Here’s the TL:DR summary:
1) SDW is taking place from 16-25 Sep, spread over 10 days and two weekends, so plan your time to visit the various sites.
2) In total, there are 78 listed events, pop-ups and activities to check out. You’ll not have enough time for all, unless you take leave for the week. And several of the events are only on for a few days out of the 10.
3) While many of the pop-ups and exhibitions are free for all, registration is required for others, such as the FIND exhibition and the symposium. Be sure to double-check the requirements and ticketing details before you head out.
4) Here’s a look at where most of the events are taking place around Singapore. Gather your friends and car-pool to reduce your carbon footprint and spend some quality design time with your buddies.
Hitting a refresh button after a two-year hiatus, Singapore Design Week returns with a strong festival vision that places focus on the strength and breadth of Singapore’s design talents.
With three defining pillars of Design Futures, Design Marketplace and Design Impact, the festival aims to spotlight Singapore as a futuristic city of design and innovation economy, an East-West connector for South-east Asian design and lifestyle and a purveyor of sustainable and impactful design solutions grounded in addressing urgent real-world problems.
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More than 50 events and 200 designer features over 10 days await visitors and participants exploring SDW 2022, with the festival aiming to have something for everyone in and outside of the local and regional design community.
The main happenings under each of the three pillars of this year’s event – Design Futures Symposium, President’s Design Award (PDA) Tours, The Good Design Research pop-up exhibition, FIND – Design Fair – Asia, and N*thing is Possible – serve as the anchors of activities that will showcase the festival’s vision to carve a distinctive and enduring niche for the design community and cement SDW as one of Asia’s premier design festivals.
Design Futures
The Design Futures Symposium (happening 20 Sep) is the main event under the Design Futures pillar of SDW 2022, bringing a host of thought leaders from Singapore and around the world to probe some of the critical ways design is fundamental to creating solutions for a positive future in Singapore and the world. Directed by the internationally renowned curator Paola Antonelli, the Symposium will touch on topics of design approaches to complexity, systems and prototypes, the imperative of regenerative design, designing for local and global challenges such as ageing population and dense, low-carbon cities, human experience optimisation within nature, and harnessing technology to build a better, more inclusive future.
“So many of Singapore’s challenges will be – and already are – encountered elsewhere in the world as humanity collectively grapples with climate change, pandemics, urbanisation, the health of natural ecosystems, changing resource streams, population diversity and ageing, food production, and more, I am excited about exploring Singapore’s progress alongside some of the most progressive design ideas and developments from around the world through the Design Futures Symposium.”
Paola Antonelli
Design Impact
One of the highlights of the events under the design Impact pillar is the President’s Design Award (PDA) Tours (17 & 24 Sep) that will take visitors to experience some of Singapore’s most outstanding, innovative and impactful designs. The tour will cover green buildings, heritage sites and inclusive spaces.
Alongside the tours, other events will uphold the Design Impact vision, including the Good Design Research (10-25 Sep) pop-up curated by design studio WY-TO that celebrates the positive impact of good design through research and experimentation, and N*thing is Possible (16 Sep – 25 Dec), a regenerative design showcase that celebrates re-use, re-cycle, re-craft and re-live.
In N*thing is Possible, Potato Head and award-winning architectural firm OMA will unveil a storytelling multimedia exhibit with contributions by collaborators including Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, American artist Futura, Spanish industrial designer Andreu Carulla, British furniture designer Max Lamb, Bali-based environmental engineers eco Mantra and many others.
N*thing is Possible will tell a story of how Ronald Akili’s Potato Head Beach Club became a creative, sustainable place shape-shifting waste into beautiful objects and art. “Radical sustainability is woven into Potato Head’s DNA,” says Ronald. “We believe in sharing our learnings because this is the way to create that ripple effect.”
Design Marketplace
Showcasing a carefully selected collection of interior brands, key opinion leaders, designers and content, FIND – Design Fair Asia (22-24 Sep) will serve as the anchoring event that will present unique, exclusive, innovative and immersive new design experience that will speak to the audiences in Singapore and the rest of the world. FIND aims to deliver a different kind of design fair vision by being an active channel of initiating conversations with global design opinion leaders on key trends and topics like wellbeing, metaverse, biophilia and sustainability.
As part of FIND, dmg events and DesignSingapore Council will present its first-of-its-kind South-east Asian design talent showcase at EMERGE @ FIND. Curated by design publisher Suzy Annetta, EMERGE will spotlight close to 60 established and rising South-east Asian designers, a select group of whom will be staging their fresh works specially created for EMERGE through the lens of materiality. These works will be categorised under the following four pillars: Natural & Local, Waste, Innovation, and Unconventional.
Among some conversation and statement pieces that will certainly garner attention of the attendees at EMERGE @ FIND include a chair and lamp by Adhi Nughara made from reprocessed cow dung, limited edition design BFTs’ Living Vase 02′ by Lanzavecchia + Wai and a series of lamps created by bio/agri-waste by Stanley Ruiz.
Design Community Open Doors
Beyond the main events under the three festival pillars, a suite of design activities in various spots across Singapore will enable vibrant community space activations and ground-up community programmes and experiences supporting the three pillars.
Visitors can look forward to witnessing an exploratory and celebratory fashion event #FashTag (16-25 Sep) by Singapore’s fashion and creative director Daniel Boey or attending Re-route, a storytelling meets placemaking festival in Little India by interdisciplinary group Plus Collaboratives (16 Sep – 9 Oct). There will also be talks, open houses and workshops, as designers showcase their creative spirit and passion for design to the public.