VITAPACK: The Life Vest That Won the James Dyson Award
April 5, 2026
It inflates by swinging through the air It reverses from blaze orange to field grey. Inside the seams is a small emergency kit that comes with food, charcoal tablets and a first-aid kit.
It is designed with the refugee in mind. Austrian industrial design student Eva Stienz built it and won the national James Dyson Award 2025. What she created is the kind of object that reframes what design is actually for.
More than half of the migrants who die on their journeys drown. Others fall victim to violence, accidents, exhaustion, illness or harsh environmental conditions. They are defining conditions of one of the largest ongoing humanitarian crises of our time. Th designed response to this crisis has largely been reactive. Patches, repurposed equipment, and improvised solutions.
Steinz approached it differently. One with specific physical realities, needs, and constraints that good design could actually meet. Her research focused on migration routes and their dangers. The most dangerous crossing, consistently, was water.
The two separate air chambers fill simply by swinging the vest through the air, then sealing with a roll top closure.
The decision was the result of understanding that complex mechanisms fail at the worst moments, and that affordability is a design constraint. Inflation tubes allow manual air control white wearing it, giving the user continued adjustment in the water.
After inflation, the vest wraps around the body and closes with safety buckles, making it adjustable to all body types. Standard life jackets are sized, they assume bodies that conform to industrial averages. Half of refugees are female, and one third are children, a demographic reality Steinz build directly into the wrap around geometry.
Beyond floatation, when filled with dry leaves, grass, or air, the vest provides insulation against the cold or functions as a sleeping mat. An emergency package of food, charcoal tablets, and a first aid kit is accessible by ripping the tear line in the vest. The rolltop closure also doubles as a handle to assist rescue and help people stay together in the water.
VITAPACK is made from heat sealable TPU coated polyester that is lightweight and affordable enough for NGO’s to distribute at scale.
What VITAPACK Signals About Design in 2026
VITAPACK winning the James Dyson Award is significant beyond the object itself The award has historically recognized engineering forward solutions like medical devices and sustainability teach. What distinguishes it is that the engineering problem it solves is a fundamentally human one.
Innovation is typically measured in complexity. The most radical decisions Steinz made were subtractive, removing CO2 cartridges, sizing assumptions and single use functions from the brief entirely.
The result is an object that works the first time with no instructions. That is an extraordinarily difficult design standard to meet.
VITAPACK is what moral prioritization means. Every decision in the object traces back to a user who needs something that works.
Credits
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