Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum announced last week the winners of the 12th annual National Design Awards, a program that aims to recognize excellence and promote innovation in design across a variety of disciplines.

“The work of this year’s National Design Awards winners represent extraordinary solutions to the design problems central to the landscape of daily life, from how we dress, shape our personal and private spaces, frame communication, and interact with the world at large,” says Cooper-Hewitt director Bill Moggridge.

New York-based firm Architecture Research Office garnered the Architecture Design Award, which recognizes work in commercial, public, or residential, and finalists are Dan Rockhill, professor of architecture at the University of Kansas and executive director of Studio 804, and New York-based multidisciplinary firm Weiss/Manfredi.

The Interior Design Award, which honors exceptional and exemplary work in domestic, corporate, or cultural interior design, went to New York-based Shelton, Mindel & Associates. Finalists in the Interior Design category are Los Angeles-based Clive Wilkinson Architects and San Francisco-based Aidlin Darling Design.

The Landscape Architecture Award, presented for work in urban planning or park and garden design, was bestowed to Seattle-based practice Gustafson Guthrie Nichol. Finalists in the Landscape Design category are Tom Leader, principal of Berkeley, Calif.-based collaborative design office Tom Leader Studio, and environmental designer Margie Ruddick, founder of New York-based Margie Ruddick Landscape.

Manufacturers also gained recognition: Knoll took home the Corporate and Institutional Achievement Award for its successful and excellent use of design as a strategic tool of its mission and helping to advance the relationship between design and quality of life, and Continuum was named the Product Design Award recipient for its work in the design of goods and furnishings. Finalists in the Corporate and Institutional Achievement Award category are not-for-profit design company Design that Matters and Oxo, whose products combine ergonomic design with a modern aesthetic, while finalists in the Product Design Award category are tile manufacturer Heath Ceramics and strategic-design consultancy RKS.

The winners will be honored at an awards gala dinner on October 20 at Pier Sixty in New York during the National Design Week, which will be held this year by Cooper-Hewitt from October 15-23 in New York. First Lady Michelle Obama serves as the Honorary Patron for this year’s National Design Awards.

Unique to the 2011 competition was an open call for nominations to the general public, as opposed to the practice in previous years of relying on an exclusive, solicited committee. A panel of judges met to select to winners, which was comprised of national design leaders and educators, including: Andrew Blauvelt, Walker Art Center; June Cohen, TED Media; Jamie Drake, Drake Design Associates; Terry Guen, Terry Guen Design Associates Inc.; David Kusuma, Tupperware Brands Corporation; Jennifer Morla, Morla Design; Lela Rose, Lela Rose; Billie Tsien, Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects; and Patrick Whitney, Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology. All nominees were required to hold at least seven years of design experience to be considered by the judges and were evaluated based on the level of excellence, innovation, and public impact of their body of work.

The National Design Awards were first launched at the White House in 2000 as a project of the White House Millennium Council and are accompanied each year by a variety of public education programs, including special events, panel discussions, and workshops.