Singapore Design Week 2025 celebrates six decades of the nation’s creativity and progress

Festival kicks off with four vibrant Design Districts, an expanded EMERGE @ FIND showcase, and exciting new collaborations at the ArtScience Museum, Singapore River Festival, and Jalan Besar.

Singapore, 11 September 2025 – From living labs to inclusive play spaces, community events to festivities along the river, Singapore Design Week 2025 (SDW 2025) officially opens today, offering 11 days of city-wide activations and experiences in its most expansive edition yet. Organised by the DesignSingapore Council (Dsg), this year’s festival marks Singapore’s 60th birthday with the theme “Nation by Design”, celebrating how design has powered Singapore’s progress and how it will continue to shape what’s next.

Running from 11 to 21 September, SDW 2025 delivers over 70 programmes across the island. Four Design Districts anchor the festival, including the debut of Singapore Science Park. Visitors can also look forward to returning highlights such as FIND – Design Fair Asia, the expanded EMERGE @ FIND showcase, the Design Futures Forum, and Future Impact 3: DESIGN NATION alongside new immersive events such as Find Your Folks at Jalan Besar, the design edition of the Singapore River Festival and the opening of blockbuster exhibition, Another World is Possible.

“Design has always been part of Singapore’s story, influencing how we live, grow and move forward together,” said Jody Teo, Festival Director of SDW 2025 and Director of Marketing Communications and Outreach at the DesignSingapore Council. “With ‘Nation by Design’ as our theme, we invite everyone to celebrate how design has played a part in our everyday lives, and continues to spark our creativity and ingenuity to write Singapore’s next chapter.”

Spotlighting the four Design Districts

Bras Basah.Bugis Design District

At the heart of Singapore’s design and cultural precinct, the Bras Basah.Bugis Design District presents two festival commissions that challenge perceptions of our city-state’s rise.

The Unnatural History Museum of Singapore takes centre stage at SDW 2025 festival hub, the National Design Centre. Curated by Kinetic Singapore, it offers a bold take on Singapore’s design legacy. The exhibition transforms a four storey-high atrium into a “museum of the unexpected”, reframing Singapore’s evolution as a series of design-driven adaptations. Through themes like “R/Evolutionary Life”, “Growing Habits” and “The Resourceful Island”, it showcases hybrid flora, robotic fauna and reimagined habitats that reflect a nation that has thrived “unnaturally”, and not by chance.

Among the exhibits is a six-metre “fossil” of the Merlion, Singapore’s iconic half-lion, half-fish mascot. A wholly mythical creature with real-world resonance, it represents the deliberate crafting of national identity. Visitors can also see cyborg cockroaches fitted with navigation sensors and cameras, developed in Singapore for post-disaster search and rescue missions. The museum also features autonomous bee drones that mimic the pollination behaviour of real bees while offering advanced crop analytics for urban farms; Daisy, a humanoid wellness robot steps in as a compassionate complement to Singapore’s eldercare workforce; and the curious Crab Condo that houses these creatures in drawer-style tanks designed to emulate natural burrows.

Together, these inventions pose a timely question: in a land with no natural resources, what does it mean to design our own nation?

“We’ve never had the luxury of resources, but we’ve always had resourcefulness,” said curator and creative director of Kinetic Singapore, Pann Lim. “With the Unnatural History Museum of Singapore, we wanted to get visitors curious and engaged, help them understand the design choices that made Singapore and our array of solutions possible. This exhibition is our way of reimagining Singapore’s story through a different lens, to show how design has propelled the progress of this city we call home.”

Over at NAFA’s Fashion Gallery, The Sausage of the Future: Singapore Edition makes its Asia debut with an exploration of food, culture, and sustainability. Curated by Studio Carolien Niebling, designed in collaboration with local design studio Roots, the exhibition puts forth one of the world’s oldest designed foods – the sausage – as a symbol of sustainability and innovation.

The exhibition will showcase anatomical models of newly designed sausages, which examine form, function, and nutrition through sculptural precision. Each sausage concept was co-developed with Singapore-based chefs, producers, and creatives, tackling themes from food security to biodiversity, preservation and the psychology of disgust.

