Touring Prototype Island with Design Singapore Council

Since it was established in 1934, appliance specialist Fisher & Paykel has been committed to delivering wares that put people first. The New Zealand-based brand understands that the kitchen is at the heart of the home, a social space where quality and luxury can combine to lead to better quality of life. It's this concept that the brand will explore across three special episodes of Monocle on Design, where we'll unpack high-end manufacturing, sense of place and flexibility in design. Priorities of Fisher and Peichel that produce spaces for connection, conversation and conviviality. This is Monocle on Design, a show where we discuss everything from architecture and craft to furniture and graphic design. I'm Nick Meneese. On today's program, a tour around Prototype Island. The exhibition was Design Singapore Council's showcase for Milan Design Week. We explore the works on display with curator Hun Wai. With Zoe Chan, we look at how design can change the lives of those living with diabetes. We also combine technology and tradition with Aditi Neti, plus a look into the future with Carlos Bagnon. All that coming up on Monocle on Design. Hello and welcome to this special episode of Monocle on Design. Today we're returning to Milan Design Week to visit Prototype Island, an exhibition hosted by Design Singapore Council. In a palazzo on Foro Bonaparte in the Brera Design District, it showcased the city-state as a living prototype, continuously evolving and optimising using Singaporean talent and knowledge to solve global challenges. The works of 15 designers and studios featured in the showcase, spanning craft-focused practice to technology-led innovation. Three key themes emerged, with participating creatives looking at technology and material ecologies, craft and cultural continuity, and everyday infrastructure. Across the next 30 minutes, we'll hear from some of this outstanding Singaporean talent. But to kick off today's show, I'm joined by Hun Wai. Founder of Singapore and Italy-based practice Lanza Vecchia and Wai, he's also the lead curator of Prototype Island. We started by discussing how Singapore might be culturally predisposed to be a design leader and explored the thinking and ambition behind the exhibition, which, while rooted in local talent, has international significance. so we are in a very classical milanese courtyard in the middle of brera one of the situations where on normal days you don't know what's going on behind the doors but during design week is when the lights start to happen and we are having a lot of beautiful landscape foliage that frames the door and above it with this beautiful bright hyper blue prototype island this beautiful contrast so we can catch some eyes on the street but also have a certain beautiful good do you know that that blue is the colour of enlightenment. I did not know that. In many cultures. So we're entering Prototype Island, we're going to learn. We're going to learn many things. I mean, prototyping is an attitude, it's an approach. Singapore has always had since 1965 when we gained independence. Previously, we had to go to survival mode, we had to solve housing, we had to solve jobs, we had to solve water, my goodness, we had to solve economy, education, so on and so forth, right? And this was all through prototyping? Through prototyping, I mean, we had to figure out, we had no friends, We didn't ask for independence. We had to be independent. And innovation has always been the core strategy. Prototyping, in that case, prototyping and iterating has always been a core strategy in everything that we do. And we always adapt. I mean, while we do take pride and take some time out with what we have achieved, but we never stop. And we're always like, what's next? What's next? And we have the resources and we have the networks and we have the deeply intellectual and educated population. So then tell me a little bit, so you've picked it because I guess that's the word prototype is, I guess, instinctive perhaps to Singaporeans. I mean, when you're starting to think about the national, can I call it a national design identity for Singapore, what does that look like? Prototyping is part of it? Yeah, prototyping is definitely part of it. But if we were to frame it, you know, the edges of the frame would look like things like design for impact. So it's design for impact, social impact, healthcare, sustainability. these are urgent things that affect the survivability of the island and also the attractiveness of the island and I think that's very important from a very basic level that's the seed of all this but I think we have moved beyond just being survival mode now we're in thriving mode, what's next, what's next and these young generation, they are born in the late 90s, 2000s so I think there's a bit of inward-lookingness or they're also very brave they're not afraid to mash things up or to take apart I wonder how does certain craft look like with AI technology? So it's all about reconciling or navigating new ways of urgent matters because we're just so exposed. But at the same time, you know what, these solutions, which with very ingenious thinking are also scalable for worldwide. So it's local yet global at the same time. I want to ask a little bit about, you mentioned craft and technology. I mean, is this a concern or a focus or a priority for Singaporean designers? And how do you kind of bridge the two? Is it dangerous to lean too much into one and not the other? I think craft is a manifestation of culture. If we begin to lose craft, then our culture becomes, it degrades. And a lot of times it's due to technology, social