"Tire Byproducts Reborn as Furniture"... Hankook Tire Wins Two Awards at the U.S. IDEA Design Awards

[Financial News] Hankook Tire & Technology said on the 30th that it received two awards at the 2026 International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA), organized by the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA).
The IDEA Design Awards are considered one of the world’s three major design awards, alongside Germany’s Red Dot Design Award and the iF Design Award. Winners are selected across about 20 categories based on a comprehensive evaluation of design innovation, user experience and social responsibility.
Hankook Tire received an award in the Social Impact Design category for its upcycling project “re:move” and another in the Concept Design category for its spherical modular robotic wheel system “WheelBot 2.”
re:move is a project that uses “bladder,” a byproduct of the tire manufacturing process, and was developed in collaboration with DISCO Lab, a circular design research laboratory at Seoul National University. The submitted “Bladder Upcycling Series” consists of furniture, bricks and lifestyle goods made from bladder powder. The “Kinetic Wall,” a sculpture built by stacking the bricks, symbolizes the company’s vision for sustainability. Including this award, the project has won four awards this year alone, following an award at the Red Dot Design Award, a Gold Award at the A’ Design Award and Competition, and a Green Good Design Award.
WheelBot 2 is a three-axis-drive mobility system based on spherical tires. Motors built into the wheels and a crab-walking drive motor enable 360-degree omnidirectional movement, while allowing precise control in narrow spaces and along complex routes. The judges praised it for presenting new possibilities for the smart-city and autonomous-driving era through a mode of movement that surpasses the physical limitations of conventional mobility.
A Hankook Tire representative said, "We have earned recognition for our global design capabilities by sweeping all three of the world’s major design awards." The representative added, "Recently, we have further strengthened our design competitiveness by expanding the scope of our innovation into future mobility and sustainable design."
[email protected] Kim Dong-chan Reporter