Asia’s annual marketplace for furniture, interiors, and design, FIND Design Fair 2023 is back again for this year’s anchor event of the Singapore Design Week, organised by Design Singapore Council from 21 to 23 September, 2023.
Visit FIND Design Fair at Marina Bay Sands
Located at the heart of Singapore at Marina Bay Sands with exhibition space spanning over 18,000 sqm to house 350 international brands and 50 global speakers, along with a pool of next-generation talent showcases to look forward to.
Following closely to the initial launch in 2022, the international design-focused tradeshow is a platform for a wide range of suppliers from furniture, lighting, home decor, textiles, and smart living technology, along with relevant industries including interior design, property development, retail, as well as workspace sectors.
Here are 10 reasons for you to check out this year’s FIND Design Fair Asia.
FIND Design Fair Asia 2023: 10 Best Highlights
- EMERGE @ FIND: Curated contemporary designs in Southeast Asian
- Seminars at FIND – Global Summit: Developments in the design industry
- Masterclasses with FIND – Global Summit: Insider advice and career guide
- Italia Geniale: A showcase of iconic Italian designs
- Italian Design Futures Capsule, an innovative exhibition space
- Sarawak Design Centre (SARADEC): Multi-ethnic and contemporary designs
- Thailand Pavilion: Sustainable products with natural raw materials
- Compasso D’oro Award Showcase: Winning project showcase
- Roolf Living: Soft and Silky outdoor furniture collection
- Villeroy & Boch: Showcasing Antao, Mettlach, and Artis collections
EMERGE @ FIND: Curated contemporary designs in Southeast Asian
The curatorial theme for this year’s edition “CRAFT + INDUSTRY: MAN + MACHINE”, as curated by Design Anthology’s editor-in-chief, Suzy Annetta, and presented by DesignSingapore Council will feature works by emerging and established designers from all over Southeast Asian countries, with each piece deeply considered and shaped by the various approaches.
Seminars at FIND – Global Summit: Developments in the design industry
Curated in hand with industry insiders panel and Yoko Choy, China editor of Wallpaper* Magazine and Chair of Content for FIND Design Fair Asia, the seminars conducted at FIND – Global Summit discuss important developments in the design industry.
The seminars will focus on five pillars including regenerative design, the Asian blueprint, the innovation era, creativity, commerce, and communication, as well as holistic hospitality, you can expect valuable insights through the fruitful discussions with experts and industry professionals that will be held over three days.
Masterclasses with FIND – Global Summit: Insider advice and career guide
Conducted by Italian interiors and INTERNI, the contemporary design magazine, the masterclasses will provide insightful insider advice and career guide for industry players. In one of the masterclasses on “How to Become an Icon”, designers can learn how to stand out and lean in on the uniqueness of their individualism.
Italia Geniale: A showcase of iconic Italian designs
Travel back in time and journey through the history and iconic Italian industrial design pieces, with the unique installation, Italia Geniale which showcases significant materials, objects, and artefacts used in some of these masterpieces.
The one-of-a-kind installation, ‘Italia Geniale’, is a collection created by the Association for Industrial Design (ADI), and the latest collaboration between the Italian Embassy in Singapore with the support of ICE and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA).
Italian Design Futures Capsule, an innovative exhibition space
Breaking away from traditional exhibition spaces, the Italian Design Future Capsule as designed by Studio Boeri Interiors is a creative space filled with multiple opportunities, various themed areas, and exciting itineraries.
Aside from the talk arenas and dedicated meeting lounges, there are also areas specially catered for young designers, as well as special exhibitions, food stalls, coupled with designated areas for socialising and relaxing.
Sarawak Design Centre (SARADEC): Multi-ethnic and contemporary designs
With the theme this year as “Design for Tomorrow”, the SARADEC trade exhibitions will present contemporary designs for specific markets including Europe, Middle East, and Singapore, with multi-ethnic works from young furniture design talents that fuse culture and nature.