media. Now social media, I'm sure in the future, is something else beyond maybe 5D media, whatever it is, right? So I think craft and therefore culture usually gets left behind because it is not of the moment or not upgraded so that the next generation can receive it, can make it their own. And I think that's something that we're trying to do and have done, you know, in very exciting and thought-provoking design projects that we can see at the show. You mentioned earlier as well this idea of going from surviving to thriving. What does that mean in Singapore today and for these designers? I guess thriving, I guess surviving would mean that, because I think creativity is a common tool that we use and prototyping as well. I think back in the day, it was more towards what is the commercial impact? How do we bring more business into Singapore? Everything was a bit more around economical intents and systems and considerations. But I think now that's kind of established, and we are at a state where these young Singaporeans get it. So what else? I mean, we've been using it for all these intents and purposes and formats. What could be the next level of meaning, right? And what do we want it to mean for ourselves? What does it mean to be Singaporean? Singaporean and what does it mean to have Singaporean design come out of our part of the world and what does it mean to be in our part of the world even right so I mean now we have the time and space to actually look at what we have truly inherited versus always on the tight short leash of like I need to make money with this, I need to have a commercial impact with this, I think we are having that time and space and socio-economical and socio-cultural capital So a moment, you know, where we can really begin like to dream and to share the dreams and manifestations of those dreams with everyone. I'm curious as well, because this is a national showcase. What role does Singapore's geography play in the evolution? And maybe it's history as well. Yeah, so I've actually been looking at that. I went to Indonesia and I found out that, oh, wow, Stanford Raffles was in this part of the world for all these reasons, with colonialism and all this, and how does that affect us? I mean, Singapore has always been blessed with its geographical location. I mean, we are sitting at a place where in a physical and geopolitical and geo-economical sense, it's very, very precious. It's the only place where you can pass through to the next major cities and major ports in the world from the west to the east. I think that has translated to, over the years, Because of this location, we've also transformed it into a place where a lot of intelligentsia pass through, a lot of academics pass through, a lot of new ideas, huge companies, skill transfer pass through, cultures pass through. I know all my American and then UK and European, German and Italian pop culture. I can talk to my partner about, yeah, that Italian cartoon. It's like, what? How do you know this? Yeah, Singapore. Right. So it's both from a hard and soft main channel of culture and commerce. So I guess that is something that we need to be, in a way, very skillful with this transientness and passing of information and culture and economics and data through us And I guess for this national show it really how do we make sense of that and what is our place not only in the world but also in our Southeast Asian region Have you come to any conclusions about what that place is through curating this show? I guess it's a place where people can manifest ideas, can manifest passions, can manifest intentions. And there's always the support, not only from the government, but from private. So if there is a will, there is a way and there are resources and there are networks. So I think that is the main takeaway. That is the main, I won't say selling point, but I think it's just a place like, hey, you have a great idea. Come and we'll figure it out and we'll make it happen. Next up, we're going to meet Zoe Chan, a multidisciplinary designer and a James Dyson Award winner. she's the driving force of NEATO, short for Neat Insulin Daily Organiser. The design is a response to her own experience living with type 1 diabetes. It's a small cuboid which allows users to store, eject and organise needles safely and discreetly. The form is efficient and aesthetically pleasing, with outstanding industrial design employed to imbue healthcare with dignity. To find out more about the project, this show's producer, Hassan Anderson, caught up with Zoe at Prototype Island in Milan. It was my very first year of uni so the year I decided to choose industrial design I got diagnosed and it was a completely isolating experience. I think no one expects you to be diabetic at 20 and there was a lot of pressure you know like my family was already saying is it because you like eat too much is it because you don't exercise so there's already a lot of misconceptions going around because type 1 is not due to your lifestyle factors but it's due to your genetic condition. And being a first year design student did that mean that your mind immediately started thinking about solutions? How long into the diagnosis and coming to terms with that did you think there might be a new way of approaching this with a design mind? I think the first year I was diagnosed I was completely overwhelmed with just the diagnosis and information. I think there was a lot to manage and learn about the condition. Only when it came time to my thesis, my fourth year, I decided to... Okay, so in my first year, I basically didn't tell anyone I got diagnosed with type 1. I only told maybe three of my closest friends, so it was