«REFRESH X Punch Prize» 2026
The Bachelor projects «No Longer» (subject area Game Design) and «RE:PACK» (subject area Industrial Design) as well as the Master project «Tooling to Regenerate» (subject area Industrial Design) have been awarded the «REFRESH X Punch Prize» 2026.
For the third time already, the «REFRESH X Punch Prize» has been awarded to outstanding diploma projects that innovatively deal with questions around ecological sustainability, the climate crisis and the complex entanglements between society, the environment and technology. The winning projects will be presented as part of Swissnex Boston and Swissnex New York's initiative at the Assembly of the Climate Week in New York towards the end of September 2026.
After thorough consideration, the jury – Maike Thies (Co-Head and Curator REFRESH Festival) and Marc Streit (Head of Arts & Creative Industries, Swissnex in Boston & New York) – have decided in favour of the following winning projects.
– Yasmina Kupferschmid with «No Longer», BA Major Game Design
– Brendan Strickler with «RE:PACK», BA Major Industrial Design
– Caja Peters with «Tooling to Regenerate», MA Major Industrial Design
– Tim Frei with «Wasserstand», BA Major Industrial Design (Honorable Mention)
The Department congratulates warmly on this recognition.
The «REFRESH x Punch Prize» exists as a result of the close exchange between REFRESH und Swissnex in Boston und New York.
«No Longer» by Yasmina Kupferschmid, BA Major Game Design
The Bachelor’s thesis «No Longer» explores the long-term potential of negotiating climate change and ecological sustainability in video games. Drawing on insights and strategies from climate communication, it intertwines emotional storytelling with strategically fast-paced and absurd actions at the gameplay level in this physics-based platformer, in order to create awareness of the impending climate collapse. The main protagonist is a highly elastic polar bear that stretches its way through the melting Arctic as it fights for survival.
«RE:PACK» von Brendan Strickler, BA Major Industrial Design
Designed to last. Built to share
Big outdoor rucksacks often spend more time stored away at home than in the great outdoors. They are robust, long-lasting and complex to manufacture. Their environmental footprint bears no relation to their actual usage. «RE:PACK» provides a circular concept for the classic outdoor rucksack which includes a rental scheme and replaceable modules.
«Tooling to Regenerate» by Caja Peters, MA Major Industrial Design
A Design for Regional Material Resilience in a Flock
This project explores the intersection of craft and industry, reality and fiction, application and exploration, by focusing on the scaleability of regional regeneration through tool-making. The tools to loosen fibres and felt volumes respond to local material variances and the multispecies realities of wool, operating at the mid-scale of alpine flock sizes. To reconfigure the representation of wool as a uniform resource, I remap a sheep’s fleece in a new way. The layers provide a contrast to the industrial categorisation of material value and the absurdity of standardising nature, proposing a shift in the perception of materials, from isolated resources to entangled matter.
Honorable Mention: «Wasserstand» by Tim Frei, BA Major Industrial Design
Changing Water Sources in the Alpine Regions
The mountain huts of the Swiss Alpine Club are facing a shortage of drinking water: glaciers are vanishing, springs are drying up, and the hut keepers feel the strain of this serious loss. «Wasserstand» («Water Line») extracts 100 litres of drinking water from the air every day, so fewer guests need to be turned away. This sorption-based system can be attached to existing huts and is retrofittable, visible and transferable.