Dayang Nena Abang Bruce, Chief Executive of SARADEC believes that the FND design fair is a great platform for promoting the young designers’ creative works, as well as Sarawak’s very own furniture brand.
Thailand Pavilion: Sustainable products with natural raw materials
With a focus on circular economy and closing the loop in product life cycles, Thailand Pavilion will showcase sustainable products from a group of 15 Thai entrepreneurs as curated by the government in highlighting Thailand’s creative potential in making a positive global impact and contribution to the circular economy.
You can expect to see ideas with the use of bamboo and sugar palm wood in furniture-making by AmoArte, Anon Pairot Design Studio’s expertise in local craft methods to create furniture and home accessories, and Deesawat’s use of teak as a raw material in producing the Parallel Collection pieced together from leftover materials.
Compasso D’oro Award Showcase: Winning project showcase
In collaboration with Milan-based ADI Design Museum, the winning projects of the Compasso D’oro Awards will be showcased at the design fair. The award showcase is a collection of products and projects recognising the design value process and leaving an impression on the realms of production and society.
Roolf Living: Soft and Silky outdoor furniture collection
The outdoor living brand from Belgium, Roolf Living will be introducing its latest Silky collection, a full outdoor seating option including poufs and rugs that are soft to the touch and are made of a silk-look fabric.
Adopting the noble English stitching finishing in its products, Roolf Living’s seats also come with an inner pocket, as well as removable covers that will work for both indoor and outdoor seating.
Villeroy & Boch: Showcasing Antao, Mettlach, and Artis collections
Celebrating its 275-year anniversary this year, the German manufacturer of ceramics for bathroom to dining, Villeroy & Boch launched new novelties and will be presenting three collections, including Antao, Mettlach, and Artis.
For the surface-mounted washbasins, Artis will be featuring three new rich and expressive colours inspired by nature, moving away from the traditional and clinical white wash zones.
FIND Design Fair Asia 2022: Highlights
We look back at some of our favourite finds and emerging trends that we saw this year at FIND – Design Fair Asia 2022, the first new annual design fair in Singapore to emerge post-pandemic.
Running for three days in late September, FIND – Design Fair Asia was the first new design-focused trade fair that emerged after the pandemic years.
Organised by dmg events, Fiera Milano, and Design Singapore Council, it is one of the anchor events of the Singapore Design Week 2022 that brought local and international brands and creatives, both established and emerging, to Singapore to showcase their wares, develop new partnerships and exchange their knowledge.
We’ve seen plenty of interesting products and noticed a few emerging trends that reflect the shifts in how we engage with our spaces in the post-pandemic world.
Here are 20 of our favourite highlights and trends from the FIND Design Fair Asia 2022 in Singapore that could inspire your home and decor for the year ahead:
- Innovative surfaces and finishes that are sustainable
- Inclusive design catering to special-needs users, helping underprivileged communities
- Everyday objects reinvented
- Art but design objects
- Made of waste design objects
Cosentino’s Dekton: Ultra-Compact Surfaces
In spatial design, surfaces and finishes are just as important as furniture. And these wowed us with their look, feel, and sustainability missions.
Cosentino’s virtually indestructible Dekton range has taken inspiration from Venetian stucco and recreated it convincingly via millions of pixels in Dekton Kraftizen.
Available in five colours, the collection lends a handmade touch to any room with all the benefits of the brand’s patented ultra-compact surface.
Lamitak Laminate: 55 New Designs
Intervention is the theme of local laminate brand Lamitak’s 2023/24 collection, which comprises 55 new designs in four collections: Woods, Solids, Patterns and Specialties.
It also pledged to reduce waste by halving the number of its samples. Some of our favourites include the chalky Microcement finish and the Newedge by Lamitak, a collection of ABS edging that seals and protects carpentry works.
Italian Paint Coatings by Valpaint
Oh, the things you can do with the right paint! Italian brand Valpaint specialises in interior and exterior coatings.
