A ‘warm and welcoming’, multifaceted yet tranquil space took top honours in the second Samsung Bespoke Home Challenge, in which up-and-coming South African designers were challenged to create an integrated kitchen/living room inspired by a colour in the Samsung Bespoke range. Zwelibanzi Nzuza, a final-year design student from KwaZulu-Natal, centred his design around a bold white and yellow multicoloured modular French-door Samsung Bespoke Refrigerator with a grey beverage centre.

Innovative Spanish surface brand Cosentino helped the four young finalists bring their designs to life, kitting them out with the materials needed to create their bespoke space inspired by the colours Clean White, Satin Grey, Satin Sky Blue and Glam Pink. Cosentino provided each of the participants with three slabs of material to decorate their integrated kitchen and living room designs. Other sponsors of the Challenge were St Leger & Viney, Lavish’d, Plascon, Careline Living Spaces, BoConcept South Africa and Wolkberg Casting Studios.

Nzuza’s winning space, themed Clean White, featured Cosentino’s Silestone, a premium hybrid surface made from natural minerals and recycled materials, in the serene Posidonia Green colour, as well as two slabs of Dekton’s ultracompact stone, in marbled Morpheus white and the subtle Micron grey.

Runner-up was Maresa Maartens, a recent Interior Design Honours graduate from Pretoria, who employed Cosentino’s Silestone in Cincel Grey and Dekton in Trance to polish off her sleek, minimalist space centred around Samsung’s Satin Grey colour.

Following the highly successful inaugural Samsung Bespoke Challenge of 2021, which saw Cassandra Twala crowned the winner, the second edition of the challenge was announced in July 2022 at Decorex. Nzuza and his fellow contestants showcased their designer spaces at the new Samsung Lifestyle store at Design Quarter in Johannesburg for a panel of judges that included first Challenge winner (and founder of MOEA Design Studio) Twala, and Tracey Lee Lynch, the director of Studio Leelynch and Clout/SA.

Nzuza was announced as the winner on 25 May 2023, taking home a R100 000 cash prize. Aiming for a look that was ‘easy on the eye’, and ‘not overbearing or intimidating’, Nzuza said, ‘I perceived a high-spiritedness in the Bespoke fridge, which is the centrepiece of the design. That inspired sophistication and playfulness in my approach, and I tried to use that as an anchor and a common thread in everything else.’

Cosentino was thrilled to collaborate with Samsung on a competition that brings the emerging talent of South Africa to the fore.