DesignSingapore Council announces main highlights and creative concept for Singapore Design Week 2024
Asia’s premier design festival returns with island-wide programming curated around the theme of “People of Design”
July 10, 2024
Singapore, 10 July, 2024 - Singapore Design Week (SDW) returns this year from 26 September to 6 October in an 11-day celebration of Singapore’s distinctive brand of design and creativity.
Organised by DesignSingapore Council (Dsg), the festival will traverse the city-state with a rich and thought-provoking programme curated around this year’s theme “People of Design”. SDW 2024 will celebrate the everyday visionaries that shape our society through design, united by their collective aspiration to enhance how we experience life.
“Singapore has a distinct vision and approach, driven by a desire to drive positive change around the world through design. For this edition of Singapore Design Week, we will be spotlighting the innovators whose impactful ideas help us all to live better. We invite all groups and communities to join us in Singapore and participate in the wide range of specially curated programmes. Through being at this year’s festival, we hope everyone will gain a deeper appreciation for the role of design and be inspired to bring larger design outcomes to the fore”, says Jody Teo, Festival Director of SDW 2024.
Refreshed content aligned to festival pillars
Anchored by a suite of engaging key programmes that reflect the festival’s three defining pillars: Design Futures, Design Marketplace and Design Impact, Dsg is working closely with leading industry experts to inform, intrigue and inspire all participants at this year’s SDW.
Design Futures will explore the future of design through Singapore’s forward-looking lens, aiming to prototype a better future for us all. Upholding this pillar is SDW’s flagship Design Futures Forum, which returns with an expanded format that will be held across two days.
.png "Left to right: Cathy Hackl, Aric Chen, Debra Langley, and Tamsin Greulich-Smith. Photos courtesy of respective speakers.")
Keynote speaker and “godmother of the metaverse” Cathy Hackl (CEO, Spatial Dynamics) will join segment curators, Singapore-based venture capitalist Debra Langley (Venture Partner, Lyra Ventures), Aric Chen (General and Artistic Director, Het Nieuwe Instituut), and DesignSingapore Council’s Tamsin Greulich-Smith (Director, School of X) to usher in insights from fellow thought leaders on design’s critical role in areas of Emerging Technology, Sustainability and Care.
Through thought-provoking presentations, engaging panel discussions and interactive hands-on sessions, the role of design and designers in the face of rapidly advancing technologies will be thoroughly examined, encouraging participants to enact change in their own spheres of influence thereafter.
Design Marketplace will unite lifestyle trends from around the world with the fast-growing design community of the Southeast Asia region. FIND – Design Fair Asia, Asia’s largest design trade fair, presents its third edition at Marina Bay Sands from 26 to 28 September 2024.
EMERGE @ FIND, Dsg’s talent showcase dedicated to Southeast Asian contemporary design, curated by Suzy Annetta of Design Anthology, returns with the theme of “These Precious Things”. Over 50 emerging and established designers from Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam will present new works that explore ideas of both internal and external value. For 2024, the Southeast Asian showcase will place new emphasis on recently graduated designers from the region; through a new partnership with online art gallery, The Artling, works by presenting designers will also be available for purchase.
Design Impact will inspire with innovative and impactful design solutions that tackle society’s biggest questions. The Future Impact 2: Homecoming Showcase is a key event of this pillar. It debuted at Milan Design Week 2024 featuring seven designers: Christian+Jade, David Lee, Faezah Shaharuddin, Gabriel Tan, Genevieve Ang and Interactive Materials Lab, Tiffany Loy and Zavier Wong. The much-anticipated return to local shores will see the exhibition run for eight weeks at the Asian Civilisations Museum with some designers refreshing their pieces for this special return show.
Expanded footprint of design districts
Following a successful introduction last year, this year’s design districts will span a greater area within Singapore’s dynamic districts of Bras Basah.Bugis, Orchard and Marina. Incorporating the festival theme of “People of Design” with its own unique take, each district will present special commissions, exhibitions, experiential activations, installations, workshops and more, reflecting the individual charm and character of the local community.
Continuing Dsg’s ongoing efforts to champion homegrown talent, the three design districts will see a network of creatives, communities, and partners collaborating to present Singapore’s distinctive brand of creativity.
Bras Basah.Bugis Design District
A collective, led by internationally acclaimed designer, educator, and three-time recipient of the President*s Design Award, Hans Tan, and comprising Singapore designers such as Atelier HOKO, Forest & Whale and gideon-jamie, will be shaking up Bras Basah.Bugis Design District, Singapore’s arts, heritage, and design precinct with their creativity.
Tan’s curatorial vision for the People of Design Showcase Series will see commissioned designers and studios reimagine everyday activities – eating, sleeping, reading, commuting, and more – through a series of specially created site-specific, experiential installations shaped to offer fresh perspectives across multiple venues.
.png "Clockwise from left: Hans Tan, Clara Koh and Alvin Ho (Atelier HOKO), Jamie Yeo and Gideon Kong (gideon-jamie), Gustavo Maggio and Wendy Chua (Forest & Whale). Photos courtesy of respective designers.")
