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What To Expect At Singapore Design Week 2019

SDW 2019 will feature staple happenings Singaplural, IFFS and BBB District activation, and a host of other new and sophomore events that offers everything from rooftop roller disco to insights from tech titans.

What To Expect At Singapore Design Week 2019

Singapore Urban Design Festival 2019 preview

“Maybe we should brand it as Singapore Design Weeks,” said DesignSingapore Council (Dsg) Executive Director Mark Wee, at the start of the Singapore Design Week 2019 (SDW 2019) media briefing on Tuesday, 19 February 2019. Wee was referring to SDW 2019’s 14-day runtime, from 4 to 17 March 2019. 

SDW 2019 partners with over 70 collaborators – including 29 design practices, 10 educational institutions, 9 corporates and 8 government agencies – to deliver a monster programme that includes 26 forums and talks, 18 workshops, 15 exhibitions and eight tours. 

The over 80 activities are split into four thematic categories to allow festivalgoers to be “more intentional in their programme selection”. In line with the President’s Design Award (PDA)’s redesign to focus on the impact of design in four key areas last year, the four categories of SDW 2019 showcase how design can: transform business (aimed for business leaders, and design, transformation and innovation leads); empower the community (aimed for community leader and aspiring change-makers); inspire the everyday (aimed for craft lovers, design enthusiasts and families); and reimagine the future (aimed for designers, students and educators), respectively. 

 

‘Transform My Business’ Track

The International Furniture Fair Singapore (IFFS) and Brainstorm Design conference will return as the key events in the Transform My Business track.

IFFS 2018

Running from 9 to 12 March, IFFS 2019 will be breaking the tradition by shifting its venue to Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Centre and opens on a Saturday.

The Design Stars showcase at IFFS 2018

Brainstorm Design will run from 5 to 7 March at the Ritz Carlton Millenia Singapore. Among this year’s lineup are familiar faces Alice Rawsthorne, Daan Roosegaarde, and Ole Scheeren, and fresh faces from the upper echelon of corporate titans the likes of Dyson, Adobe, Amazon, and Google, and many more. 

Alice Rawsthorne at Brainstorm Design 2018

 

‘Empower My Community’ Track

Key events in the ‘Empower My Community’ track will include Street of Clans creative festival and UNESCO Creative Cities of Design Public Forum. 

Hosted at Bukit Pasoh Road and organised by OuterEdit, Street of Clans is a creative festival celebrating the values of kinship and unity. 

Highlights of the festival will include open houses of four of the road’s historic clan houses: the Gan Clan, Koh Clan, Ching Kang Huay Juan and Tung On Wui Kun. Each clan house will host an interactive design installation and presentation from handpicked local artists and designers. 

Singapore was designated as a UNESCO Creative City of Design (together with Bandung, Indonesia) on 11 December 2015. Dsg has invited the other 30 UNESCO Creative Cities of Design to the UNESCO Creative Cities of Design Public Forum on 8 March to share their insights about designing for impact in public policy, education, business and communications. Entry is free with registration

UNESCO Creative Cities of Design

 

‘Inspire My Everyday’ Track

The anchor event of the ‘Inspire My Everyday Track’ will be the Wallpaper Handmade exhibition. This year the exhibits will include objects by local creatives Tiffany Loy, Hunn Wai, Lekker Architects, Chris Lee of Asylum, Lai Chan, Clara Yee, and PDA Designer of the Year 2018 laureate Hans Tan. 

Wallpaper Handmade exhibition 2018

The exhibition will also include Clink, a coin bank concept by Brandon Yeo, a recent graduate of LASALLE College of the Art and Singapore winner of Indesign Media’s Launch Pad 2018 initiative. 

Wallpaper Handmade exhibition 2018

 

‘Reimagine My Future’ Track 

Aiming to showcase design’s potential to expand boundaries and reshape the way we live, learn, work and play in the future, this track is anchored by two key events: SDW mainstay exhibition Singaplural and Singapore Urban Design Festival

 

Organised by Singapore Furniture Industries Council and curated by Eugene Kosgoron and Alan Tay from Formwerkz, and Edwin Tan from Bravo, Singaplural 2019 takes the theme of  ‘Unnatural Phenomena’. The exhibition will showcase the origins and evolutions of “extraordinary hybrids that emerge when disciplines collapse, mix, and morph in their shared pursuits.”

The exhibition will pair designers and design practices with brands to fill NDC with installations that offer novel experiences. Participating names include EDL, Ipse Ipsa Ipsum, Admira, TakahashiLim, ORCA & Amr, Lian Architects and Atelier Manferdini. 

EDL X Formwerkz Installation rendering for Singaplural 2019

 

The Straits collection (left) and the Muse collection from Ipse Ipsa Ipsum

 

The Singaplural 2019 programme will also include master lectures by designer Elena Manfredini of Atelier Manfredini, Raffi Lehrer of concert and festival production company Goldenvoice and design technologist Brandon Kruysman of Novel. 

Did you know that 80 per cent of the top floors of multistorey carparks in Singapore remains underutilised? In its sophomore edition, Singapore Urban Design Festival will take over the top two levels of the Jalan Besar Sports Centre multistorey carpark and fill it with various activities from 14 to 17 March 2019. 

Organised by LOPELAB, the festival will include a three-day summit themed ‘Redesigning Our Future Cities’ and weekend festivities that will include live music performances, design workshops, a design exhibition and a roller disco arena, all held in the occupied parking lot. Book your tickets here

Light Playground by Nipek for BBB District x SDW 2019

In addition the four tracks, SDW 2019 will also include Bras Basah.Bugis Urban Interventions x Singapore Design Week 2019, an initiative of Singapore Heritage Board that will see three light installations activating the districts at night. 

Light Playground by Nipek for BBB District x SDW 2019

The three installations will be Tree Harp by AaaM Architects, Light Playground by Nipek and Urban Constellation by Super Structure. The installations will be displayed from 4 March to 31 August 2019. 

Tree Harp by AaaM Architects

Lookout for more posts on SDW 2019!

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