just unknown in my school, and no one else I knew was diagnosed. So when it came time for the fourth year, I decided I wanted to do something about it. I wanted to confront my diagnosis and stop being so scared. And I started seeing my condition as an opportunity instead, you know, to do something about it because we're already such a small community in Singapore. I wanted to be like sort of a small voice for people like me. And tell us a bit about where the idea to change how the diabetic pen is used and experienced came from there's a granular set of processes you need to go through in order to make sure that you get your insulin tell us a bit about what that experience is like and how it gave rise to Nino this wasn't done in silos I didn't do it myself when I first started I was trying to tackle more of a systemic side of diabetes you know like how maybe the government subsidies might not be enough, how we get our medication. I wanted to tackle that at first. But upon speaking with many users like me, I found out there's this like hidden challenge that only we relate to but other people don't know about. And it was really this step of like injecting yourself. It's an everyday routine for us. But why is it not better design? And when I had that conversation with others, like they were telling me, oh, I had to DIY my own pouch. I had to sew my own pouch. I was like, that's kind of like the area that I was looking for so that's where I started to get deeper and diving and I also realized oh I also have challenges but I kind of internalized it myself I said this is normal you know this is how everyone does it this is how I should do it but that's not the case you know I wanted to redefine what normal is. What were the challenges you faced when rethinking I guess a design that's been around for so so long and for you this situation has come later in your life yeah what were some of the design challenges you faced when trying to rethink how this process worked i think a really good insight that i gained from this experience is that everyone who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes experienced it differently so at the start when i thought you know just designing a pouch would be quite simple it was not the case because everyone has a different routine you know some people might prefer injecting on the go but some people might prefer to be very methodical and sit down and inject so even though this 30 seconds routine we do it very very very differently so my earlier designs kind of force people into a certain way like you should maybe clip your pen this way use your pen this way and use your needles this way but it kind of over constrained them and upon talking to them we found out that you know oh i actually inject myself like this i inject myself like this so how can i make this product standardized in a way but also flexible to the different routines that we all have. It's not just the function that is a design problem for you, it's also the form and you've talked about almost like the social experience of people that have diabetes and so part of the design that you've gone with is also to add some colour and some finesse and some style. Could you tell us a bit about that? So during my explorations, once I had that clip mechanism down, a lot of it was the exterior of it, how it would look like. While some people were saying, oh, maybe white will look classy, a majority of them actually said, I hate that if it looked too clinical. I want it to be something I'm proud to show my friends. I'm proud to carry it out. I'm happy to keep in my bag and pull it out if it matches my accessories. so we started integrating fun colours. We did pink, green, until eventually we landed on a standout colour of orange because it complements well with the needles. And the form of it was also tested. So for the shell of needle, there's actually this sharp angle at the bottom that's supposed to, well, functionally, it provides an affordance for people to squeeze like this at the end, to squeeze to eject the needles. but also it reduces the profile of it to be slimmer and makes it easier to fit into your pockets. So imagine if the angle wasn't there. So it was a lot about this surface testing and working with the users to understand what form looks the friendliest, doesn't look too clinical and what colours were like they wouldn't feel ashamed to bring out to the public. Before, my friends wouldn't really care about when I inject But now when I bring out this product, they ask, what does it do? Oh, actually, you know, how do you manage your blood glucose level? So it's really a starter conversation topic that you can build around. And that's the main goal of NIDO, you know, not just to help make our lives easier, but also help raise awareness about the overlooked challenges of type 1 diabetes. Aditi Netti is a Singapore-based creative technologist and design researcher, originally from India. In Milan, she presented a work called Of Curves and Hands, which shows how new technology and manufacturing processes can be used to create traditional cultural craft. It's an ambition explored through Aditi's automated production of Colum, a traditional South Asian geometric line drawing, which is created daily at thresholds using rice flour. To find out more about her technology-driven iteration of this cultural practice, it's back to Prototype Island where Hassan Anderson caught up with Aditi. So kola making is a traditional practice often done by the women of the households in South India or even in the Tamil community in Singapore. And what it is, it's basically a series of dots and loops and sort of like a design that is made