Prototype Island

Details

The DesignSingapore Council returns to Milan Design Week from 21 to 26 April 2026 with Prototype Island at Foro Buonaparte 54, located in the prestigious Brera Design District!

Curated by Lead Curator Hunn Wai and Assistant Curator Eian Siew, the pair are joined by renowned design curator and author, Maria Cristina Didero as the Global Perspectives Advisor.

Following the success of the Future Impact showcase series from 2023 to 2025, this all-new exhibition concept explores Singapore as a living prototype nation, continuously evolving, optimising and future-proofing against global challenges through the potential of design.

Demonstrating how ideas can become realities that shape everyday life through Singapore’s distinctive culture of modelling, testing and implementation at scale, Prototype Island will serve as a platform for translating possibility into practice, exemplifying Singapore’s brand of innovation and creativity.

Uniting established and emerging designers based in Singapore, Prototype Island will present exciting new ideas in response to topical global challenges across three themes: Care Infrastructures & Cultural Continuities, Technological & Material Ecologies, and Everyday Infrastructures.

Care Infrastructures & Cultural Continuities

Reconfiguring social bonds and living heritage as active design systems.

• Aditi Neti – Of Curves and Hands
  A participatory installation translating hand movements into mechanically drawn kolams, reinterpreting traditional rituals through computational systems. 
• weareSuper – People of the World
  A collection of porcelain plates featuring portrait-like faces, exploring co-design as both economic and social infrastructure while embedding inclusion within production and retail systems. 
• Melvin Ong, Shervon Ong & Andy Yeo – Threads of Becoming
  3D-printed vessels that reinterpret the rare practice of lacquer threading through digital fabrication, sustaining craft through adaptive continuity. 
• Celeste Seah – Rememo
  An AI-assisted reminiscence therapy tool designed for occupational therapy teams to reconstruct memory cues, supporting dignity and connection in dementia care. 
• Roger Ng Wei Lun – Lustre Series and Earth Deity Altar
  Two sculptural objects–a reimagined Peranakan table and a contemporary spiritual altar–that open dialogue on how tradition can evolve through new materials and forms.
  
• Zoey Chan – Nido
  A compact, modular insulin needle holder designed to support safer and more flexible diabetes management across shifting daily environments. 
• Serina Lee – Language System
  Integrating Chinese calligraphy into garments for the metaverse, merging the English alphabet with Chinese script as structural logic for decentralised digital-physical cultural exchange. 
• TUSITALA – 3D-printed tactile picture book
  A tactile, 3D-printed adaptation of the children’s book Timmy & Tammy, bringing accessible storytelling systems to classrooms by expanding literacy through tactile engagement.

Technological & Material Ecologies

Investigating bio-based processes, digital intelligence, and hybrid production logics.

• Carlos Bañón & Yiping Goh – Formas.AI – Design Studio Platform
  AI-integrated spatial workflow platform unifying specialised AI capabilities, 2D images, 3D models, point clouds, and video to shape architectural production and iteration. 
• Jake Tan, Ezequiel Ignacio Rodríguez Chiacchio &, Bao Songyu – 1 Qubit
  An interactive installation combining a custom-built classical computer, microcontrollers, and polarising film to visualise and simulate the principles of quantum computation. 
• Parable – Iris
  A modular light installation crafted from local clay, combining handmade components with phygital configurations to bridge craft and digital spatial logic. 
• A*STAR Innovation Factory@SIMTech for Castomize – TessaCast
  A 4D-printed orthopaedic cast made from smart materials that conform to the patient’s anatomy, improving comfort and clinical efficiency through adaptive design. 
• ODD M. – Fragility to Permanence
  A collection of crafted objects made from waste-derived composite material, repositioning fragile resources as durable everyday products.

Everyday Infrastructures

Reframing the operational systems that quietly structure contemporary life.

• Interactive Materials Lab – Scan to Play
  An interactive installation that reimagines the barcode as a playful interface, revealing the hidden everyday infrastructures of commerce through creative distortions. 
• Reynard Seah – Noda
  An elastic joint system designed to enable flexible and temporary connections, rethinking how modular structures can adapt to changing spatial needs.

What’s on at Prototype Island

Other Singaporean Designers at Milan Design Week 2026

Organiser

DesignSingapore Council

The DesignSingapore Council (Dsg)’s vision is for Singapore to be a liveable, loveable, and limitless city by design. As the national agency for design, our mission is to develop the design sector to be globally competitive, champion the use of design for innovation and growth in Singapore, and make life better in this UNESCO Creative City of Design. Dsg is a subsidiary of the Singapore Economic Development Board.

Contact

Email Address: [email protected]

Top image courtesy of Lanzavecchia + Wai.