Silver Awards, Prize and Competitions Design · 2026
Op.2-3 Trophy
by Seungbum Ma
- A' Design Award 2026 Silver Winner in Awards, Prize and Competitions Design
- Awarded April 15, 2026
- CLIENT: Design House
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 29,891
- Verification code 5B7920392B · Verify this award
About Op.2-3 Trophy
This trophy, designed for the 2024 Seoul Living Design Fair, draws inspiration from basic architectural elements such as columns, beams, and slabs, reinterpreted through contemporary materials and fabrication methods. Crafted in acrylic, it reflects the logic of traditional Korean joinery while exploring light, shadow, and material change. The form shifts with angle and illumination, at times glowing, reflecting, or casting colored shadows, combining structural clarity with sensory depth through precise assembly research.
Within the distinguished tradition of commemorative objects that mark exceptional achievement, this trophy design emerges as a compelling synthesis of architectural thinking and sculptural presence, transforming the conventional award format into an object of enduring aesthetic significance. The work demonstrates sophisticated material intelligence, pairing the cool permanence of brushed aluminum with the luminous depth of tinted acrylic to create a dialogue between solidity and transparency that speaks to the multifaceted nature of creative accomplishment. The designer appears to draw upon modernist precedents, particularly the geometric rigor associated with early twentieth-century rationalist movements, while simultaneously engaging contemporary concerns with light, transparency, and spatial extension. The modular grid structure suggests both the systematic methodology of rigorous creative practice and the cumulative nature of achievement built through sustained effort. Particularly noteworthy is the integration of light as active design element, the translucent blue chambers transform ambient illumination into a participatory medium, ensuring the trophy responds dynamically to its environment rather than remaining static. The resulting cast shadow, with its precise grid pattern rendered in luminous blue, extends the object's presence into surrounding space, creating an environmental installation effect that elevates the trophy beyond mere commemorative artifact. The vertical orientation carries traditional associations with aspiration, growth, and excellence while the cool blue palette suggests depth of thought, integrity, and clarity of purpose. The refined execution, evident in precisely machined edges and flawless surface treatments, communicates the high standards the trophy itself celebrates. Viewers may find themselves contemplating how the interplay of material presence and luminous projection mirrors the relationship between individual achievement and its broader influence upon the world.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- This is the trophy design for the 2024 Seoul Living Design Fair. Inspired by fundamental architectural elements, such as beams, columns, and slabs, the design reinterprets traditional Korean joinery using acrylic. The trophy’s form responds to light and angle: at times glowing and casting stained-glass-like reflections, at others becoming a dark mirror or a silent, solid mass. Three versions were created—Special, Product, and Space Prizes—each rendered in RGB hues symbolizing light itself.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- Width 103 mm x Depth 103 mm x Height 323 mm
- Tags
- architectural object, architectural trophy, trophy
- Production Technology
- This project also served as an experiment in translating architectural and furniture joinery techniques into a smaller scale. It involved a series of tests to determine tolerances that allow precise acrylic assembly without breakage, along with studies to identify the optimal colors and levels of transparency. The final outcome was achieved through extensive exploration of transparency, translucency, opacity, reflectivity, dyeing, tinting, and color mixing.
- Design Challenge
- Wood was fragile, while rigid paper allowed for easy assembly but presented issues with warping and finish. Aluminum lost its precision and deformed during cutting. While 3D printing offered structural stability, it was excluded due to its incompatibility with the interlocking design language.
Ultimately, acrylic was chosen for its ability to transmit and reflect light, casting colored shadows while glowing on its own. However, tests were required to determine the optimal tolerances for assembly without breakage, as well as to identify suitable colors and levels of transparency. - Project Duration
- The project started in January and finished in February 2024 in Seoul, and was exhibited in the Seoul Living Design Fair 2024 in March.
- Operation Flow
- Placed by a sunlit window, it takes on entirely different forms and impressions depending on the time, weather, and the viewer’s perspective.
- Research
- Under a tight timeline, it was necessary to explore multiple formal alternatives for the trophy while simultaneously studying the complex joinery details at a small scale using various materials.