out of like rice flour usually and it done in the morning at the threshold of the doorway it indicates the health of the household or the fact that the people inside are happy and healthy and it also wards off evil spirits etc and kolam specifically in Sanskrit means form and here that form refers to dots and loops and lines. So I am Telugu and in my own culture as well Telugu is a state in South India and we also practice a form of kolam making and a couple of years ago during Diwali which is a festival in India the festival of lights it's also typical to draw a lot of columns during these festivals. And I sat down and I thought, okay, you know, this form or this pattern has surrounded me my entire life, but I've never really engaged with this practice and neither has my family. So Of Curves and Hands was a way for me to sort of like learn about this ritual, but through the lens of my practice, which is how culture and technology and nature can intersect in meaningful ways. And especially with this cultural ritual, I want to understand how, you know, it can be translated through technology without, But while still preserving, okay, that tactile, tangible routine in some cases of picking up rice flour and then moving your hands around, crouching down, bending. It's a very embodied process. How can that be captured or translated through technology without, you know, losing it? And I think rather than it being a snap of a finger and like a column appears, I'd like people to be more immersed in the process and maybe even make some columns themselves. so in this medium I used hand gesture capturing library called ML5 which captures gestures that users can make and similar to how you would make an original column the user or visitor can make a pinching gesture to make a column and to complete it and eventually it would be drawn by a series of many many plotters that I have on display as well so essentially here it's just to invite especially since this is a confluence of many different cultures and people from all sorts of different backgrounds I wanted to number one communicate that hey you know this is a really wonderful practice and number two how can this practice be translated without being just a replica but rather how can people be more involved in the making process. So where did the idea to take machines to create something that's traditionally hand-drawn but with the aim to make it inclusive and preserving of a ancient practice that is very much connected to using hands and hand making. So I think I have to start with this aspect of AI generated images. The engagement of AI especially in the past two to three years has increased greatly. I see a lot of people, especially people who have never engaged with art as a practice before, sort of like generating images instantaneously through prompt. And I think while those kind of methodologies have merit, I feel there's so much value in the process that I think is being lost, to be very honest. You know, people are impatient, people want instantaneous results and I think in my case I also have really been trying to get people to just embrace the process a little bit more and even with Colum you know this art form it has been modernized in its own way especially in India you get stickers that you can just put on your doorway or you get you know like stencils you know a lot of different ways or shortcuts I would call them not that they are without their merit I think they make it convenient for a lot of women of the household. But I just think when you're searching for instantaneous results or when you're sort of searching for speed, what's the point? Why not do it yourself and enjoy that process? And so initially with this project, I thought, okay, what is the value of a digitally generated column that is created pretty much instantaneously? And I found myself feeling dissatisfied with that because I wanted to see a physical outcome in some way, which is why I turned to plotters, which can essentially make your thing exist in real life. And I think if it's okay, I'd like to pull out a quote by Walter Benjamin who says that even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element, its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be. And I thought that was so valuable because when you make something exist in a tangible form, it has so much value. I think there's this aspect of it existing that is so valuable or your creation existing in a physical form and not in a fleeting digital image. And of course, the column gets wiped away. It is meant to be transient. It's never meant to be permanent. But I think there's something very satisfactory about seeing something you made be enacted or be sort of manifested in a very physical, in this case, even analog form. And I think there's a lot of value to that. It brings me on to my next question, which is sort of about your design ethos. and it's a counterintuitive one but I really like it and it's this idea that we use technology to slow our lives down not speed it up. Is that right to summarize us? That's exactly it. I think people are getting more impatient they want results fast and what I'm trying to look at is slow uses of technology that in general make us take a step back and sort of number one observe the environment around us, observe the world around us, but also, number two, bring back so many practices that have existed for centuries and bring them into this modern world without, you know, making them instantaneous. So I think, how do we translate these really embodied practices that have gone back centuries and developed over time? How do we preserve that or rather translate it into present day, where