Playground of Possibilities

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Stories of Design Innovation and Possibilities in Singapore

The Playground of Possibilities brought together 12 design projects from Singapore that tackle some of the most pressing challenges we face today with innovative solutions and inspiring provocations as the key showcase for Singapore Design Week 2023 at the National Design Centre.

The exhibition presented an immersive playscape of four colourful landscapes—Explore, Empathise, Imagine and Adapt—with an array of experiential installations. Visitors were able to feel how building facades of tomorrow can naturally cool like the skin of an elephant, visit a “mini” public housing town designed to be dementia-friendly, meet a friendly robot who serves visitors while keeping them safe and play in a kitchen with “smart” ceramic tableware that responds to the human touch.

Other installations explored ways to reinvent the gifting of flowers and fruits to be more sustainable, tailored a more inclusive fashion for persons with disabilities and worked with migrant workers to create a more welcoming dormitory room. There are also examples of how digital technologies are being harnessed to make learning more interactive and to improve public services. Finally, experiments with 3D-printing to customise medical prosthetics for better patient outcomes and even one that speculates on the future of design, were showcased as well.

Photo Credit: Pretty Much Films
Key visual applied on exhibition wall.
The exhibition presented an immersive playscape of four colourful landscapes—Explore, Empathise, Imagine and Adapt. These are splint amongst colour-coded zones in the exhibition space with each zone offering an experiential experience for visitors to engage with.
Imagine Zone (Red) & Explore Zone (Green)
Empathy Zone (Blue) & Adapt Zone (Yellow)
Photo Credit: Pretty Much Films
The exhibition texts do not limit themselves to their own surface but flows and wraps across the various surfaces of the exhibition right down to the floor, reflecting the limitless nature of possibilities in design.
The exhibition features elements of interactivity of play.
Photo credit: Pretty Much Films
Introducing the Pals of Possibilities—Explore, Empathise, Imagine and Adapt taking on a life of their own in the workshop space, as large inflatables that house design inputs from visitors. Hundreds of design ideas and responses were gathered over the course of the exhibition.