Each September, the notion of “Design” is recalibrated within the minds of Singaporeans, due to the DesignSingapore Council’s (DSG) Singapore Design Week (SDW) 2024. This yr’s theme focuses on the “Individuals of Design marketing campaign.” Sure, the inventive people behind their works, ideas, and practical objects get the limelight. Final yr’s theme spotlighted creating one thing for everybody by making issues “Higher by Design.”
The design competition made its debut in 2005. For 2024, there can be three essential “design districts” — Bras Basah-Bugis, Marina and Orchard — for design aficionados to trot and get impressed from 26 September to six October. This competition, organised by DSG, additionally represents Singapore on the United Nations Academic, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) Inventive Cities Community. Our Litte Pink Dot nation joined the community in 2015.
Whereas the on a regular basis layman may not be a skilled designer, DSG desires to ship the message that inventive individuals can come from all walks of life, defying stereotypical views that design is simply relegated to actual designers. DSG’s concept is to seed design and innovation into peoples’ minds, invoking constructive change whereas making design democratic.
Every year, SDW turns into extra intensive, and this yr isn’t any exception. Whereas the variety of actions stays about the identical — 80 exhibitions, boards, and occasions — the present line-up is poised to have a higher attain via its expanded format. Some 127,000 attendees attended final yr’s competition.
A lot lauded designer Hans Tan, founding father of Hans Tan Studio and affiliate professor within the industrial design division on the Nationwide College of Singapore, curated the Brash Basah-Bugis showcase. There are about ten reveals on this busy civic district. Located on the Nationwide Design Centre (NDC), you’ll discover numerous designers from all around the world who’ve put collectively many fascinating installations.
The Bras Basah-Bugis — Individuals Of Design Showcase Collection is curated by Mr Hans Tan, founding father of Hans Tan Studio and an affiliate professor within the industrial design division on the Nationwide College of Singapore. The collection collaborates with numerous designers and options ten showcases within the district.
A part of the district explores the empowering nature of design by placing it within the fingers of individuals from various backgrounds.
Marina District Comes To Life
SDW debuts within the Marina design district, the place design lovers can witness Marina Central and Marina Bay installations. At Suntec, Neufolk’s works pop up on the mall. The brains behind Neufolk are Mr Nathan Yong, founding father of Nathan Yong Design, and a group of designers who’re bent on materialising an concept: Bridging Custom and Future in Design.
Neufolk combines “neu,” that means “newcomer,” with “people,” bringing frequent people and their concepts to conventional society. “It’s necessary for manufacturers to reinvent themselves constantly in immediately’s fast-paced, internet-driven world,” explains Yong.
As well as, he enthused that younger shoppers who lap up social media apps anticipate content material to be recent, partaking and speedy. He emphasised that manufacturers should all the time search for methods to reinvent the retail expertise and develop novel concepts to attract eyeballs.
Yong and his collaborators — Aaa Studio and HaveFun Karaoke — have dreamed up recent and thrilling ideas for the Reimagining Retail Experiences showcase to focus on the youthful crowd.
As a part of the Reimagining Retail Experiences showcase at Neufolk within the Marina district, he and his collaborators paired design agency Aaah Studio with HaveFun Karaoke to create recent ideas, equivalent to a content material creation sales space with props focused on the youthful crowd.
The HaveFun Karaoke sales space expresses the numerous prospects of a karaoke room that’s not purely for singing but additionally a comfy and protected area for enjoyment, rest and even inspiration for Instagram moments.
Design Orchard’s Fruits of Labour
The Orchard district is internationally famend for its buying, however via the inventive lens of two design impresarios, Mervin Tan and Cheryl Sim, from native design studio Plus Collaboratives, they’ve created Re-Route: Orchard (RR:OR) — this second version of Re-Route constructed upon the success of Re-Route: Little India again in 2022.
By way of 9 months of analysis on placemaking, the design couple deep-dived into understanding how city planners and residents formed public areas equivalent to Orchard Street.
Whereas Orchard Street is synonymous with buying, some underlying connections, specifically bodily, cultural, and social identities, needed to be uncovered and understood. An evolving relevance to international and native tendencies and authorities mandates tempers these.
Finally, RR:OR’s central theme stems from the concept of “adaptive reuse” — repurposing as an alternative of demolishing buildings. Working with their long-time consumer, the Singapore Tourism Board, the couple realised that conventional tour gross sales and advertising should be inventive and revolutionary.
