EMERGE @ FIND grows beyond Southeast Asia

Singapore Design Week (SDW) is going to take place from 11 September to 21 September 2025, with an 11-day celebration of Singapore’s unique brand of design and creativity. This year’s festival will marks its most expansive and inclusive edition yet with a local voice at the curatorial helm for the very first time as the festival celebrates “Nation by Design” for Singapore’s 60th year of independence. As a media partner once again, NPO ADF (Aoyama Design Forum) is proud to support the Design Singapore Council in presenting Singapore Design Week (SDW) 2025.

Clockwise from left: Colour of Attitude textile piece dyed with discarded vegetables scraps by Japanese textile designer Shioka Okamoto; bangko + bangkito woven from fabric waste by Clark Mendoza from the Philippines; and Movement01 floor lamp series made from recycled water jugs and car headlights by Chinese sustainable design studio Swirl Up. Photos courtesy of respective designers.

The festival content is organized around three main pillars: “Design Futures,” “Design Marketplace,” and “Design Impact.” EMERGE @ FIND, which is a main event of the Marketplace, injects fresh perspectives from first Singaporean co-curator and features over 70 designers and present more than 100 works. For the first time, designers from China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan will join the line-up, in addition to established names from Southeast Asia, including Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Timor-Leste.

From left: Air(just) by Eian Siew and Threads of Becoming by Shervon and Melvin Ong. Photos courtesy of respective designers.

Cross-cultural innovation and craft

The showcase is structured around two main segments, Design Object and Design Social – the former focusing on materiality, craft, and innovation, while the latter delving into design’s role in addressing social, cultural, and environmental contexts. The revival and reimagining of tradition in contemporary contexts also remain as a defining influence on many of the works from Southeast Asia.

Clockwise from left: Sound of Ramie by Lana Daya, WV Collection by LAITA Design, LoopLine Collection by THINKK Studio, and Hatch Occasional Chair by Margarita Viray. Photos courtesy of respective designers.

Clockwise from left: Merge_Wishing Pagoda by Ok Kim, Citadel Collection by Ultramar Studio, Samurai Spirit by Amy Lewis, and Rush Tableware Collection by Jochieh Huang of Tshioh Rushcraft. Photos courtesy of respective designers.

Making their debut at EMERGE 2025, designers from several East Asian cities bring an added layer of cultural resonance to the showcase. The British-Japanese textile designer, Amy Lewis digs into her Japanese heritage to reinterpret the Samurai armour with pre-consumer waste generated from local companies, paying tribute to how the armours were traditionally crafted with repurposed metals. Other participants from Japan is:

Hana Mitsui

Based in Tokyo, the founder of Hana Textile Design Studio and Hana Material Design Laboratory, Inc. explores material innovation through hands-on experimentation. Mitsui has reinterpreted traditional textiles across regions in Japan, transforming them to fit contemporary settings and creating new products in the process. She also teaches at Tama Art University's Textile Design department.

JUNICHIRO YOKOTA STUDIO

Japanese designer Yokota founded his eponymous Tokyo-based industrial design studio with the aim of creating new value for objects using traditional techniques, as well as recycled and new materials.

PAN- PROJECTS

Founded by Japanese architect duo Yuriko Yagi and Kazumasa Takada, PAN-PROJECTS is a London-based architectural design studio. The firm works across a spectrum of media and disciplines, spanning from small-scale furniture to large spatial installations and architectural developments. The art of fabrication plays a central role in every project, where materials, memories and spaces converge through close collaboration with makers, communities and clients. Its recent research initiative, Architecture of By-products, investigates discarded materials as a medium for urban storytelling.

PULSE

Founded by Rikiya Toyoshima and Shomu Taki, design unit Pulse centres on the idea of introducing new rhythms into the otherwise linear flow of everyday life. In an age of rapid advancement, it believes in the importance of pausing — to reassess the essential value of making.

Shinya Kobayashi

Hailing from a family of tableware craftspeople, Kobayashi witnessed the decline of traditional craft from an early age. To him, it not only represented a loss in techniques, but an erosion of identity, family heritage and cultural continuity. His practice encompasses a series of interconnected spaces — a design studio, cutlery workshop and tableware store — all of which seeks to reconnect with the craft industry and help revive it in a sustainable way.

Shioka Okamoto

Okamoto is a Japanese textile designer specialising in textile and surface design for spatial contexts. With postgraduate degrees in textile and interior design, and a background in academia, her practice merges material experimentation with a deep expertise in printing and dyeing techniques. Her works show how textiles can shape atmosphere and sensory experience and have won international awards, including the Red Dot and iF Design.

Tanpopo-no-ye

Based in Nara, Tanpopo-no-ye Foundation is a non-profit organisation that runs community art centres and welfare facilities. It has conducted a suite of programmes the meld the worlds of arts and care. With these initiatives, Tanpopo-no-ye Foundation hopes to help everyone engage in creative self-expression regardless of their disability.

Yosuke Shimano

Based in Osaka, Japan, Shimano brings a unique perspective from his experience as an eyewear designer in both Sabae and New York. His work — which spans from eyewear to spatial design — centres around sustainability, aesthetics and wonder.

Singapore Design Week

One of Asia’s premier design festivals, Singapore Design Week (SDW) celebrates Singapore’s distinctive brand of creativity, exploring design through three defining festival pillars: Design Futures (the design of the future and the future of design), Design Marketplace (lifestyle trends with a spotlight on Southeast Asia) and Design Impact (innovative solutions for a better world). Organised by DesignSingapore Council, SDW is a celebration of creativity and innovation, championing thought leadership and showcasing the best of design from Singapore and beyond.