IDCS design excellence awards 2017 honoured the best interior designers of the year

Date: 21 November 2017
Companies: Interior Design Confederation Singapore (IDCS) and AkzoNobel

The Interior Design Confederation Singapore (IDCS) Design Excellence Awards (DEA) 2017 has announced the best interior designers of the year: 90 awards in 37 categories with submissions from all parts of the world including Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong, Iran, Italy, Malaysia, the Netherlands, the United States of America (US) and the United Kingdom (UK).

The fifth edition of DEA received a total of 180 entries across two competition tracks: Interior Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) for interior designers and firms; and Spatial Design Awards (SPADE) for students. The IDEA section saw 54 IDEA winners in 28 categories, while the SPADE section had 36 SPADE award winners in nine categories. The best interior design practitioners and students were honoured with trophies and certificates for their exceptional projects at the DEA Gala Dinner held at the St. Regis Singapore on 21 November.

“Design Excellence Awards 2017 has seen exponential growth of recognition at a global level. We received entries not only from regional countries, but also from the US and Europe, such as the UK and Italy. IDCS is impressed with the quality of work received, which has set tremendously high standards in interior and spatial design,” said Tung Ching Yew, DEA Chair of IDCS and Founder and Managing Director of Spirit Of Design Analogy (SODA). “The IDEA Project of the Year, Emerging ID Firm of the Year and Top 3 ID Firm of the Year Awards will celebrate the industry’s best of the best interior designers in this year’s awards programme. I am pleased to announce that DEA 2017 has surpassed IDCS’ expectations and will be branded as an international awards programme from this year onwards.”

The winning entries were selected by a five-member jury panel that included Chris Lee, Founder and Creative Director of Asylum; Kelley Cheng, Founder and Creative Director of The Press Room; Pann Lim, Co-founder and Creative Director of Kinetic Singapore; William Lau, Founder Principal of A.Alliance Design International; and William Chan, Founder and Chief Designer of Spacedge Designs. Entries were judged according to a scoring band, and projects were not compared with one another in each category but scored individually in terms of merit.

Commenting on the entries for the SPADE section, jury member Kelley Cheng of The Press Room said, “There are a few exceptional pieces in the students’ segment which showed thoughtfulness, sensitivity and intuition in aesthetics—these are exactly the gems we look for in a competition as such to discover the design stars of tomorrow.”

For the first time, IDCS partnered AkzoNobel, the world’s leading manufacturer in decorative paints and performance coatings, to further raise industry standards and celebrate design excellence by introducing a new category—the AkzoNobel Colour Award. Jeremy Rowe, Managing Director of AkzoNobel Decorative Paints, South East & South Asia, Middle East explained, “At AkzoNobel, we believe that colour has transformative power to brighten up everyday life. This new award aims to provide more well-deserved recognition to outstanding interior designers for their dedication to transforming otherwise ordinary spaces into vibrant places through the use of colour.”

AKZONOBEL COLOUR AWARD (NEW CATEGORY)
The inaugural AkzoNobel Colour Award saw three winning projects that have applied good use of colour to enhance the interior as well as add distinctiveness to the space and were judged by an independent threemember jury including Jeremy Rowe, Managing Director of AkzoNobel Decorative Paints, South East & South Asia, Middle East; Stephanie Kraneveld, Global Colour Training & Knowledge Manager of AkzoNobel Decorative Paints, The Netherlands; and Cameron Woo, Founder, Cameron Woo Design (CWD).

“We were impressed by this year’s winners, who have used colour remarkably to create an ambiance that seamlessly blends the distinct personality of their customers into the space. We hope the AkzoNobel Colour Award will encourage more interior designers to challenge the boundaries to make places and people’s lives more liveable and inspiring,” elaborated Jeremy Rowe of AkzoNobel Decorative Paints.

Three different types of spaces—F&B, Residential and Workplace—were the final winners. Clinching the Gold award was a commercial project executed by Laank Pte Ltd for a restaurant, National Kitchen by Violet Oon, which champions the Singapore food culture. In this project, Emerald Green, a shade synonymous with the Peranakan heritage and frequently seen in enamel ware and architecture, was used to signify youth, renewal and hope. In addition, Index Design’s Park Place Residences, a residential project, received the Silver award and DB&B’s Shopee Singapore, a workplace project, got the Bronze award.