Ms Sim, 36, co-founder and design director of Plus Collaboratives, which specialises in spatial, graphic, and experiential design, defined that folks’s appetites have modified. These people need an emotional connection to assist them determine a location and make it memorable.
The idea of adaptive reuse additionally helped the couple respect outdated venues whereas permitting for a brand new relevance to raise their values. The {couples}’ laborious work and analysis paid off: they got here up with greater than 30 sights — 13 installations, eight hidden gems, and 16 talks and workshops to sate curious attendees to RR:OR (reroutefest.com). The location supplies guests with a downloadable digital map out there throughout SDW 2024.
Ms Sim additionally felt that exploring a variety of opposites — new versus acquainted, pattern versus tradition, what’s on the floor and what’s in-depth — might assist individuals see Orchard Street with a brand new perspective
A superb instance of this concept: After buying at a luxurious retailer like Dior at Ion Orchard, you’ll be able to stroll right into a 20-year-old family-run hen rice stall in Fortunate Plaza. Mr Tan, Plus Collaboratives’ co-founder and inventive director, emphasised the significance of RR:OR being adaptive as one needed to reimagine the chance for relevance. He curated these installations to show how adaptive reuse works for designers, attendees and vacationers.
This yr’s RR:OR contains the Clancy Boutique Alteration Centre, the place attendees can uncover this time-honoured garments alteration enterprise, which has been in Far East Plaza since 1994. Situated in the identical constructing, Shashlik Restaurant can be a Russo-Hainanese culinary gem, opened in April 1986 by Hainanese cooks who labored within the Russian eatery Troika Restaurant earlier than it shuttered.
Mr Tan additionally labored with co-curators equivalent to trend director Daniel Boey and a group of 33 designers and illustrators to create novel concepts for avenue trend. Dubbed “Road Vogue: Rain Prepared”, he curated college students’ works from Raffles Design Institute to current intriguing sartorial concepts impressed by Orchard Street’s historical past as an open canal. These shiny and revolutionary garments blended fashion and performance, offering recent insights that catered to local weather change and environmental challenges.
Don’t miss out on “Chairs Reimagined,” a inventive exhibition through which the standard and ubiquitous basic kopitiam chair underwent imaginative modifications. Guests can gawk on the fascinating items which were reworked to mirror social behaviours and the evolving wants of Singapore’s communities.
This yr’s competition additionally options content material aligned with SDW’s three pillars: Design Futures, Design Market and Design Affect.
Design Futures will delve into the designs of our not-too-distant future. Mr Hans Tan emphasises that rising applied sciences, sustainability, and care are core segments of the Design Futures pillar, which has impacted his strategy.
“For the Design set up in the principle showcase, I added tradition as a result of I imagine design performs a pivotal function in shaping it,” he opines.
Situated on the Nationwide Design Centre (NDC), the exhibition is curated based on 4 “tracks,” every targeted on a definite theme: Rising Know-how, Care, Sustainability, and Tradition.
The EAT: Transformative Seeds exhibition at NDC is to not be missed. Curated by Fang Hu from China, she and her group delved right into a meals design exhibition the place seeds equivalent to corn take centre stage. “Popped Grain Archive” by Yongxin Lai, China, is an thrilling set up that helps us perceive the cultural significance of seeds from the angle of style, sound, and power design via interactive experiences, merchandise, and kinetic installations.
You get to see the grain extruder machine by Atelier Fang, the place grains equivalent to rice and corn are processed via extrusion units to realize placing tubes, spirals, and features.
There’s Singapore-based designer Benjamin Koh’s Zero Waste System: Expandable Porous Materials, the place he envisions utilizing a bio-based, expandable materials derived via fermentation to “develop” clothes immediately right into a closing form. Therefore, he exhibited steel tins formed like T-shirts the place the fermentation materials might be grown. Discuss a self-sustaining trend trade concept that might take off!
As well as, attendees can witness the works of main college college students and senior residents, lots of which have expressed their inventive experiments via workshops carried out by 4 design educators.
“This experiment in democratising design highlights that design sensibilities are accessible to all and might enrich numerous contexts,” Mr Tan explains.
Then again, Design Market is an fascinating zone the place you’ll be able to see international way of life tendencies via the lens of Southeast Asia’s design communities.
For extra info, go to: https://sdw.designsingapore.org, www.reroutefest.com, and https://marinacentral.com.sg/happenings/sdw2024_neu-folk/
Interval: 26 September to six October 2024.
For extra design honest reads, click on right here.