Some of these are very fancy, including textures akin to a peeling, ageing baroque wallpaper, metallic finish indistinguishable from actual corten steel to the eye, and many more.
Valpaint sends its products in the form of painting kits and has trained artisans and installers all over the world to reproduce it to specific sites.
i-Mesh Textile: Runners Collection
A non-woven textile made of durable and unbeatable fibres, i-Mesh is an absolute novelty within the construction market.
Suitable for both indoor and outdoor applications, i-Mesh is highly customisable to your space.
You can send your specification to the brand to create your own bespoke panels or choose one from their Runners Collection – the possibility is limitless
Huggu Bean Bags for Mental Wellbeing
We were elated to find products with a more inclusive ethos, whether catering to special-needs users, striving to help a marginalised and underprivileged community, or using local, sustainable materials, such as Huggu, Jaipur Rugs, and Mountain Living.
An absolutely delightful find, Huggu is a collaboration between Doob Bean Bags and creative agency Stuck Design.
They have transplanted bean bags’ ability to inspire calmness by helping the sensory regulation of their users into a plush armchair that hugs you with its cushions.
Huggu aims to benefit neurotypical and neurodivergent users using therapy principles, thus improving their mental health and wellbeing.
Jaipur Rugs’ Manchacha collection
Jaipur Rugs’ Manchaha collection hits two trends in this article – inclusive design and the one-of-a-kind art objects.
The Manchacha collection merges design and social impact that yields a collection of one-of-a-kind rugs.
The company lets their weavers, most of whom are women working from their homes in rural India, weave spontaneously, creating unique designs that lend personality to our space while enabling their communities.
Mountain Living’s Lotus Paste Collection
Showcased at SFIC’s Urban Living installation, furniture brand Mountain Living’s Lotus Paste collection is made with lotus plaster developed in Taiwan.
Comprising silt found in reservoirs, the use of this plaster can potentially solve Taiwan’s sludge problem while giving the furniture industry a new alternative for waterproof materials.
Combined with wood, the Lotus Paste collection looks truly at home in our urban environments
Read Also: FIND Design Fair Asia: Singapore’s A Hotbed for International Design Trade Fairs
Dooor’s Italian Folding Doors
The pandemic drives home the importance of our home and everyday objects. At the fair, we also saw utilitarian fixtures reimagined and redesigned into something more, such as Dooor, Ipse Ipse Ipsum, Cycling Bears, Rastrullo, and Ziptrak:
The folding doors made their debut in Italy in the 1950s during the height of modern architecture, and Dooor brand was founded in 1962 to provide stylish renditions of them.
Displayed at the Italian Design Showcase, Dooor’s collections will add decorative design value and flexibility to your spaces.
Ipse Ipse Ipsum’s MacRitchie Side Terranium Table
A terrarium inside a table is not a super new concept, but Ipse Ipse Ipsum brings a fresh take on it with the MacRitchie side table.
The side table features innovative clay pellets designed to retain water, so you only have to water the garden once a month. You can also customise your garden.
Joseph Rastrullo’s Designer Electric Fan
In the absence of an aircon, a floor fan is a staple in our hot and humid climate, yet do you buy them because of the design?
Filipino designer Joseph Rastrullo saw a gap in the market for designer electric fans and created Poly, a polyhedron electric fan made from GI wire that instantly turns a mundane corner into a stylish setting.
Cycling Bears: A Glass Exercise Bike
Home fitness was all the rage during the pandemic, which gave rise to designer gym and home gym equipment you’d be proud to display instead of scrambling to hide when guests are coming.
Cycling Bears, a new local luxury fitness equipment brand founded just this year, carries an extensive range of functional and display-worthy fitness equipment, including the famous Ciclotte glass exercise bike and Pent’s solid wood collection.
Ziptrak’s Venti Mesh Fabric
Ziptrak distributor and blinds specialist ClimaShield’s booth showcases how we can turn awkward spaces, like a triangular room, or into a stylish entertaining space.