- Inspiration
- This project explores the universal language of architecture to evoke new experiences and meanings. Fundamental elements, such as beams, columns, walls, and floors, are reconfigured with contemporary materials to defamiliarize the everyday and invite renewed reflection. By reinterpreting traditional joinery through modern techniques, the work honors history while opening paths toward the future.
- Image Credits
- All photos by Yoon Park.
Colors of Op.2-3 Trophy
Grand Interview about Op.2-3 Trophy
What I find most compelling about the Op.2-3 Trophy is its ability to present completely different expressions depending on the time of day and the viewer’s position. When viewed from the side, the highly reflective black acrylic surface captures and mirrors its surroundings like a black mirror, creating a sense of depth and ambiguity. When viewed from the front, the colors of the structural elements become more prominent, revealing an entirely different visual identity.This broad optical spectrum is the result of extensive studies into the material qualities of acrylic—its transparency, reflectivity, and ability to refract and transmit light in various ways.What I find particularly fascinating is the moment when the trophy transcends its physical boundary as an object. By transmitting natural or artificial light into the surrounding space, it extends its colors and presence beyond itself, allowing the space around it to become part of the work. Personally, I think the trophy reveals its most beautiful character in the afternoon, when clear sunlight enters at an angle and casts colored shadows across the floor and surrounding surfaces.
I believe that tradition becomes truly alive not when it is merely preserved as a historical form, but when it is reinterpreted through the technologies and discourses of the present. Traditional Korean joinery was originally developed for wood, and translating this technique into acrylic required an entirely different fabrication logic.With wood, components are typically cut using saws or CNC machines, then refined by hand with chisels and sandpaper before being joined together with adhesive and mechanical interlocking. Acrylic, on the other hand, is precisely laser-cut and assembled using a solvent-based adhesive that slightly dissolves the surface, creating a chemical bond between the parts. Because the assembly relies on both physical interlocking and chemical fusion, it demands a much stricter control of tolerances and fabrication precision.At the same time, I wanted to preserve the essential structural intelligence of traditional joinery—its ability to create stability through the relationship between individual components rather than relying solely on external fasteners. By introducing transparent acrylic elements, however, the joinery gains entirely new sensory and visual behaviors. The density of transparency, darkness, and color shifts subtly according to the viewer’s position and the changing conditions of light. The final object not only exists as a structure but also projects its colors into the surrounding space, extending its presence beyond its physical boundaries.In that sense, these optical phenomena are qualities that traditional wooden joinery could never have anticipated, emerging specifically from the encounter between an ancient structural language and a contemporary material.
The Op.2-3 Trophy emerged not only from an extensive study of acrylic in all its optical variations—transparent, translucent, opaque, colored, and tinted—but also through a broader exploration using a range of materials, including paper, wood, aluminum, and 3D-printed prototypes. Each material study became a way of testing not only the form itself but also the structural logic, fabrication methods, and sensory qualities that the final object could embody.I believe that designing an object and translating that design into a physical material are not two separate stages of the same process. The act of materialization is, in itself, a new design project. The same structural system can generate completely different experiences depending on the material, fabrication technique, and scale through which it is realized.For designers working across product design and architecture, the lesson is perhaps to treat materials not simply as a means of executing a predetermined idea, but as active participants in the design process. A willingness to question, investigate, and experiment with the inherent properties and limitations of a material is essential. In many ways, it is through this dialogue between an abstract system and a specific material that unexpected forms, new sensory experiences, and new possibilities for design can emerge.
