2025 | Student
Entrant Company
Category
Client's Name
Country / Region
"Blossom Bond"(Jin Hua Yuan,"近花缘“) is an innovative cultural packaging system designed to rejuvenate Yangzhou's historic Qionghua Temple through gamified exploration. Targeting young travelers, this modular packaging transforms traditional garden tourism into a tactile puzzle adventure, blending structural interactivity, cultural storytelling, and sustainable design under the concept "Viewing Gardens Through a Magnifying Glass."
The system features six combinable sub-boxes housed within a corrugated eco-shell with reinforced crash-proof edges and convertible wide straps as handles. Each unit employs distinct opening mechanisms - magnetic closure, tear-activated "blooming" boxes mimicking Qionghua flowers, drawer-style boxes revealing scrolls, and top-bottom boxes - inspired by Huarongdao sliding puzzles and topological layering. These interactive structures physically embody the garden's "step-by-scenery" philosophy while creating progressive narrative reveals.
Reassembled box tops form a collective aerial map of Qionghua Temple, embedded with 3D laser-cut architectural elements (arched gate replicas, miniature bronze tripods) and floral motif illustrations printed on matte-coated white cardstock. A dual-tone color scheme derived from Qionghua leaves (olive-cyan) and blossoms (pearl-white) visually unifies the packaging with the site's botanical identity.
Each box corresponds to key landmarks like the Magnetic Twin Pavilion Unit containing panoramic view decoders. Opening actions trigger narrative clues tied to original IP characters "A-Qiong" and "A-Hua" - youthful gardener guides visualized through ink-wash mascot designs. The sequential unboxing process reconstructs historical anecdotes about Song Dynasty poets and Qing-era rituals, transforming material interactions into time-travel storytelling.
This sustainable design (100% recyclable materials, reusable configurations) pioneers a new model for heritage activation, achieving 83% trial-user approval in youth engagement metrics during pilot testing. By converting cultural assets into handheld exploratoriums, it bridges Ming Dynasty elegance with Gen-Z experiential expectations through engineered wonder.
Credits
Entrant Company
Cheng Chen
Category
Interior Design - Event Space (NEW)
Entrant Company
Carnegie Mellon University
Category
Conceptual Design - Student Design
Entrant Company
Ming Zhao
Category
Architectural Design - Industrial
Entrant Company
STUDIO ZANINI
Category
Furniture Design - Seating & Comfort