Among these will be an installation envisioned by China-based food design studio, Atelier Fang, that examines food design through the lens of seeds at festival hub National Design Centre, with an accompanying dining experience at Tipo Pasta Bar at Stamford Arts Centre.
R for Repair will also be restaged at a pre-war bungalow located at 42 Waterloo Street. The exhibition, which showcases donated personal objects being mended creatively by designers, was first presented locally by Dsg and Hans Tan in 2021, then at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum in 2022. This new iteration titled Repair+ focuses on mending the mind and spirit through donated objects collected in collaboration with healthcare network, Yishun Health Singapore.
Marina Design District
This year, the expanded Marina Design District will feature Marina Central for the first time, alongside the iconic Marina Bay area.
Helming curatorial duties at Marina Central is Nathan Yong, founder of the eponymous multidisciplinary studio. As one of Singapore’s most recognised and awarded designers, Yong will present Neu Folk: Bridging Tradition and Future in Design, a series of activations which merges the collective spirit of communities with the future-thinking vision of Singaporean design.
Key highlights include the Design Pavilion at Millenia Walk that will house a curated exhibition, in addition to talks, retail experiences and workshops focused on sustainability and innovation. Merging play, education and sustainable technology will be two large-scale public installations powered by kinetic energy: Mooncycle is a pair of device-charging swings inspired by the concept of Moon Gates found in Chinese gardens, while Kinetics Energy Play invites visitors to power up a series of human-sized wheels and watch movement turn to light.
Orchard Design District
Over at Orchard Road, visitors can look forward to Re-Route: Orchard (RR:OR) curated by Singapore-based inter-disciplinary group PLUS Collaboratives. Taking the theme of “Be Here Now”, it brings an investigative design lens to enhance visitor experience of Singapore’s famed shopping belt.
With a forward-looking perspective, RR:OR showcases the role of design in the adaptation and transformation of place, celebrating its transformative capacity in influencing and shaping a sense of community, culture and history.
Through curated interventions and design installations such as Offshoots Route (Orchard Road’s very own stamp rally), a nostalgic playscape for little ones at Far East Plaza, and a collective design showcase in response to the theme of “Adaptive Reuse”, visitors are invited to discover spots along this iconic street that are sometimes overlooked, and delve into the continual evolution of the district’s character.
Additional lifestyle programmes featuring design
This year, Dsg will present two Friday Late events with after-hours programming. On 27 September across the Bras Basah.Bugis design district, activations such as curator tours, interactive VR experiences and experimental food explorations will take place at locations including the National Design Centre, National Library Building, Bugis Town, Naumi Hotel, 42 Waterloo Street and Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. On 4 October, Marina Central will kick off the evening’s festivities with an extravaganza of music, design, food and craft at DISTRICT M, across four zones at Marina Square, Millenia Walk, South Beach and Suntec City.
SDW 2024 will also feature over 70 ground-up events across the island from the design community, ranging from exhibitions, talks and panel discussions to workshops, tours and retail pop-up experiences. More details will be announced in the lead-up to the festival.
“Singapore Design Week is our annual celebration of design and creativity. We’re excited for the community to discover the festival’s expanded programming at the Bras Basah.Bugis, Orchard and Marina Design Districts this year. Through igniting fresh perspectives, fostering collaboration and showcasing the transformative power of design, we hope the festival will spark creative confidence in visitors and inspire everyone to see themselves as designers in their own unique ways,” says Dawn Lim, Executive Director, DesignSingapore Council.
Press Assets: High-res images are available for download HERE
Singapore Design Week 2024
26 September to 6 October 2024
sdw.sg
#SDWSG24 #SingaporeDesignWeek
About Singapore Design Week
One of Asia’s premier design festivals, Singapore Design Week (SDW) celebrates Singapore’s distinctive brand of creativity, exploring design through three defining festival pillars: Design Futures (the design of the future and the future of design), Design Marketplace (lifestyle trends with a spotlight on Southeast Asia) and Design Impact (innovative solutions for a better world). Organised by DesignSingapore Council, SDW is a celebration of creativity and innovation, championing thought leadership and showcasing the best of design from Singapore and beyond.
sdw.sg
About the festival theme ‘People of Design’
People of Design honours the everyday visionaries among us who are making meaningful contributions to society through design. They come from all walks of life, but share a collective aspiration to make things better. This year, the DesignSingapore Council invites everyone to join us in uncovering their own design potential to bring new and better outcomes to light – ultimately creating a more liveable and loveable Singapore. SDW 2024’s festival theme is part of Dsg’s larger People of Design campaign. Read more stories of People of Design here.
About the DesignSingapore Council
The DesignSingapore Council’s (Dsg's) vision is for Singapore to be an innovation-driven economy and a loveable city by design. As the national agency that promotes design, our mission is to develop the design sector, help Singapore use design for innovation and growth, and make life better in this UNESCO Creative City of Design. Dsg is a subsidiary of the Singapore Economic Development Board.
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