There is a saying that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I believe the Op.2-3 Trophy was recognized not simply because it fulfilled individual criteria such as originality, aesthetics, material exploration, or cultural sensitivity, but because these different qualities were integrated into a coherent language that created a resonance greater than each element alone.I have always been interested in the subtle tension between the universality and specificity of architectural language. Viewed within a Korean cultural context, this work can be understood through the tradition of jjamatchum (traditional Korean joinery) and its structural logic. From the perspective of contemporary art, however, it may also be read as part of the lineage of minimalist sculpture. From an architectural point of view, it is ultimately composed of fundamental structural elements—columns, beams, and horizontal planes—that exist as a universal language across cultures and time.What interested me was not choosing between these interpretations but allowing them to coexist within a single object. I wanted to crystallize these multiple layers of meaning into a clear and compelling physical form. I believe this capacity to be simultaneously specific and universal is what allowed the work to communicate with an international jury and suggests that architectural language, at its best, can transcend cultural boundaries while still carrying the identity of its origin.
Looking back, it is difficult to identify a single failure as the most instructive one. Every experiment and rejection was an essential part of the learning process, and I actually found great value in confronting the limitations of each material.With metal, for example, I experienced how laser cutting could create rough edges and slight thermal deformation, making it difficult to achieve the level of precision required for such a small-scale interlocking structure. Discussions with metal fabrication specialists also taught me the practical limitations of realizing this level of complexity within a limited budget and scale.Wood and rigid paper revealed the limitations of material thickness in relation to structural strength and deformation. A certain physical thickness was necessary for the components to maintain stability, which conflicted with the delicacy and visual lightness I was pursuing. On the other hand, 3D printing allowed me to produce the structure as a single piece, but in doing so it lost the material aura and the poetic quality that emerges when individual components physically meet and interlock.Even after choosing acrylic, the process continued. Transparent, opaque, colored, and tinted acrylic each produced entirely different visual results. I learned that achieving the right offset and tolerance for an interlocking system was not something that could be determined only through digital drawings; it had to be discovered through repeated physical testing with the actual material and fabrication method.Ultimately, the most important lesson from this project was that structural precision and sensory effect are inseparable. A difference of only a fraction of a millimeter can determine not only whether the components assemble correctly, but also how light passes through them, how layers of material visually overlap, and how the object is ultimately perceived.
For this project, it was important not to rely solely on digital renderings or drawings but to experience the sensory effects created by real materials at their actual scale. Therefore, we produced a series of 1:1 mock-ups using different materials and fabrication methods, allowing us to physically touch and visually evaluate the atmosphere, presence, and qualities each material could produce.In particular, for the final acrylic studies, we created multiple prototypes with different levels of transparency, opacity, colors, and tinting methods. We observed how each variation reflected, transmitted, and transformed light under both natural and artificial lighting conditions, carefully evaluating the different densities of color, shadow, and atmosphere they created within the surrounding space.The final decision was not based on a single measurable criterion, but on whether the trophy could reveal a rich range of expressions depending on the viewer’s position, the time of day, and changing lighting conditions. We approached prototyping not merely as a process of verification, but as a design tool for discovering unexpected possibilities embedded within each material.This collaborative process with Euijung Sung and Eunbin Lim was built around continuous dialogue between concept, material experimentation, and physical observation. Through repeated testing and discussion, we refined the balance between structural clarity and optical ambiguity until the object could function not only as a trophy but also as a small architectural instrument that activates the space around it.
In fact, the Op.2-3 Trophy can be understood as a miniature version of the broader Op series, an ongoing body of work in which I investigate the universal language of architecture—columns, beams, and planes—by placing these familiar elements into unfamiliar relationships and contexts.The Op series has been studied through a wide range of materials, including wood, acrylic, veneer, and stainless steel, and continues to evolve across many different scales and typologies, from chairs, lighting, handles, tables, and bookshelves to architectural spaces and buildings.This trophy project was particularly meaningful because it allowed us to investigate structural relationships, joinery, material behavior, and the sensory effects of light and color at an intimate, hand-held scale. The knowledge gained through these experiments will become an important foundation as the Op series expands into new materials and larger architectural applications.I do not believe that an architectural language should be confined to a single scale or function. A structural idea becomes much richer when it can move from a small object held in the hand to furniture that engages the body, and eventually to architecture that surrounds and inhabits our lives. Through this movement across scales, we can discover both the universality of a structural language and the unique qualities that emerge at each scale.Moving forward, Studio SMA will continue to develop the Op series by exploring the formal, structural, and sensory possibilities of this language through new materials, new scales, and new forms.