it still has a place and also more importantly has meaning? Let's talk a little bit about your background as a designer and also what motivates you, because as I understand it and as we were seeing demonstrated in your design here at Prototype Island, you're embracing tradition, there's history, there's socio-political aspects to this. Talk to me about how you became a designer and what is it that motivates you when you come up with new ideas? So I grew up in Bangalore, India, which is also known as the Silicon Valley of India. And in my family and generally in a lot of contexts around me, it's the norm to sort of go into engineering or become a doctor. Typically in my family, engineering was the way to go. But I always found myself more interested in artistic practices. And initially I started off with, you know, drawing as a medium. And I ended up going into graphic design and enjoying even using technology like Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop to sort of create outcomes. and then seeing them printed out on hoodies, on posters, on more physical outcomes. So I've always enjoyed seeing something that was crafted on a digital tool being like emerged, like seeing a physical outcome of it. But then I moved to Singapore at the end of it. And Singapore is a great melting pot of so many different cultures. And not just cultures, but also ideologies. And I think, as you might see around Prototype Island, it's a great way of, you know, you have Malaysian influences, you have Chinese influences, You have Singaporean Peranakan influences and even Tamil Indian influences. And everything sort of becomes one mishmash and new things emerge from it. And I really enjoyed that. And I went into design education initially thinking I would do graphic design at LaSalle College of the Arts in Singapore. But I ended up doing computational design because I found that my previous context of engineering really merged well with this aspect of design or even graphic design. and I found myself wanting to be a creative technologist. And since then I've been sort of networking or meeting a lot of really interesting people in Singapore that do amazing things and many of them are present here in Prototype Island. And I love Singapore. I think it's such a great representation of how technology can be leveraged to reflect the needs of society while also respecting the different cultures that coexist there, especially the design Singapore Council is trying its best to highlight different designers or highlight different initiatives that sort of do this but yeah I think if I had to describe Singapore as a you know it really pushed me to look at intersections or this you know Venn diagram and you know the intersection space so you mentioned earlier that my work is a confluence of many different disciplines in a sense or sort of like areas of theory or like thought and I feel that It just emerges from, it's a reflection of Singapore being that, you know, an intersection of so many different things. How can we use new computational paradigms to ensure people remain a priority when designing a better world That something that Carlos Bagnon and Yi Ping Go are exploring with their firm Formus AI This AI-native design studio and platform is built for architects and designers and aims to empower them to move easily from concept drawings to photorealistic visualizations. It's a system that allows creatives to explore, test, and refine ideas without surrendering authorship to an algorithm. It's an ambition that looks to ensure creative freedom and efficient design delivery too. For more, here's Hasan Anderson in conversation with Carlos at Prototype Island. Formas AI is a new space for designers that enable different ways and new ways to create, mostly from human inputs. I mean, we believe that AI is not here to replace our skills. So Formas basically empowers your sketches, your vision using different modes, different notes, text, and to create something that basically responds to your intent. And how did the idea of using AI to aid design in this way come about? Well, I think it's an issue that I felt that was happening to many people, including myself. working with AI, you can feel that you are drifted somewhere. You are losing agency because the model pulls you to certain biases. So I felt that I wanted to bring that control to designers, to students. So basically the human input, which is a sketch or simple geometries, a rectangle, a proportionate shape, can be the way that we can own the output. So the idea was to get AI, work for us, and not being drifted fully. Because there is a suspicion in design and creative industries more generally of AI as a technology because it would strip the human hand within the design or it would create a kind of homogenized approach. And people describe that as AI slot. How did you go about thinking of this technology differently? and what kind of challenges were there to overcome the outcome that most people say is a bad one? Well, I think Formas, the foundations is actually very deep into knowing the field very well. Design architecture requires education, requires training. And most of the apps are just doing whatever design, whatever geometry you pass. But I think the foundations of learning how design happens, what is the transformation, what are the parameters, the context that needs to be provided is needed. Otherwise, AI will do a terrible job. So basically, Formas provides that framework for you to design, to really be focused on designing, not being focused on which model you need to use or which parameter you need to touch. It's basically a design space. So behind the scenes, we orchestrate