SingaPlural: 6 Reasons why you should not miss this year’s design festival

Singapore is fast making a name for itself as a design hub, and nothing quite cements this status like the SingaPlural design festival. Held at 99 Beach Road from March 10-15, the 4th edition will showcase the best design elements from advertising, architecture, urban planning, landscape architecture, as well as interior, furniture, graphic and even fashion design.

Organised by the Singapore Furniture Industries Council (SFIC) , this year’s festival revolves around the ‘Process’ theme, which celebrates the important elements of design, the journey of creativity and the immense effort and hard work put into creating a product. Together with 8 other network partners of Design, this week-long design celebration is an international platform for talents across the creative industries to engage and evoke the design senses of visitors; through installations, exclusively curated design spaces, symposiums and many other activities. We know the glut of exhibits to check out can be overwhelming so we’ve planned the best route to go down based on the six pillars you should not be missing.

1- Project X

In Merry Motion is a celebration & experience design + craft studio. They craft and curate atmospheres, design experiences, and transform spaces with installations.

The concept of In Merry Motion’s installation presents itself to be something that can be easily picked up by anyone with an interest and can be applied to many social situations and occasions, all that was a surprising material choice in itself – Lamitak’s Laminates. By creating customizable decorative laminate parts, the installation aims to not only create dialogues within the community, but to also get others involved and interested with their experiential and interactive nature.

2- Design Installations

Little Thoughts Group is a collective of Singapore-based product designers, who are passionate about sharing their unique perspective of everyday design through the quirks of our local culture. And they hope to connect with people on the street through their own design stories.

Little Thoughts Group interprets ‘Process’ through their own experiences of growing up in their own neighbourhood and how it has inspired them as designers in the local context.

3- Little Red Dot: Talks and Symposium.

Targeted at a design-centric audience, talks and symposiums discuss subjects of relevance to the design community and connect with the audience on different levels. A key focus of this pillar is the summit organised by the Design Business Chamber Singapore (DBCS), the Singapore Design Business Summit 2015, which is themed “Celebrating Our Design Journey” invites pioneer designers to share their experiences.

4- Tour

Tour is one of the six pillars conceptualized for SingaPlural. In line with the 2015 theme of ‘Process’, the purpose of the pillar is to showcase different stages of the design process: from designers’ studios to the manufacturers’ workshops to the retail stores. A great tour to check out would be Tour #4: Porsche Design, Typesettingsg and Bynd Artisan.

5- Recognition

Through a collective showcase of design works created in year 2014, SingaPlural aims to recognise and celebrate design ideas of designers from all disciplines. Some excellent works to check out would be Rhinoshield by Bravo, Dining Arrangements by Amanda Ho and Reborn Collection by one of the pioneers of the local fashion and design scene Carrie K.

6- Partnering Events

After all that walking, if you’re in need of a pick me up and into clean eating  then Gorilla Press is a superfood concept store you might want to check out. The store aims to introduce a lifestyle that is healthy and sustainable by selling superfoods, juices, smoothies, nut mylks and bites which use superfood as an ingredient.

Now that you’ve got your itinerary set, embrace the culture vulture in you and head down to 99 Beach Road for a unique experience. See you there!

For more information or to book tickets, head over to http://www.singaplural.com/

Karen GEORGE