It was a very simple solution – by installing blinds courtesy of Ziptrak’s Venti Mesh fabric. Combined with the brand’s Black Out fabric and control, no space is too awkward to turn highly functional.
Riva1920’s Venice Console
Riva1920 is one of the most famous Italian brands exhibiting at FIND, and though it is not new, its Venice console feels timely with the trend of using waste and salvaged materials.
Designed by Claudio Bellini in 2011, the console features a polished steel top supported by a series of solid Briccola wood posts salvaged from the Venice Lagoon.
Each post bears the marks of its illustrious life, making each console unique. Venice has switched to using steel posts for its structures, so this console is now a limited edition – get it while it lasts. In Singapore, Riva1920 is carried by Royal Interiors.
Read More: Singapore Design Week 2022: Highlights of the Design Weekend
Italian Artisan Ceramics by Ovo
At the FIND Design Fair Asia 2022, we also found a series of objects that straddled the line between art and design comfortably, in the likes of Ovo, and Aina Kari’s Murano glass candles.
Ovo is an Italian artisanal ceramics brand that produces vessels and decorative sculptures that bridge classic and contemporary sensibilities.
At FIND, the brand showcases its latest 3D-printed vases. Their organic quality reminds one of the coral reefs in bright colours that spice up any contemporary or neoclassic interiors.
Aina Kari’s Murano Glass Candles
A bonafide and certified high-end Italian sustainable brand, Aina Kari produces scented candles in artisanal vessels that includes Murano glass, marbles and other eco-sustainable materials.
Our favourite finds include the Stravedamento, a Mouthblown Murano glass with individually crafted water droplets – named after the rare weather occurrences in Venice where the sky is so clear you can see the mountains beyond the sea – supported by a Palissandro Marble decorative centrepiece.
Furmidable: Rugs From A Dog Groomer’s Trash
Moving on to the Emerge @FIND showcase, here were some of the intriguing items by South-east Asian designers made of waste that we found:
A dog grooming service in Singapore shaves one kilogramme of dog hair daily, which ends up in a landfill.
NUS graduate Cynthia Chan’s Furmidable project explores chiengora (dog) fibres for rugs and upholsteries. Alas, the actual prototypes were in Paris during FIND, but the photos look cool.
Stanley Ruiz’s Contrapunto Lights
The spider lily plant, known in the Philippines as bakong, is an invasive species regularly culled and thrown away.
Filipino designer Stanley Ruiz incorporates the plant into his lighting collection Contrapunto. The bakong waste is turned into pellets that are melted and injected into metal moulds to create biocomposite plastic bins, which form the base of Contrapunto.
Vietnamese Designer Phuong Dao’s Coffee Ground Furniture
Coffee grounds have emerged as one of the most exciting post-consumer waste materials in recent years, with independent designers and corporations like Starbucks looking to incorporate it into their businesses.
Vietnamese designer Phuong Dao’s Ca Rang collection sees paper waste and coffee grounds mixed with adhesive to create a rustic furniture collection with a monolithic structure guaranteed to start conversations.
Read Also: Boutique Fairs Singapore: A fashion, art, design shopping event
Thai Designer Saruta Kiatparkpoom’s PiN Metal Art
The family of Thai designer Saruta Kiatparkpoom – who goes by the nickname Pin – owns a factory that produces small industrial metal parts.
Witnessing how much post-industrial waste produced by the factory every day, Pin was inspired to use the perforated metal sheets from the productions to make homewares like lamps and mirrors. Thus her design label, PiN Metal Art, was born.
Indonesian Designer Adhi Nugraha’s Cow Dung Objects
Perhaps the most talked about product on the exhibition floor, Dung is a collection of accessories, lighting objects and radios made of – you guessed it – cow dung.
Designed by Bandung-based Indonesian industrial designer Adhi Nugraha, the collection has a texture akin to papier mache derived from the cellulose fibre yielded by the washed and cleaned dung. And to answer your question, no, they don’t smell and are safe to have in your home; they look cute too.