Photo by: Kevin Yang, Genine Loo
DesignSingapore Council’s Senior Manage Genine Loo was featured in the Public Service Division’s Challenge magazine for her role in reviewing the President*s Design Award (PDA) in 2016. The P*DA is Singapore’s highest accolade for designers and designs across all disciplines.
Genine has a colourful and varied resume, from working as a multimedia art collective in Shanghai, to being a local interior design intern, and pursuing a postgraduate research degree in Environmental Design at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her career path has given her a wide knowledge base on the design industry to draw from.
Genine’s time at Goldsmiths taught her to challenge common conventions of design and question the who, what and how of a project. She also spent some time with a London landscape architect, where a redesign proposal for a beloved community area was immediately rejected by outraged locals, a reminder that design should go hand-in-hand with on-the-ground user consultation.
These precious lessons were incorporated into a meticulous review process to relook the award’s structure, processes and programmes. This led to the refreshed P*DA that places greater emphasis on impact – assessing how designs enables economic transformation, raises quality of life or advances the Singapore Brand for instance.
Read the full article at Challenge Magazine: https://www.psd.gov.sg/challenge/people/profile/redesigning-a-top-design-award
