His bold career change has paid off. Ng, country market director for Asia-Pacific at the Scandinavian interdisciplinary design studio, Henning Larsen, was one of the two Designer of the Year recipients at the 2023 edition of the President’s Design Award (PDA).
Ng’s illustrious career of over nearly a quarter of a century has seen him design many of the city state’s public parks including the redesign of Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park, one of the largest urban parks in central Singapore. He adopted an ecological approach to landscaping parks, by transforming a concrete canal into a lush 3.2km (two-mile) long meandering river flanked by greenery.
He also led the restoration of Jurong Lake Gardens in Singapore’s west district, which stands out with its biophilic design of a deconstructed freshwater swamp, to create an area where people and wildlife can coexist.
“As the city gets denser, we need to find more space for nature,” he says. “Hopefully, by the public enjoying and using the space, they are more likely to protect the spaces. This paradigm change allows multifunctional uses of spaces without having to cater for more land.”
As the city gets denser, we need to find more space for nature
Ng’s work extends overseas. He developed Southern China’s Guangzhou Lijiao Master Plan in 2017 to help one of the largest coastal cities in the world mitigate problems such as floods caused by the impact of rapid urbanisation and climate change.
His fellow Designer of the Year, architect Tan Kay Ngee, has had a similarly prolific output spanning four decades. Most recently, he and his team completed the Gallop Extension for the Singapore Botanic Gardens, which combined English architecture with tropical landscapes. Tan was lauded for his designs which are “responsive to local history, culture, and contexts” while making architecture more meaningful to the public.
Design for positive impact
The President’s Design Award, established in 2006, celebrates Singapore’s top design talent for their transformative work, which has a positive impact on both local and global communities.
The award, jointly administered by the DesignSingapore Council and the Urban Redevelopment Authority, comprises two categories – Designer of the Year and Design of the Year – with recipients chosen by a panel of 17 international jurors in the 2023 edition.
The award is a great showcase of the myriad ways that designers in Singapore are responding to the urgent needs of Singapore
The jurors included design and architecture luminaries such as Liza Chong, former CEO of The Index Project, a Danish non-profit foundation working to promote designs that improve life. “The award is a great showcase of the myriad ways that designers in Singapore are responding to the urgent needs of Singapore,” Chong says. “I haven’t experienced an award that does so with this level of maturity and with solutions that can be expanded on a scale that will impact many [people].”
Dawn Lim, executive director at DesignSingapore Council, agrees. “This award is more apt than ever, given the evolving challenges of the pandemic, the growing realities of living with climate change, and the anxieties arising from the advancement of technologies such as artificial intelligence,” she says. “We must consider our future and how it is shaped by what we do today.”
The “R for Repair” exhibition, one of last year’s Design of the Year recipients, espoused the concept of sustainability. The project, designed by Hans Tan Studio, showed how designers creatively restore worn-out or broken objects such as spectacles and bags – with the inspiring reinterpretations serving as a commentary on today’s consumerist and repair culture.
Another recipient with a focus on sustainability was the transformation of Tebet Eco Park, carried out by Singapore-based SIURA Studio, led by Anton Siura.
After his experience in landscaping projects in Singapore, such as Kampung Admiralty, Siura applied his knowledge to turn the once degraded Tebet Park and its polluted canal into a vibrant 7.3-hectare (18-acre) green area with wetlands teeming with wildlife.
Improving lives for marginalised communities
Another key issue that design can help to tackle is caring for the elderly and under-represented. Many developed countries are grappling with issues related to ageing populations such as rising health costs and conditions such as dementia.
In Hong Kong, it is estimated that the number of elderly people will increase from 1.45 million in 2021 to 2.74 million in 2046, which means more than one in three Hong Kong people will be elderly. Singapore’s population is also ageing rapidly, with the proportion of citizens aged 65 and above increasing to 18.4 per cent in 2022.
Hack Care: Tips and Tricks for a Dementia-friendly Home, a 244-page guidebook with tips and tricks to create a dementia-friendly home, produced by Singapore design studio Lekker Architects, was another Design of the Year recipient.
The guide offers practical ideas for turning existing household furniture and products into solutions that support caring for people with dementia, a brain condition causing difficulties with memory, thinking and body control, which mostly affects older people.
“We noticed our family constantly came up with solutions that were motivated by our love for and knowledge of our father [who suffers from dementia],” Ong Ker-Shing, co-founder of Lekker Architects, says.
“A lot of other carers do that, too, and even share their solutions with others. There is so much of such innovation in care that is under the radar of big ‘D’ design. We wanted to create a book that highlights these solutions and this attitude.”
Pushing boundaries with technology
Innovative designs, which deftly incorporate cutting-edge technologies, have also been recognised by PDA. Take, for example, the Singapore Pavilion at the Word Expo Dubai 2020, another of last year’s recipients of Design of the Year.
The self-sufficient pavilion by the renowned architecture firm, WOHA, worked as a prototype for regenerative built environment as it was powered by clean energy and used technologies such as a desalination system to provide water for the greenery and mist fans for cooling.
Building on the spirit of forward-thinking innovation, Halimah Yacob, former president of Singapore, who presided over the PDA for the past seven years, says: “Through the President’s Design Award, we celebrate the good work of designers who have applied their creativity and craft with empathy and care. Their contributions serve as a beacon of inspiration to many to create a better and sustainable world for our future generations.”