The highly awaited Singapore Design Week (SDW) returns this month after a lapse of two years. The event takes place from 16 to 25 September 2022, bringing together over 50 ingenious events and 200 outstanding designers. As one of Asia’s premier design festivals, this flagship festival shines with a newly defined vision through three stand-out festival pillars: Design Futures, Design Marketplace and Design Impact.

Design Futures

The Design Futures pillar aligns with Singapore’s reputation as a futuristic city of design. Led by an international Senior Curator, Paola Antonelli, the Design Futures Symposium gathers distinctive thought leaders around the globe to address urgent global challenges and issues, and discusses potent designs as remarkable solutions.

Design Marketplace

Furniture, Interiors and Design Fair, FIND Design Fair, anchors the Design Marketplace pillar, anchoring Asia firmly on the circuit of global design as this international trade fair congregates the best of East and West contents, galleries, manufacturers, collections of interior brands, key opinion leaders and independent international designers. Another highlight, EMERGE@FIND, is the first-of-its-kind Southeast Asian (SEA) design talent showcase featuring SEA’s next-gen designers through their impressive works.

Design Impact

The Design Impact pillar spotlights design as a prime mover towards transformative impact by presenting regenerative and sustainable urban solutions to global challenges. This pillar highlights the launch of the President*s Design Award (P*DA) Tours, transformation of the National Design Centre (NDC) into N*thing is Possible and the Good Design Research Pop-up. Sustainable designs aim to inspire the public to live up to sustainability.

Signature Events of SDW

Design Futures Symposium

Date: 20 September 2022

Venue: Victoria Theatre

The title of this year’s Design Futures Symposium, “Agency for the Future: Design and the Quest for a Better World” focuses on design process as prototypical solutions to various global issues and the individual responsibilities of every citizen to build a better tomorrow. The organisers of this symposium are national agency, Design Singapore Council, as well as DesignZ from the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD). The line-up of prominent speakers adds further excitement to this event.

FIND – Design Fair Asia

Dates: 22 to 24 September 2022

Venue: Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Centre

This 3–day event provides a golden opportunity for exchange and inspiration of West meets East designs involving industry partners and big names in the local and international design circuit. This fair will be Asia’s most important meeting point for architects, interior designers and property developers, showcasing more than 500 brands over 3 days.

Led by the chair and co-chair of content, Tony Chambers and Yoko Choy, FIND – Global Summit gathers world-renowned personalities and practitioners in the design industry to share universal insights and visions.

EMERGE @ FIND

Dates: 22 to 24 September 2022

Venue: Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Centre

More than 50 emerging Asia creators unveil their original fresh works through the perspective of materiality, classified under four define pillars: Natural & Local – featuring designers and designs that implement natural and/or local materials; Waste – highlighting designers and designs deploying waste materials, offcuts, salvaged or recycled substances; Innovation – spotlighting designers and designs that utilise innovative materials, or conventional materials in innovative ways; and Unconventional – including designers and designs that use unconventional materials or conventional materials in unconventional ways.

N*thing is Possible by Potato Head & Friends

Dates: 16 September to 25 December 2022

Venue: National Design Centre

Led by the renowned Potato Head, creators of the Desa Potato Head creative village, and co-curated with award-winning firm Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), this regenerative design showcase proves the possibility of zero-waste lifestyle through the transformation of the National Design Centre (NDC).

The storytelling multimedia exhibit will come alive with the cooperation of international and Singapore collaborators including renowned Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, American artist Futura, Catalan industrial designer Andreu Carulla, British furniture designer Max Lamb, and many more.

This 3-month show serves an intention to inform and inspire the crowd by exposing the detailed blueprint for Potato Head’s journey to this point.

President*s Design Award Tours

Dates: 17 to 18 September and 24 to 25 September 2022

Anchoring the Design Impact pillar of the festival, SDW launches the President*s Design Award (P*DA) to recognise the outstanding achievements of an extraordinary group of people that make transformative impacts on the lives of Singaporeans and the global community. The special SDW edition of this P*DA Tours will feature exclusive experiences that are not normally available to the public, provide them with opportunities to experience first-hand some of Singapore’s momentous and dynamic designs. These immersive P*DA tours with self-guided journeys shine a spotlight on architecture and place-making projects, and aim to illustrate innovation, inclusivity and sustainability.

Good Design Research (GDR)

Dates: 1 to 30 September 2022

Venue: Funan Underground Pedestrian Link.

Dates: 10 to 25 September 2022

Venue: Bugis+

The Good Design Research pop-up, curated by design studio WY-TO, will illustrate the positive impact of good design through research and experimentation, featuring over 20 homegrown designers, and their prototypes and solutions birthed through DesignSingapore Council’s Good Design Research initiative.   

#FashTag by Daniel Boey

Dates: 16 to 25 September 2022

Venue: Raffles City Shopping Centre.

Virtual fashion festival, The Front Row, which was founded by Daniel Boey, the “Godfather of Singapore fashion” as described by HerWorldPlus and also referred to as “Singapore’s fashion royalty” by IS magazine returns for the third year with #FashTag during SDW. For this special edition of SDW they are partnering with local, regional, and international creatives consisting of designers, photographersand content curators, as well as the brightest students from Singapore’s fashion schools to debut NFTs festival and the metaverse, which are rapidly shaping the future of design and fashion.

Re-route by Plus Collaboratives

Dates: 16 September to 9 October 2022

Venue: Little India

Making its debut at SDW, the Re-Route Festival, curated by interdisciplinary group Plus Collaboratives demonstrates the ability of design to highlight Singapore’s heritage, spotlighting three lesser-explored spaces of Little India including the Race Course, New World Amusement Park and Serangoon Road. Art installations, design fixtures, activities and performances by Singapore artists intend to convey the rich heritage and history behind each precious site to the communities to preserve their unique identity and legacy.

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