more than 80 models. So they are connected and orchestrated to empower the design process. So it's not straightforward. That's why it's a lot of science behind, but it feels very natural, which is our intention. It's like the designer don't want to be thinking of AI. They want to design. So that platform is basically a very natural space for designers. So tell us a little bit about the design of this design tool. I mean, what is it that allows you to create an interface for designers that will feel seamless, that will feel intuitive, and that will allow them to be, I guess, creative in the full breadth of a way they would be if they put pen to paper or if they put hands to a normal computer? Yeah, I think it's a very good question. And for us, the interface is key. We can see many chats, like the relation with the human and the chat is only using words, some references, so I think it's not enough. So we provide a canvas. So the canvas is an infinite space. It's a collaborative space, actually real-time. You can have a team working on the same space. And it's AI native. so you can generate add nodes. The nodes are really precise. You can say this line I made here is a tree or this line is the edge of a wall and the AI model will understand that. And it's a debate because the team can create new images from there. So our premise is that it's a collaborative space. It's a visual space as well. They have a 2D or 3D coordinates. You know where things are. You can plan really well. And I think also the easiness of the interface, you can combine media. You can create sketch real-time with your brush tools, but also you can add a rectangle, you can cut it, you can add some cutout of a magazine, you can put a 3D model all together. So you are mixing media in a very novel way because design doesn't happen in a particular way. You have many ways to start. So we empower designers to find their own way. For some, it could be a sketch. For some, it could be a basic 3D model. For some, it's maybe a combination of all. And at different steps of the design phase, requires different methods, right? So the model adapts to it. So the idea was to empower designers of different fields, not just architects, but also industrial designers, students, to use a very creative platform with control. What were some of the challenges that you faced when trying to put a model like this together? It seems almost like it's a no-brainer because of the things it allows you to do, but I can imagine there are a lot of challenges in making it work in a way that you would feel could satisfy a designer's mind. That's true, and that's probably the one thing I'm working the most at the moment. Orchestration models is not easy. There's always a bias. There's always a training to be made. Calibration. And when you're looking at not just one specific field, but a broad spectrum of generations, it becomes challenging. So that's why it's a lot of learning from our users, a lot of learning from our new methods we're developing. We train models from thousands of sketches to understand the intent. We train models from textures and materials. So we are actually developing what we think is the fundamentals of good design. So we are bringing those principles in the foundations of those models and the way that we orchestrate as well as sequence. So there's certain processes that we know that are supporting good techniques in design. So we are doing a number of steps, agentic steps, because the agents are able to see the generation, to make changes real-time, and to give a better output. And the platform is very dynamic, so we are making changes as we speak. So it's evolving with the new model, it's evolving with the users, and we only can respond to the multiple inputs by making a platform that can evolve as well with the users and with the technology as changes rapidly. Well, let's talk about some of the highlight examples for you of what Formas AI has produced so far. I mean, I've seen a really striking render of a house which combines this kind of very modern looking and yet at the same time rock-based architecture. But let's not hear it from me. I want to, you know, give me some examples of some of the highlights you think that this orchestration software, this orchestration AI platform has allowed you to do so far. What we see, and it's incredible to see our professional users, we have more than 400 professional users, including top architectural offices right now. They share with us results they have shared with clients, like a real build design, a hotel facade or the interior of a lobby, or even product designers are using it. We can see firms like Olafur Eliasson, universities like MIT, really top users exploring with the tool and the results are extremely compelling. So you can see publications of these concepts in prestigious magazines like Domus, for instance, was recently published by Bjarke Ingels as the editor-in-chief. We can see also tangible outputs on build designs. There's an upcoming restaurant in Miami called Lluvia that has been entirely designed with Formas from the sketch to the 3D model that is 3D printed at the moment. So there's many use cases. We only can see more opportunities open with the platform that our users are telling us how to use Formas. So we can see novel ways. And from there, we can actually improve the platform to do even more things. And that's all for today's show from Design Singapore Council's Prototype Island. For more design stories, pick up a copy of Monocle magazine. Today's episode was produced by Hassan Anderson and edited by Elliot Greenfield, Jack Dewars and Christy O'Grady. I'm Nick Benisse. Thanks for listening.