“Whilst one can use black as an accent to create definition, black can be used in the reverse as the predominant colour to create drama and accented with other colours, like they have in the National Kitchen,” commented Cameron Woo of Cameron Woo Design.

INTERIOR DESIGN EXCELLENCE AWARD (IDEA) PROJECT OF THE YEAR (NEW CATEGORY)
The much-anticipated IDEA Project of the Year is Nissan Crossing Experience Centre in Tokyo, designed by Tim Kobe from Eight Inc. The project also won a Gold Award in the Best Exhibition Design in Asia Pacific category.

The judges concurred in selecting Nissan Crossing as the IDEA Project of the Year, recognising its powerful and distinctive round centre exhibition space as an ideal backdrop to feature the latest Nissan concept vehicles and rare classic cars. The streamlines of curves and circles in unified symphonic ribbons set the tone for a unique interior, suitably coupled with hi-tech sensory experience of the future. The project was lauded as a fine showcase of a well-integrated architecture and interior design masterpiece, with virtual façades in the most prime corner at the glitzy Ginza Place in Tokyo.

EMERGING ID FIRM OF THE YEAR (NEW CATEGORY)
Only one of the up-and-coming firms under five years of practice was handpicked as the Emerging ID Firm of the Year. The inaugural award went to boutique-sized firm Laank for their design approach that shapes behaviour and steers reactions towards crafting a fuller, authentic brand experience. Laank also bagged two Gold awards—AkzoNobel Colour Award and Best F&B Design in Asia Pacific for space less than or equal to 2,000 square feet—with the National Kitchen project.

Jury member Pann Lim of Kinetic Singapore commented, “I am both impressed and inspired by Laank because the spaces they create demonstrate breadth and depth in thinking. Laank’s works go beyond the
field of interior design because they understand brand design well, and they know how to apply that understanding to their spatial projects. As a result, no two spaces designed by Laank are alike, yet they exude the same sense of familiarity in the way the customer’s experience in the space is curated.”

TOP 3 ID FIRM OF THE YEAR (NEW CATEGORY)
The highest honour of Top 3 ID Firm of the Year was a unanimous decision made by the panel of judges. Metaphor Studio, One Plus Partnership and Wee Studio were awarded as joint winners for their consistently outstanding design work. The three firms were also multiple-award winners in different categories.

Metaphor Studio bagged two Silver awards with Valley Park, designed by Angela Tantry in Best Residential Design in Singapore for apartment greater than or equal to 2,001 square feet; and The Trillium, designed by Stephen Goh in Best Residential Design in Asia Pacific for apartment greater than or equal to 2,001 square feet.

Hong Kong-based One Plus Partnership took home the Gold, Silver and Bronze awards in Best Public Design in Asia Pacific, with their respective projects Guangzhou Jinyi Cinemas, Shanghai Omnijoi International Cinema and Nanjing Insun Feeling Cinema, designed by Ajax Law and Virginia Lung.

Wee Studio’s Yeo See Wee received a Gold award for Wee Residence in Best Residential Design in Singapore for apartment 1,001 to 2,000 square feet. Their Lotus Kitchen project got a Bronze award in Best F&B Design in Singapore for space less than or equal to 2,000 square feet and the ZYT project got a Bronze award in Best Workplace Design in Singapore for space less than or equal to 2,000 square feet.

Jury member William Lau of A.Alliance Design International commented, “The winners of Top 3 ID Firm of the Year have unique profiles, charting completely different directions. Metaphor Studio is meticulous in details and highly versatile, with diverse gymnastic capabilities to switch design themes from earthly to contemporary, chic to cultural; One Plus Partnership is a rare firm who gets away with its avant-garde, surreal and out-of-the-world ideas being implemented in real life; while Wee Studio is loaded with ideas to optimise and double up space utilisation, which are important criteria in our land scarce Singapore.”