The Ocean Maw Dog by Chef Marcus Tan is a reinterpretation of an otah sausage, using often-discarded fish parts like roe and liver, wrapped in turmeric or shiso leaves to transform waste into flavour, underscoring the issue of food security. There’s also the Native Herb Ball, created with Nithiya Laila and Edible Garden City, blends native herbs like laksa leaf and ulam raja to showcase resilient, future-ready ingredients. Huber’s Butchery puts a new spin on salami with its Tropical Fruit Salami, a dried fruit sausage made from overripe local produce, to extend shelf life naturally. Finally, the Spicy Tongue Bratwurst, developed with The Meatery’s Renga Vellasamy, uses beef tongue to play on the psychology of disgust.

Singapore Science Park Design District

For the first time, Singapore Science Park steps into the spotlight as the festival’s fourth and newest Design District. Curated by CapitaLand Development (CLD), the master developer of Singapore Science Park, with creative agency OuterEdit, the district’s theme, REINVENTION, explores innovation as an ongoing collaboration across disciplines.

“REINVENTION is a celebration of Singapore’s reinventive spirit and a bold new chapter in our national design story. For the very first time, science, design, art and technology collide in unexpected ways at Singapore Science Park – from robots and dinosaurs to exhibitions, markets, music, workshops and conversations that spark fresh possibilities. Over 11 days and with more than 50 partners and collaborators, we are proud to create an inclusive platform for ideas, stories, thought leadership and celebration. This is not your usual line-up, and it’s one where fresh design graduates stand alongside seasoned practitioners, multinational corporations, and where the public and industry come together to discover, imagine, reinvent and create new future possibilities.”

As the centrepiece, the REINVENTION Stage is designed to host conversations that through the Open Source programme, with talks, panels, and performances rooted in the district’s theme. For instance, in CLD’s panel discussion, Beyond Form: Crafting Sustainable, Experiential Cities, prominent architects and influential urban thinkers convene to discuss how sustainable, human-centric design can shape the future of cities.

Meanwhile, Singapore Science Park’s programme, Flavours of Tomorrow, spotlighting sustainability-driven agri-food tech innovators, presents a purpose-driven menu by chef Christina Rasmussen of FURA in conversation with futurist Luke Tay, using ingredients from local producers and agri-food tech innovators as part of the Singapore Food Festival as well.

In Man and Machine: A Robotics Showcase, visitors trace the evolution of robots from tools to companions. Meanwhile, NUS Enterprise reimagines ageing with age-inclusive design in The Living Space. At the BYOX Fair, visits can engage with technologies, from AI and sensors to robotics and digital interfaces.

Playful experiences round off the district’s offerings: GREEN-HOUSE HangOut brings bite-sized sustainability pop-ups, while Nimble Mystic’s inflatable creatures from their Strange Terrains installation transform the space into a surreal dreamscape. Throughout the district, visitors can also play AI-powered chess, explore tactile materials dyed from local plants and tour The Seed at Geneo, among other hands-on activities.

Marina Design District

Themed “Design for Care”, Marina Central explores care as a spatial, social and environmental design practice. Curated by architect and principal of Zarch Collaboratives, Randy Chan, the area invites visitors not just to occupy space, but to share it with intention as Marina Central expresses empathy, presence, and togetherness through place-making design.

Ten installations across Marina Square, Millenia Walk, Suntec City and South Beach bring this ethos to life. They include inclusive play and age-friendly fitness zones to restorative design experiences and participatory workshops.

“In a hyper-urban and digitally tethered city like Singapore, it’s easy to overlook the quiet structures of care that hold us together,” said Randy Chan, curator of Design for Care at Marina Central. “Many are well aware of sustainability from an environmental perspective, but we view care as a vital form of sustainable design too. At Marina Central, we sought to surface the often-overlooked threads that weave people, place and planet together. Beyond the idea of sustainability as purely environmental, we see care as a gentle yet powerful design principle. It can strengthen social bonds and lessen the sense of isolation felt in urban cities.”

At Millenia Walk, the Care Pavilion reimagines the iconic Unica Plastic Stool as an architectural symbol of inclusion. Nearby, Care-Full Shelter toys with the structure of traditional bamboo feeding chair at different scales, from personal solitude to community gathering, to provide a whimsical contemplative public space.