I think one aspect of the Op.2-3 Trophy that has not been fully communicated publicly is that the project was not only about designing a form, but about discovering how that form could be translated into reality. Within a limited timeframe and budget, adapting an architectural language originally developed at the scale of buildings into a hand-held object was a significant challenge.As an architect, this project also became an opportunity for me to learn from fields that I had not previously engaged with deeply, including metal craftsmanship, furniture making, and small-scale object fabrication. It reinforced my belief that the boundaries between design disciplines are increasingly dissolving. With the advancement of technology, the distance that once existed between design and production is being compressed and reorganized, allowing designers to engage much more directly with materials, fabrication processes, and craftsmanship.Seoul, in particular, provides a unique environment for this kind of experimental collaboration. The city has highly concentrated networks of skilled makers: metal and machine workshops in Euljiro, traditional metal craftspeople in Jongno, and acrylic fabrication industries around Yeongdeungpo. This ecosystem allows designers to communicate and collaborate with specialists rapidly, achieving a remarkably high level of craftsmanship with relatively accessible resources.I believe an important question for contemporary design is not only how we create new forms, but how we establish new models of collaboration between designers, makers, technologies, and local production cultures. In this sense, the Op.2-3 Trophy is more than a commemorative object; it is also a small-scale experiment in how an architect can engage with materials, craftspeople, and emerging modes of production.
I have been continuously exploring the idea of perspective throughout my work. When designing an object, I am interested in creating something that does not exist as a single fixed image, but rather reveals itself differently depending on the viewer’s position and movement, the surrounding environment, and the passage of time.In that sense, it was a very intentional decision for the Op.2-3 Trophy to function as a temporally active object. It was designed so that reflections, transparency, color density, and projected shadows continuously change according to the direction of light, the weather, the position of a window, and the viewer’s perspective. I believe these changes are not merely visual effects, but a way for the object to establish a unique relationship with each space and moment in which it exists.The moment a design is completed, it leaves the hands of the designer and begins to develop its own narrative through its encounters with people and environments. I believe this is true regardless of scale—whether it is architecture or a small object. What ultimately matters is the ongoing dialogue between the user and the designed object.Rather than imposing a single, definitive interpretation, I hope my work allows for a broad range of readings and responds with different expressions depending on the emotions, circumstances, and experiences of the person encountering it. Studio SMA aims to create works that make everyday moments more meaningful, and I believe the Op.2-3 Trophy is a small but clear manifestation of that philosophy.
I approached the Op.2-3 Trophy as if I were designing a small piece of architecture. In architecture, the work does not end with the creation of a form; it is equally important to consider how the building will be assembled, constructed, and maintained as a stable entity. The same principle applied to this trophy.During the laser-cutting process, acrylic components become extremely delicate because they are shaped with precise interlocking details and thin profiles. However, once the individual parts are assembled, they become stronger through their mutual dependence, combining both mechanical interlocking and chemical bonding to form a more stable whole. In many ways, this resembles architecture, where individual structural elements rely on one another to create a unified and resilient system.As the design evolved from an initial sketch into a 3D model and finally into full-scale physical mock-ups, countless decisions had to be made regarding thickness, joinery, tolerances, fabrication methods, and the atmospheric qualities produced by the material. One of the most important lessons for me was realizing that these were not merely technical problems to solve after the design was complete—they were fundamental components of the design itself.The compressed two-month timeline required rigorous scheduling, but also a flexible approach to collaboration. Each fabricator and craftsperson—from metal workers to acrylic specialists—brought different methods, constraints, and languages of making. Through this dialogue, the design continuously evolved and improved.Ultimately, this project taught me that meaningful design is not about creating a complete idea first and then finding a way to manufacture it. The process of making must be considered from the very beginning of the design inquiry. Since this project, I have begun approaching new works by simultaneously thinking about form, material limitations, fabrication processes, assembly methods, and even the unexpected possibilities that can emerge through making itself.