Amtico Welcomes BCU Materiality Award 2022 Winner

October 2022

At Amtico, we’re very proud supporters of young, emerging talent and see the vital importance of developing their skills in design and manufacturing.

That’s why we’re excited to once again support Birmingham City University’s Materiality Award for BA (Hons) Textile Design graduates.

This year’s winner was Anya Bennett. She won the award for her exceptional Japanese-inspired Graduate Collection which featured hand-crafted material concepts, with indented application for luxury hospitality spaces and hotel room interiors. Inspired by the strong design principles of Japan, Anya created pieces solely from second-hand and throwaway materials. She saw her collection as an opportunity to promote a sustainable ethos with traditional values.

Anya was thrilled to win the Materiality Award, including an Amtico design studio visit and prize, saying it was a “fantastic accolade in my design career”. She outlined how she altered her design focus during her final major project, describing it as moving “from using only fabrics to exploring alternative substrates such as wood, vinyl and ceramics”.

She went on to add: “I found a new niche in using my textile design skills to regenerate interior materials and create innovative surfaces. Being Amtico's chosen award winner confirmed that exploring this direction was suited to me. I was excited to have the opportunity to visit the company factory and translate one of my Japanese-inspired designs into a commercial tile. Thank you Amtico!"

As part of her award win, Anya got to spend the day in our design studio and factory in Coventry. She enjoyed visiting our lab, noting: “It’s really interesting to see every part of the process in one space”. She also appreciated the work that Amtico is doing to avoid waste and make sustainable products.

Additionally, Anya related very strongly to the way Amtico carries out trend forecasting and the associated creation of colour palettes and textures in the new product development process. She was able to compare our methods of manufacturing with her own textile design experiences at university.

In addition, we created her winning design into an LVT tile, as part of her prize, and she was thrilled with the results, adding: “It really surpassed my expectations!”

Amtico is proud to judge the Materiality Award each year and excited to watch the graduates as they begin their lives in the design and manufacturing world. As well as design internships we are also strongly committed to growing and developing people within our business and have run apprenticeships in manufacturing and engineering for many years. Our apprentice scheme with MGTS began 10 years ago and we have successfully welcomed 2-3 apprentices every year since. Both types of apprenticeships are four years long and lead to a Level 3 qualification. Apprentices also have the option to study a HNC – all funded by Amtico.

Amtico also supports emerging talent in the design, interiors and manufacturing industries through initiatives including the Birmingham City University Award, along with the annual Mix Interiors 30 under 30 list.