Across the district, visitors can also recharge at the Wellbeing Bar, where journaling, affirmations and gratitude are shared social rituals. In addition, explore inclusive design through workshops, art therapy sessions and hands-on experiences; or move through two newly designed inclusive spaces – a sensory-friendly indoor playground for neurodivergent children and SilverActive, an outdoor fitness installation for seniors and persons with disabilities. Over the weekend, festival goers can also shop and swap at Roots & Rituals, a curated market that celebrates self-care, botanical craft and sustainable living.

Orchard Design District

Curated by local design studio Studio Grain, Orchard Design District puts conversations with youths at the heart of Open Design Dialogue (ODD), an invitation to the public to co-create our future through chats, experimentation and collaboration.

Anchored at *SCAPE Playspace, the ODD Low Res Pavilion is designed as a spatial metaphor for exploration and reflection. Built using upcycled plastics by BYO Living and conceived by Studio Grain in collaboration with Nous Nous, This Humid House and kinetic technologist Insert Coin, the pavilion will host talks, showcases, the OFFSITE Creators Market, and performances that explore how the built environment shapes, and is shaped by, human experience.

Holding court within *SCAPE is New Orchard (*SCAPE Commune, L1), an exhibition that showcases five young designers and collectives – Emeline Ong, Habitat Collective, Mark De Winne & Rauf Zulkiflee Soh, Gin&G, and Syafiq Halid – as they reimagine the Orchard-Somerset area into a more soulful, sustainable and inclusive public realm. In addition, the Hoop Bench by Studio Juju offers a moment of quiet in the bustle that will complement communal events throughout the week.

“Orchard has always been a place where youth culture lives and evolves,” said Jerry Goh, founding creative director of Studio Grain and curator of the Orchard Design District. “This year, we wanted to give that energy a platform – not just to express, but to question and to actively participate in the reimagining of what our nation’s future could be.”

Beyond the programmes at *SCAPE, Design In Situ in the malls of Orchard pairs young designers with household brands such as MUJI, Aesop, Beyond The Vines, In Good Company, Moleskine and Castlery to transform retail shops into mini-installations that show how design drives creativity, sustainability, and business innovation.

At MUJI (Plaza Singapura), Hanging Clouds by Catherine Chia and Kiefer Kong, reimagines HDB laundry poles as floating bamboo forms that cradle kapok-filled garments and seeds, a poetic ode to resourcefulness, nature, and balance. At Aesop (ION, Ngee Ann City, and Raffles City), visitors are invited on a botanical journey to interact with sensorial sinks and algae-based bioplastic installations by pioneering materials studio OTHER MATTER.

As part of Design in Situ, visitors can also participate in the ODD Lifestyle Trail and collect custom puzzle pieces from each participating brand to build their own design sculpture for a prize from one of the featured brands.

Signature programmes across SDW’s three pillars

SDW’s core pillars — Design Futures, Design Marketplace, and Design Impact – continue to be reflected in these key events:

Design Futures Forum

Returning for its third edition, Design Futures Forum will take place on 17 September at Victoria Theatre, under the theme “Braving Complexities”. Curated by Aric Chen, Director of the Zaha Hadid Foundation, and Ong Ker-Shing, Co-founder and Director of Lekker Architects, the forum will explore the deepening intersections of sustainability, care, and emerging technologies – and what they mean for the future of design.

This year’s edition also explores how the role of the designer is evolving. Designers are increasingly taking on expanded responsibilities as strategic visionaries, systems thinkers, and ethical advocates. This shift positions the design community to influence organisational strategies, shape public policy, and build more resilient communities.

Speakers and moderators include Dr Ayesha Khanna, CEO and Co-founder of Addo AI, who will speak on the ethical design of AI and building inclusive, future-ready societies; Filmmaker Liam Young, who will present speculative visuals that challenge how we conceive environmental futures; and Theodoric Chew, CEO and Co-founder of Intellect, who bringing technology into mental wellness infrastructure at scale.

With a refreshed format, the forum will include experience zones and food concepts curated by OuterEdit, creating a more immersive and interactive experience for participants.

FIND – Design Fair Asia

FIND – Design Fair Asia returns to Marina Bay Sands from 11 to 13 September 2025 as the anchor event of the Design Marketplace pillar. Now in its fourth edition, the fair will feature over 250 international brands and five national pavilions with an expanded global footprint with first-time participants from France and Hong Kong.

