it are located, remain hidden, which gives a very clean and pure design ," says Larripa.

In addition, this cabin has more technology and is more ergonomic. "We took into account that the worker spends many hours of workshop working time in the cabin and for us it was very important how to humanize the cabin. Now it is more comfortable and that benefits the crane operator in his day-to-day work."

A total of 17 of these new cabins will be installed on an oil platform in the Persian Gulf. Since December, half of them have already been delivered for this project and the shipment will be completed next May.