Furniture Design Award 2005: Discovering The Best And Budding Design Talents In Asia

Furniture World Magazine

The highly coveted annual Furniture Design Award (FDA) organised by the Singapore Furniture Industries Council returns to inspire new design talents and showcase the unique creations of Asia’s best creative minds in 2005. Encouraging contestants to explore the theme, “New Asia  Creating Furniture of Daring, New Age and Ethnic Inspiration”, FDA 2005 is now open for applications and design submissions. The theme aims to unveil a new design era in Asia with design concepts and innovations that boast a strong “Asian” influence. “Essentially, we want to encourage and develop an environment where we can be proud of the ‘Design & Made in or for Asia’ label and have industry players world-wide give due recognition to it as well as create a demand for such creations. We also want the global furniture players to recognise that the FDA is where Asia unveils our trend-setting masterpieces, adding more pomp and substance to the international furniture design scene,” said Mr Simon Ong, Chairman of the Design Development Committee for SFIC. Consonant with the Council’s aim to brand Singapore as a global furniture design hub, FDA 2005 will continue to present opportunities for talented designers to network with industry players and spearhead careers in addition to being a platform for design education and a launch pad for innovative furniture designs in Asia. A case in point, two winners of previous FDAs  Jeremy Ong and Han Kiang Siew - had found industry partners from Australia and Singapore respectively to explore the commercialisation of their winning designs. Jeremy Ong, winner of the 2004 Young Designers Category, said: “I’ve been participating in this event for the past six years. The FDA encourages us to stretch our creativity and work processes beyond what’s deemed to be the limitation of standard product and consumer design. The international recognition bestowed on designers for our innovations and originality excites me and makes me want to do better every year.” Han Kiang Siew, winner of the 2003 Students Category, added, ‘The FDA has given us the unique opportunity to discover innovative and practical concepts. I hope with the FDA, more Asian designs can gain recognition on the furniture design world map.” The FDA 2005 consists of three categories: - Students Category: open to full time students in any local tertiary institution, art institution, junior college, pre-university or secondary school - Young Designers Category: open to Asia Pacific citizens, permanent residents and those on work permit  below the age of 35 as at 1 March 2005 - Open Category: open to participants from all over the world, either on an individual or company basis, with entries having been manufactured and launched commercially in the market. Entries to FDA 2005 will be judged on their conformity to the theme, creativity and innovation, form, functionality, choice of material, marketability and environmental friendliness. The closing date for the Students and Young Designers categories is on 1 October 2004 and the Open Category is on 1 December 2004. The finals will be held on 28 February 2005. Results will be announced on 1 March 2005. FDA 2005 will be held in conjunction with one of Asia’s premiere design-led furniture trade shows - the International Furniture Fair Singapore 2005/22nd ASEAN Furniture Show (IFFS/AFS 2005) - from 1-5 March 2005. IFFS/AFS 2005 will be occupying Halls 1-5 at the Singapore Expo. Trade players can look forward to more than 25,000 pieces of furniture and furnishing products of world-class design by over 450 exhibitors from 29 countries at IFFS/AFS 2005. The show is expected to attract more than 17,000 visitors and generate more than USD 1.9 billion of follow-on-sales for the year 2005. Since the inaugural event in 1993, the FDA has seen a steady growth in the number of participants. The recently concluded FDA 2004 received a total of 334 entries, a 60 per cent increase over the last event.  FDA 2005 is supported by DesignSingapore Council, Economic Development Board, International Enterprise Singapore (IE Singapore), the Designers Association of Singapore, Interior Design Confederation Singapore and Singapore Institute of Architects. For more information on FDA 2005, please visit www.singaporefurniture.com About FDA 2004: The Students Category alone saw an overwhelming 72 per cent increase in entries, with the main bulk of the 224 entries coming from students of Temasek Polytechnic, National University of Singapore, LaSalle SIA, Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, the Nanyang and Singapore Polytechnics, Inspiration Design School and Raffles LaSalle. In addition, there was an encouraging six-fold increase in entries received from secondary schools. The Young Designers Category was extended from ASEAN to the Asia-Pacific countries. It saw a total of 71 entries (six per cent increase) from Australia, China, Singapore and Thailand. The inaugural Open Category attracted 19 regional and international design talents from America, Australia, India, Indonesia, The Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. The Award saw an astounding number of furniture design prototypes that embraced not only the aesthetics but also in-depth market research, usability, safety, ergonomics, environmental sustainability and consumer experiences. About Singapore Furniture Industries Council (SFIC): Singapore Furniture Industries Council (SFIC) was established in 1981 as the official representative body of Singapore's furniture industry. It currently represents 95% of furniture manufacturers in Singapore, 65% of whom have subsidiary manufacturing plants in the region; including Malaysia, Indonesia, China, Vietnam, Myanmar. Its primary roles include promoting the interests of its members and the Singapore furniture industry, facilitating members' exposure to the world market, creating more entrepreneurs through human resource development, developing local talents, creating more leading-edge and award-winning designs by organising competitions such as the annual Furniture Design Award, forging strategic partnerships with government- and trade-related agencies, harnessing technology and knowledge for growth through the use of information technology.