About the President’s Design Award
The President’s Design Award is Singapore’s highest honour accorded to designers and designs from all design disciplines. It recognises the significant contributions and achievements of an extraordinary group of people who are making a difference to the lives of Singaporeans and to the lives of the larger global community. The recipients are the standard bearers for design excellence, models for future generations of designers to match and exceed. As these standards permeate into the consciousness of society, they bring about a greater general awareness and appreciation of quality design.
The Designer of the Year award category recognises designers or design teams for their creativity and achievements in any design discipline, demonstrated by a sustained body or portfolio of works.
The Design of the Year award category recognises the national significance and creative value to Singapore of projects or products in any design discipline.
A total of 39 Designers of the Year and 99 Designs of the Year have been conferred the award from 2006 - 2016.
More information about the President’s Design Award is available at www.designsingapore.org/pda.
Three designers and 10 design projects were honoured with the President’s Design Award (PDA) this year. Recognised for their design excellence and creative innovation, the recipients received their award from President Tony Tan Keng Yam at a ceremony held earlier this evening at the Istana.
For the first time since the PDA was launched in 2006, a recipient nominated under the engineering design discipline received the Designer of the Year award. Dr Hossein Rezai, Director at Web Structures Pte Ltd and a chartered engineer in Civil and Structural Engineering, was recognised for applying structural engineering design principles to provide sustainable, productive and optimised solutions in his projects.
“We are happy to celebrate the impressive strides made by our local design sector in our 11th edition. Over the years, we have noticed an increasing number of cross-disciplinary submissions, particularly projects that blend engineering and design. So we decided to introduce Engineering Design as a new design discipline to be considered for the Award. We are happy to have our first Designer of the Year from this discipline,” said Mr Robert Tomlin, Chairman of the President’s Design Award 2016 Steering Committee and DesignSingapore Council.
A record number of 140 nominations were received this year, demonstrating the strong support to make the PDA the national benchmark for design excellence. Among the Design of the Year, three are architectural projects. One is a creative re-imagination of an industrial building. Two are public housing projects that focus on multi-generational living and creation of communal spaces. Mr Ng Lang, Chief Executive Officer of the Urban Redevelopment Authority said, “I am inspired to see the architectural fraternity continue pushing for visually engaging, forward-looking and liveable spaces that delight and enable social interaction. Our architects play an important role in defining the character and quality of our built environment, and I applaud their dedication to creating attractive places for us to live, work and play. Congratulations to all winners!”
The other Designs of the Year include the world’s first contact-activated medical lancet, the creative rejuvenation of a traditional bookbinding brand, an innovative ultrasound scanner designed to assess pregnancy risks early, and an inclusive village that integrates communities and transform lives without fences.
The President’s Design Award is administered by the DesignSingapore Council of the Ministry of Communications and Information, and the Urban Redevelopment Authority. There were a total of 17 jurors from seven countries, including Singapore, assessing 140 eligible nominations before making the final cut.
The profile and project description of the 13 recipients and the jury’s citations can be found in Annex A [PDF, 278kb]. More information about the jury members is available in Annex B [PDF, 922kb]. An exhibition of the President’s Design Award 2016 will be held at the National Design Centre from 10 December 2016 to 6 January 2017 and at the URA Centre from 9 to 27 January 2017. Admission is free. Details about the exhibition are available in Annex C [PDF, 109kb].