Spanning over 13,000 square metres, FIND continues to grow as Asia’s leading marketplace for design-driven brands, professionals and buyers – connecting East and West through commerce, content and creativity.

Its yearly highlight, the FIND – Global Summit adopts a sharper, more urgent tone, reflecting the shifts in the global design landscape amid accelerating technological innovation, sustainability imperatives, and evolving economic dynamics. Led by content chair, Yoko Choy and featuring sought-after speakers like Mario Cucinella, the summit is framed around three thematic pillars: Architectural Frontiers explores how Asia-Pacific is shaping global architecture through tech integration and circular design; Asia-Pacific Blueprint highlights the region’s rise as a creative hub blending cultural heritage with craftsmanship; Transforming Spaces examines how tradition and innovation are redefining luxury and hospitality for a future-ready world.

EMERGE @ FIND

Alongside the trade fair, EMERGE @ FIND stages its most expansive and inclusive edition yet. For the first time, the showcase is co-curated by a Singaporean, Edwin Low, founder of design brand SUPERMAMA, who joins returning co-curator Suzy Annetta, founding editor of Design Anthology.

Expanding beyond its Southeast Asian roots, the 2025 edition features over 70 designers and more than 100 works, welcoming first-time participants from China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Under the theme Dialogue through Design, the showcase explores design as a medium for exchange, storytelling, and connection across borders, disciplines, and lived experiences. Works span material innovation, heritage reimagining, and new design narratives that reflect both local identities and regional sensibilities.

Besides the main exhibition at Marina Bay Sands, EMERGE @ FIND will also extend into citywide activations. The ongoing EMERGE Prelude Showcase at Supermama’s museum store in the Asian Civilisations Museum will spotlight works by EMERGE alumni till 21 Sep. Following that, Contemporary Asian Design Store will run from 26 September to 24 October 2025, featuring a curated retail collection of market-ready designs from the 2025 edition. Finally, EMERGE continues at Enabling Village with Design Social from 1 to 31 October 2025, focused on inclusive and accessibility-centered design.

Future Impact 3: DESIGN NATION Homecoming Showcase

After turning heads at Milan Design Week 2025, Future Impact 3: DESIGN NATION is set for its highly anticipated homecoming at the National Museum of Singapore.

Co-curated by Tony Chambers, Maria Cristina Didero, and a Singaporean curator, Hunn Wai of Lanzavecchia + Wai, the exhibition brings together 14 Singaporean designers and studios whose works reimagine how we live, connect and care in an ever-evolving world.

Organised into three immersive chapters, the exhibition offers a journey through Singapore’s evolving design story. Little Island of Brave Ideas reflects on how design has fuelled national transformation from public housing and transport systems to innovations like a beer made with purified recycled water, NEWBrew, and colour-coded hawker plates.

In addition, Future Impact 3 features contemporary responses to pressing needs, such as inclusive fashion, urban healthcare, and material innovation while Virtuoso Visionaires spotlights six emerging designers pushing boundaries in circularity, identity, and speculative design futures, including Tan Cun Jia’s exploration of Singlish through visual design and Nazurah Rohayat cutting-edge cultural motifs created in tandem with artificial intelligence.

Fresh collaborations, new experiences

Singapore Design Week 2025 will extend beyond the four Design Districts to activate even more corners of the city – reaching new audiences and communities through unique collaborations.

For the first time, Singapore River Festival joins SDW with a special Design Edition, transforming Boat Quay, Clarke Quay, and Robertson Quay into vibrant destinations. Festival-goers can experience River of Dreams, an immersive projection mapping and light show at Cavenagh Bridge; browse artisanal goods at Dreamriver Market in Robertson Quay; or take part in SingaPaw Dream, a joyful celebration of pets, play and a community walk at Clarke Quay.

The design celebration continues with two specially curated architectural tours: Singapore River Odyssey, a 60-minute boat ride led by heritage educator Yong Min Ho (popularly known as The Urbanist SG) which traces Singapore’s dramatic transformation from godowns to gleaming towers. Illuminating the Past, Heritage Reimagined invites participants on a night photo walk to capture the river’s bridges, buildings, and textures through the lens of light and design. From pet cruises and silent cinemas to guided tours and open-air markets, the festival showcases how design can activate heritage spaces and create joyful connections across generations.

