President*s Design Award 2018

Sep - Oct 2018

President*s Design Award 2018

October 28, 2018

President*s Design Award 2018

On 17 July 2018, President Halimah Yacob conferred the nation’s highest design accolade across all disciplines for the transformational impact on lives, businesses, society and the world. It recognises the achievements of those who make a difference to the lives of Singaporeans and the global community through excellent design. The 2018 Presidents Design Award(PDA), jointly organised by the Design Singapore Council and the Urban Redevelopment Authority, announced the recipients at a gala event held at the Istana, celebrating the win of two designers and nine designs of the year.

This year’s P*DA recipients come from diverse fields, spanning visual communication; product and industrial design; interior design; experience and service design; engineering design; design strategy; and architecture. The recipients were shortlisted from a total of 131 eligible entries: 107 for Design of the Year and 24 entries for Designer of the Year.

Designs of the Year


Four of this year’s winning designs are architectural projects:
• Oasia Hotel Downtown by WOHA Architects Pte Ltd
• China Fuzhou Jin Niu Shan Trans-urban Connector (Fudao) by LOOK Architects Pte Ltd
• The Tembusu by ARC Studio Architecture + Urbanism Pte Ltd
• Mediacorp Campus by Maki & Associates and DP Architects Pte Ltd Other winning designs include:
• Changi Airport Terminal 4 by Changi Airport Group
• The Future of Us Pavilion by the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD)
• The Warehouse Hotel by Asylum Creative Pte Ltd
• weatherHYDE by billionBricks
• Who Cares? Transforming the Caregiving Experience in Singapore by fuelfor and the National Council of Social Service

Candidates for the Design of the Year projects were evaluated on the innovation and originality in design ethos; design research; aesthetics and craftsmanship; and impact of design in one or more of the four areas: enabling economic transformation; raising quality of life; advancing Singapore’s brand, culture and community; and groundbreaking design achievements.

Designers of the Year


The designers are Angelene Chan (Chief Executive Officer of DP Architects) for her work in architecture and Hans Tan (founder of Hans Tan Studio) for his work in product and industrial design.

The multi-disciplinary panel of 17 local and international jurors, who included past PDA recipients, are leaders in design, business and architecture. In addition to selecting the 2018 recipients, the jury also commended Toh Yah Li, Partner at Light Collab LLP, for her work in lighting design. “The 2018 PDA recipients represent what we advocate for design in Singapore —an exceptional form of human-centric creativity that goes far beyond the aesthetics,” commended Mark Wee, Executive Director, DesignSingapore Council.

“We applaud their celebration of community and greenery in ways that are also respectful to the projects’ contexts,” congratulated Larry Ng, Group Director, Architecture and Urban Design Excellence of URA.

Oasia Hotel Downtown


This is a mixed-use hotel and commercial development that envisions what a tropical skyscraper could be. The extensive use of landscaping is unprecedented, achieving green cover over 10 times the area of the building site. Wong Mun Summ, founding director of WOHA Architects, commented, “When we created this vertical connector for the horizontal green habitats, we realised that if we connect neighbouring buildings with such amenities, we would actually create a vibrant ecosystem for not just humans but also for animals. This is something that would transform how we think of cities; it doesn’t need to be a concrete jungle anymore, it can be one where we live in harmony with nature. And this was, at the end of the day, the aim for us.”

The jury commended the architects for making a bold statement by reinventing the typology of mixed-use towers in the city and creating a biophilic environment, where nature and urban development can coexist harmoniously. Read more about this project in FuturArc Showcase, Jul-Aug issue on Hotels and Resorts.

China Fuzhou Jin Niu Shan Trans-Urban Connector (Fudao)


This is a people-oriented urban-scale project that activates a once inaccessible part of the city. It has transformed a physical barrier into a series of vibrant social spaces along the 19-kilometre stretch and provides people in the region with an urban relief in the dense cityscape. Look Boon Gee, founder and managing director of LOOK Architects, shared, “Our intention is to reconnect the people with the mountain, and the mountain back to the city. Not only does Fudao provide easy access to the green lung in the city, but it also adds resilience and liveability to the community.”

The jury appreciated that Fudao is a thoughtful, well-executed design that integrates into its surrounding greenery. They acknowledge how the project has rejuvenated the area and established a connection between the undulating mountain landscape and the city, drawing people into the natural environment and placing Fuzhou on the world map. Read more about this project in FuturArc Projects, Nov-Dec issue.

For more information, please visit https://designsingapore.org/.

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