Seungbum Ma’s Op.2-3 wins Silver A’ Design Award

Seungbum Ma’s Op.2-3 trophy won Silver in the A’ Design Award’s Awards, Prize and Competitions Design category for work created for the 2024 Seoul Living Design Fair. The acrylic design reinterprets Korean joinery at trophy scale, highlighting how craft, material testing and structural language can shape contemporary awards.

Why it matters: - Op.2-3 shows how award objects can move beyond decoration and carry cultural meaning. - The trophy translates Korean joinery and architectural language into a contemporary prize format. - The Silver A’ Design Award can raise the profile of Studio SMA’s approach to material experimentation and scale-shifting design.

What happened: - The A’ Design Award named Op.2-3, a trophy by Seungbum Ma, as a Silver winner in the Awards, Prize and Competitions Design category. - The trophy was designed for the 2024 Seoul Living Design Fair. - The announcement was made in Como, Italy, on June 22, 2026. - The project team included Seungbum Ma, Euijung Sung and Eunbin Lim. - A dedicated project page for Op.2-3 is available on the A’ Design Award site: the project page.

The details: - Op.2-3 reinterprets traditional Korean joinery through acrylic. - The design draws from beams, columns, walls and slabs. - The trophy changes character with light and viewing angle. - At times, the acrylic form glows and throws stained-glass-like reflections. - At other times, the object reads as a dark mirror or a solid mass. - Three versions were developed for the Special, Product and Space Prizes. - Each version uses RGB hues that symbolize light itself. - The final design required testing transparency, translucency, opacity, reflectivity, dyeing, tinting and color mixing. - The team also had to determine tolerances that would allow precise assembly without breakage. - Acrylic was chosen after wood, rigid paper, aluminum and 3D printing each ran into limits tied to fragility, warping, deformation or incompatibility with the interlocking design.

Between the lines: - The win reflects a wider design trend toward objects that communicate through structure, material behavior and cultural reference instead of ornament alone. - The project also shows how small-scale products can carry ideas usually associated with architecture and furniture. - For Studio SMA, the award reinforces a practice built around defamiliarizing everyday forms and pushing material research into new categories.

What's next: - Studio SMA is likely to continue exploring how architectural language can be translated into objects across architecture, interiors, furniture and installations. - The A’ Design Award recognition may support future experimentation with material systems and fabrication methods. - The project’s public listing gives the trophy a broader audience among designers, organizers and awards professionals.

The bottom line: - Op.2-3 turns a trophy into a study of craft, light and structure, and the Silver A’ Design Award validates that approach on an international stage.