Over at Find Your Folks @ Jalan Besar, the neighbourhood is recast as an eclectic maker’s district. Running through the duration of SDW 2025, the event is organised by LOPELAB and Ice Cream Sundays in partnership with Enterprise Singapore and DesignSingapore Council. Festival-goers can wander using The Makers’ Trail, a self-guided route of site-specific public furniture co-designed with local businesses or see carparks transform into mini public spaces in Park(ing) Day transform. The area’s famed businesses such as Wild Coco, Druggist and Second Thoughts will be serving up more offerings while Hamilton Road will host a lively street party, featuring projection mapping piece inspired by the area’s heritage and music from Darker Than Wax, Nomad Solar Sound and Revision Music. There are also community activations such as a street chess zone, thrift and upcycling workshops, as well as a Skate Jam, which features custom-built skateable installations and friendly skate competitions.

As part of its SG60 season, ArtScience Museum presents the global premier of Another World Is Possible, an exhibition exploring the future through the lens of cinema, architecture, literature, and design. Co-curated with acclaimed filmmaker and speculative architect Liam Young and presented in partnership with ACMI, Melbourne, Australia, the exhibition showcases over 100 works by over 40 contributors, including international names like Icelandic singer Bjork, Kenyan-Canadian photographer Osborne Macharia, Indian artist Osheen Siva, Los Angeles-based composer Shiro Fujioka and16 Singapore-based creatives. From WOHA’s biodiverse vertical cities and Jason Pomeroy’s floating farms to immersive films by Ong Kian Peng, the exhibition explores how technology, culture, and ecology can converge in resilient, hopeful futures. Drawing from Indigenous, Afrofuturist, and Asian perspectives, visitors will journey across seven chapters of cinematic world-building, literary genres, and visionary urban proposals – revealing how they can help us imagine, adapt, and thrive in the face of tomorrow’s challenges.

Late Night Events and Weekend Jaunts

Returning by popular demand, Friday Late will bring back the buzz of after-hours design discovery, now joined by an extended Saturday Spotlight programme.

Over the two festival weekends, SDW Tours by Indie Singapore presents a fuss-free way to experience the spectrum of events. These guided walking and bus tours take visitors through curated highlights across the Design Districts, uncovering the stories, spaces, and surprises of Singapore Design Week 2025.

Festival goers can also enjoy this year’s festival brew Ondeh Ondeh Lager by homegrown beer company Brewerkz, available at its outlets exclusively during the festival, as well as $5 off Grab rides with the code “SDW25”. This code applies to selected routes between Singapore Design Week 2025 key venues including National Design Centre, Geneo, *Scape and Millenia Walk.

Look out for more than 60 ground-up events unfolding island-wide, from exhibitions and talks to community pop-ups and design workshops organised by design community partners. Highlights include Colours of Comfort, a conceptual bedroom installation and slumber party at SOJAO’s Joo Chiat store; Silver Beats, an interactive exhibition led by Singapore’s senior lion dance troupe reimagining tradition through tech; and Designing Together, hands-on hackathons to co-create Singapore’s first inclusive, off-grid coastal pavilion. Designing Together, hands-on hackathons to co-create Singapore’s first inclusive, off-grid coastal pavilion.

“Singapore is a Nation by Design,” said Dawn Lim, Executive Director, DesignSingapore Council. “This year’s Singapore Design Week is a celebration of our distinct creative courage, ideas, and possibilities. It’s a chance to honour what we’ve built together, recognise good design all around us, and to imagine bold new ways forward for our nation and the world.”

Press Assets:
High-res images are available for download HERE.

Full info-kit for listings of the festival’s events is available HERE.

Singapore Design Week 2025
11 September to 21 September 2025
sdw.sg
#SDWSG25 #SingaporeDesignWeek #NationByDesign

About 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.
sdw.sg

About the DesignSingapore Council

The DesignSingapore Council’s (Dsg’s) vision is for Singapore to be an innovation-driven economy and a loveable city by design. As the national agency that promotes design, our mission is to develop the design sector, help Singapore use design for innovation and growth, and make life better in this UNESCO Creative City of Design. Dsg is a subsidiary of the Singapore Economic Development Board.
designsingapore.org