Microsoft’s Next-Gen PC Design Competition winners have been announced, and the results are quite unusual. The Microsoft-sponsored event is designed to encourage people to, ‘think beyond the constraints of traditional computing form factors’, although some of the winning designs go further than changing the aesthetics of the PC, and completely redesign the interface paradigm.

Christianne LeBlanc, Jessica Livingston and Maarianne Goldberg created the above design, blok, which took first-place in the Judge’s Award. It’s designed for the classroom, inspired by toy building blocks, “Children do not learn or use products the way adults do, and they cannot be expected to use computers intended for adults,” says LeBlanc.

Second-place in the Judge’s Award, shown right, is Allen Wong and Matt Conway’s BulbPC. It’s designed to fit into the grommet hole on desks, keeping the clutter of a PC out of the way and provide more space on the user’s desk. “I’m most proud of the beauty and simplicity of the idea,” says Wong, “I believe the design vision for the future is ‘appropriate computing,’ meaning that one size does not fit all. This is an exciting time, and this fundamental shift could open up a whole new world of product possibilities for industrial designers and PC manufacturers.”