Singapore Design Week returns with focus on future-thinking design
September 18, 2023
(Pictured above: Budiman Ong, Alvin Tijtrowirjo and Eva Natasa for EMERGE @ FIND – Design Fair Asia at Singapore Design Week 2023)
18 September, London – Singapore Design Week, Asia’s leading design festival, returns to the city-state next week, from 21 September to 1 October 2023. Organised by DesignSingapore Council (Dsg), the 11-day festival presents an extraordinary showcase of Singapore’s distinctive brand of creativity and innovation. This year’s edition coincides with Dsg’s 20th anniversary and, to commemorate this milestone, SDW 2023 will borrow DSG’s motto “Better by Design” for the festival theme.
“Singapore design embodies a universal attitude – the desire to always seek to make lives better using design. The motto ‘Better by Design’ reflects DesignSingapore Council’s commitment to champion design and creativity that helps us to meet complex challenges and shape a better future. Marking our 20th anniversary, we adopt this resourceful spirit for Singapore Design Week 2023, coalescing design that is born from a strong sense of creative purpose and crafted for positive impact,” says Madeleine Ho, Festival Director of SDW 2023.
SDW 2023 will convene designers from across the region and beyond, taking over the city-state with new commissions, a design fair, city-wide design districts, a global forum and more.
The full programme can be viewed HERE, highlights include:
Festival Commissions
The Bras Basah.Bugis arts, heritage and design district will come to life with three specially commissioned installations from local designers, including:
- The Playground of Possibilities presented by Jackson Tan of BLACK at the National Design Centre brings together 12 socially-driven design projects from Singapore that are tackling some of the most pressing challenges we face today – from supporting ageing populations with dementia-friendly wayfinding to customising medical prosthetics for better patient outcomes through 3D-printing.
- FI&LD by Lekker Architects at the LASALLE College of the Arts offers a new philosophy in inclusive design, based upon play and improvisation. The specially commissioned exhibition will feature leading examples of this ethos in practice, to emphasis the connection between inclusion, emotion, and technology through design.
- School of Tomorrow curated by Pann Lim of Kinetic Singapore at Selegie Arts Centre, takes its mission of imparting sustainability in a fun, immersive way seriously. Through classes covering common subjects such as geography, chemistry, and social studies, critical environmental issues will be examined, explored, and interrogated. Biology lessons will highlight the harmful chain effects of plastic in our bodies, while chemistry classes will reimagine the periodic table with an exciting selection of materials that will reshape the way we live.
FIND – DESIGN FAIR ASIA
21– 23 September at Marina Bay Sands, Convention Centre Singapore
Asia’s largest furniture, interiors, and design fair, FIND – Design Fair Asia, returns for its second edition. Organised by FieraMilano and dmg events, the event will convene a curated selection of interior brands, global design thought- leaders, designers, and content.
- FIND Global Summit – Hosted within the Italian Design Futures Capsule by the multi-disciplinary Milanese studioStefano Boeri Interiors, the summit brings together international thought leaders, renowned craftspeople, and thecreative community to discuss the exciting novelties driving the industry today. Hosted by Yoko Choy, speakers include Teo Yang (Korea), Ed Ng of AB Concept (Hong Kong), Ronald Akili, CEO of Potato Head Family (Indonesia), Ren Yee of UNStudios (Amsterdam).
- Italia Geniale – This unique installation is new to FIND and marks an exciting collaboration between the ItalianEmbassy in Singapore, with the support of the Italian Trade Agency and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The exhibition showcases the most significant materials, objects, and artefacts of Italian design icons such as Vespa, Nutella and Sacco that speak of imagination, work, well-being, and relationships between people. The collection is created by ADI – Association for Industrial Design.
- Masterclasses – INTERNI Magazine will hold a masterclass “Turn On The Light Design” which will cover the value of light in the construction of contemporary space. Another masterclass “Between Modernity andContemporary – How to Become an Icon” will explore how a product evolves into an icon and when a designer strives to overcome it by incorporating new materials and manufacturing techniques.
EMERGE @ FIND
21– 23 September at Marina Bay Sands, Convention Centre Singapore
Following its remarkable debut last year, DesignSingapore Council will once again present the Southeast Asian design talent showcase at EMERGE @ FIND. Curated by Suzy Annetta, the theme of this year’s edition is CRAFT + INDUSTRY: MAN + MACHINE.
On display will be works by over 50 emerging and established designers Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. These designers will unveil new works that will exemplify the diverse spectrum of work produced across the region – from the handmade and crafted, to pure industrial.
Exhibiting designers include Hans Tan and Tiffany Loy from Singapore, Alvin Tjitrowirjo, Eva Natasa and Hendro Hadinata from Indonesia, Khoo V-Ho and Giselle Khoo of Dad’s Wood from Malaysia, alongside many others – including some who have never exhibited outside of their country before.
FUTURE IMPACT
Curated by Tony Chambers and Maria Cristina Didero, and presented by the DesignSingapore Council (Dsg), the Future Impact pop-up gives local audiences the opportunity to see the works by six talented and imaginative designers from Singapore – Tiffany Loy, Nathan Yong, Forest & Whale, Viewport Studio, Gabriel Tan, and Studio Juju – which were shown during Salone del Mobile, Milan.
From using Artificial Intelligence and coding for creating furniture and textiles to graphic posters that examine our relationship with nature, these designers marry cutting-edge techniques and poetic storytelling to demonstrate Singapore’s design optimism and commitment to shaping a brighter future through design-led innovation.
DESIGN FUTURES FORUM 2023 – DESIGN FOR BETTER FUTURES
9am – 6.30pm on 25th September at Drama Centre Theatre, National Library Building
Featuring a diverse line-up of distinguished speakers from Singapore and around the world, the forum will examine three key areas in which design can – and must – address when it comes to designing for better futures: the future of sustainability,emerging technology, and care.
From investigating how designers can play a key role in addressing the urgent symptoms of human-caused environmentalbreakdown in the areas of how we work, travel, feed and house ourselves, to ways in which design can be mobilised to shape a more inclusive and meaningful future of technology, to how care can be reconceived as a multi-layered exchangebetween care services and personal direction, the forum will present the embodiment of Singapore design in a global context, where design is born from a strong sense of creative purpose and crafted for positive impact.
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, Design Marketplace and Design Impact.
Design Futures focuses on the design of the future and the future of design, through the lens of forward-looking Singapore – where a more positive future is prototyped for Singapore and the world. Design Marketplace uncovers lifestyle trends from across the globe, with a spotlight on the fast-growing Southeast Asia region. Design Impact inspires with innovative and impactful design solutions that tackle society’s biggest questions and create a better world by design.
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 in our UNESCO City of Design.
For more information, please visit sdw.sg.
About the DesignSingapore Council (Dsg)
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.
For more information, please visit designsingapore.org.