Design China Beijing to raise awareness of sustainable design

September 2, 2021

The 4th edition of Design China Beijing will take place from 24th to 27th September 2021, as part of Beijing International Design Week and will focus on the theme of Nature, Nurture and Sustainable Beauty which will be expressed with sustainable design materials, industrial research, and the new innovative system of 'Green Building Standards and Certification System'.

Design China Beijing will this year push ‘beyond sustainability’ amid global climate crisis concerns, going further than its role as an industry trade fair and thus positioning itself as a social and trade event raising awareness and promoting ideas of ‘Sustainability 2.0’ to a greater audience.

With it no longer being enough to minimise damage, design must restore and regenerate. Such pivotal themes will be debated during the show’s world-renowned Design Forum, where presentations will investigate the transformative power of design and its role in and response to building a sustainable future for a post-pandemic world.

The four-day event has invited the industry’s largest concentration of architectural and design thought leaders to share their ideas and exchange global perspectives on this edition’s theme of ‘Regenerative Design’.

With contributions from global industry leaders, visionaries, and innovators, Design China Beijing’s thought leadership platform will address the show’s theme through design disciplines from across the world, with influential speakers including Stirling prizewinner Amanda Levete of AL-A Architects, designer and artist Morag Myerscough, whose graphic approach to 3D and architectural design is characterised by bold use of colour, pattern and typography, Satoshi Ohashi of Zaha Hadid Architects, Dean and Professor of Architecture at Tsinghua University Zhang Li, and multi-disciplinary product and interaction designer Satyendra Pakhalé, exploring the cultural shift towards regenerative design as a response to social and environmental needs in China and beyond.

Design China Beijing will focus on changes required to advance the relationship between digital technologies and natural resources, adapting the creative processes by eliminating waste. Within Design China Beijing’s Design Forum, international speakers and some of the most influential Chinese thought leaders will be sharing their thoughts, experiences and insight on these principles.

Regenerative Design
Forum Programme Director Aidan Walker, who is working with former Editor-In-Chief of Architectural Digest China, Wang Xu notes “We must make restorative, regenerative design not only natural but beautiful. We must design a new aesthetic, transform our thinking and our clients’ desires.”

On the topic of ‘Regeneration and A New Urban Age’, award-winning architect Amanda Levete, designer of a transformational new experience at London's famous V&A Museum, will propose a new way of looking at urban monoliths such as department stores to bring nature – and even farming – into the city.

Italian architect Mario Cucinella, along with his colleague Irene Giglio, will describe the process by which they combined technology and nature to create the first-ever 3D printed clay house, a project that truly depicts the theme of this year's show. Sean Affleck, Head of the Hong Kong office of MAKE Architects, introduces a radical vision of the ‘greening of Hong Kong’, while studio chiefs of globally renowned Zaha Hadid Architects and MVRDV propose radical solutions for next-generation urbanism.

MCA - Mario Cucinella Architects - and WASP - World’s Advanced Saving Project- have completed TECLA-Technology and Clay-, the first eco-sustainable housing model 3D printed entirely from local raw earth.This genuinely innovative and pioneering approach was conceived from the start as a joint project between the two firms, who worked closely throughout the project’s design and construction.

Indian-born and American educated Satyendra Pakhalé, whose work focuses above all else on social benefit, presents – among other things - the ‘Cold Chain Project’, a modular refrigerated vaccine carrier for poor and remote areas, initiated during his tenure as Head of the Master of ‘Design for Humanities and Sustainable Living’ at Design Academy Eindhoven.

‘Bio-designer’ Teresa van Dongen has been collecting ‘Carbon Capture Materials’, and in the true spirit of Regenerative design, which demands not only that we mitigate negative impacts but create positive inputs, has created ‘Aireal, a library of possibilities’, where the materials shown are developed in the spirit of the circular economy, where waste does not exist and CO2 is seen as a resource for the creation of the products that we will use tomorrow.

The reach and range of these committed and compassionate practitioners brings with it a cautious optimism. Both in China and throughout the global design community, it is people like this and their work that Design China Beijing is proud to present.

Green Connections
Another aspect of the Design China Beijing forum that should not be missed is Green Connections. Green Connections is a cross-disciplinary design leadership platform, searching for the best sustainable practices in future design. Several forum discussions will take place at Design China Beijing this year under the Green Connections banner; ‘The Green City’, ‘Green Architecture’, ‘Green Real Estate’ and ‘Green Materials and Innovation’ will be discussed, with global industry leaders such as Vishaan Chakrabarti, Dean of UC Berkeley's College of Environmental Design; Dr. Wei Yang Professor of Architecture, Tianjin University; Albert Chan, Director of Development, Planning & Design, Shui On Land and Susan Zhu, EHS & Sustainability Director of Robert Bosch.

For more information got to designshanghai.com/design-china-beijing

All talks will be available online from October here

Image top: Designer and artist Morag Myerscough’s graphic approach to 3D and architectural design is characterised by bold use of colour, pattern and typography; Image centre: Design China Beijing; Image above: Model unit of TECLA - the eco-sustainable house 3D printed from raw earth – in Massa Lombarda, near Ravenna (IT). Credit: Iago Corazza

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