Visitors actively participate in the public voting system at the DFA Awards Exhibition 2025, sharing their perspectives on outstanding design.
The DFA Awards Exhibition 2025 redefined the traditional exhibition model by transforming a typically passive viewing experience into an interactive community dialogue. From March to April 2025, this showcase of over 200 winning designs around the globe created a dynamic platform where design professionals and the general public converged to exchange perspectives on excellence in Asian design.
DFA Awards Exhibition 2025
What distinguished this exhibition was its pioneering interactive approach—particularly the public voting system in the Spatial Design Zone that invited every visitor to become a design critic. This innovative approach to design appreciation extended throughout the exhibition experience, which also featured browsable books with deeper insights, QR codes linking to the DFA Awards Online Showcase, and digital exhibits on screens and in the immersive space of The Box.
The Box's immersive digital environment brings award-winning designs to life, offering visitors a multi-sensory experience of creative excellence.
By positioning attendees as active participants rather than mere observers in a collective conversation about design excellence, the exhibition perfectly aligned with Hong Kong Design Centre's mission to make design more accessible to diverse audiences and foster greater public engagement with creative disciplines.
Design belongs to everyone, not just professionals. By involving the public in evaluating award-winning designs, we're creating a more inclusive design culture that benefits both creators and the broader community. When people feel connected to design, they become more attentive to how it shapes their daily lives.
Visitors actively participate in the public voting system at the DFA Awards Exhibition 2025, sharing their perspectives on outstanding design.
This philosophy reflects HKDC's broader mission to position design as an accessible cultural force rather than an elite pursuit, whilst simultaneously elevating Hong Kong's status as Asia's creative hub. The exhibition's interactivity directly supported this aim by removing barriers between design excellence and public appreciation.
The exhibition itself embodied design excellence through its thoughtful construction, which prioritised sustainability alongside aesthetics. The curatorial team made extensive use of environmentally conscious materials, including honeycomb structures and reprocessed textiles, to create the exhibition infrastructure. Even the voting tags distributed to visitors were designed with a second life in mind, being subsequently upcycled into card holders and keychains—a tangible reminder of how good design considers the entire lifecycle of materials.
Exhibition design prioritising sustainability: Recycled materials were further upcycled into custom items.
This approach not only minimised the exhibition's environmental footprint but also demonstrated to visitors that sustainability and aesthetic appeal can coexist harmoniously, reinforcing the message that responsible design thinking extends beyond the exhibited works to the platforms that showcase them.
The exhibition presented an unparalleled opportunity to experience works by some of global figures with influences and impacts in Asia, including spatial pioneer Kengo Kuma, timepiece innovator Kikuo Ibe, lighting maestro Tino Kwan, and social experience advocate Eisuke Tachikawa. These luminaries' contributions highlighted the breadth and depth of Asian design thinking across diverse disciplines.
One of the most impactful showcased works was the Beijing Library, recipient of the DFA Design for Asia Awards 2024 - Grand Award. Ashwini Deshpande, DFA Design for Asia Awards 2024 Judge and Co-Founder and Director of Elephant Design Pvt Ltd, offered her insight on the project's significance:
"It's a very inspiring project because it's a public space, it's a community library and it interprets what a library should be architecturally. It's amazing because it should be world's largest climatised reading space. It's also one of the largest loadbearing glass structures. So architecturally, it brings the outdoor space indoor."
"It also reinterprets the whole idea of what a library is so it's not just about reading books but it's about bringing people together to exchange ideas, and intellectual interactions so it's quite beautiful and remarkable in many ways."
Another captivating Grand Award winner was 'Radiant Eateries: Hong Kong Restaurant Neon Sign Drawings', which Luisa Elena Megoni, DFA Design for Asia Awards 2024 Judge and Head of Asian and African Collections at The British Library, praised for its cultural significance:
"All the drawings have been reproduced through an eight-colour printing technology including four fluorescent colours, very simple design and choice of publication is enabling readers to take the vibrancy and the colours of the neon in the streets of Hong Kong."
"It really highlights the importance of heritage and the value. This project can be the inspiration for many other initiatives and projects that are aiming at raising awareness about heritage. Also preserving our memory of the past."
Visitors responded powerfully to these outstanding works, with many expressing appreciation for designs that successfully blended cultural heritage with innovation. Design students were frequently observed taking detailed notes and sketches, whilst industry professionals engaged in spirited discussions about the technical aspects of the exhibits.
Beyond celebrating established masters, the exhibition offered a vital platform for emerging design voices. A standout example was Brun Chan, a 2021 recipient of the DFA Hong Kong Young Design Talent Award and Founder of röyksopp gakkai. Brun's quirky yet captivating costume designs for DJs at the 'Ultimate Song Chart Awards Presentation 2024', inspired by the cult film 'The Wicker Man', her works demonstrated how young designers are pushing creative boundaries whilst maintaining connections to both global and local cultural references.
The exhibition served as a crucial springboard for new talent, with many visitors expressing surprise and delight at discovering designers they had not previously encountered. This exposure is invaluable for emerging creators seeking to establish their presence in competitive design markets.
The impact of this exposure was evident during a special exhibition tour with notable DFA Design for Asia Awards 2024 winners including Mr Choi Sai-ho (Gold Award: Hush.Rush), Dr Carrison Tong (Silver Award: US-visible&Tactile-reality Model for Medicine), Mr Victor Wong (Bronze Award: Immersive Video: A Path to Glory – Jin Yong's Centennial Memorial) and Mr Kwok Chin-lun (Merit Award: HK Cultural CAT LOVER Tshirt Brand - OH YOU MADE MY DAY). Their presence created a powerful moment of connection between established and emerging design voices. These creative exchanges further amplified Hong Kong's role as a platform that nurtures and promotes design talent and gain traction on media in the Greater China region. It reinforces HKDC's mission of building connections throughout the design ecosystem.
What became particularly apparent throughout the exhibition was the fascinating dialogue between design generations. Emerging talents clearly build upon foundations laid by established masters, yet they also transform these influences through contemporary sensibilities and technological approaches—creating a living continuum of design evolution that visitors could trace through the carefully arranged exhibits.
The exhibition's most groundbreaking element was undoubtedly its innovative polling system, which invited visitors to evaluate spatial designs across three thought-provoking categories:
This participatory approach fundamentally transformed visitor engagement, converting passive observation into active evaluation. Visitors spent significantly more time with exhibits, scrutinising details they might otherwise have overlooked and engaging in thoughtful discussions about design criteria that extended well beyond superficial aesthetics.
Voting tags transformed: Upcycled into card holders and keychains, demonstrating how thoughtful design extends the lifecycle of materials.
The voting system garnered an impressive response across all categories, with participation numbers exceeding expectations, reflecting extraordinary levels of visitor participation and investment in the democratic design evaluation process. Many visitors expressed that the opportunity to cast their votes made them feel genuinely connected to the design community and valued as stakeholders in determining what constitutes excellent design.
Perhaps most fascinating was how public perspectives sometimes aligned with professional design evaluations and sometimes diverged significantly. This democratic approach to design appreciation revealed that the general public often prioritised emotional resonance and practical functionality over technical innovation—a valuable insight for designers seeking to create work with broad appeal.
After tabulating all votes, three clear winners emerged from the public polling:
Haikou Gaoxingli Insun Cinema (One Plus Partnership Limited), voted top for balancing aesthetics and function through its innovative use of curved spaces and natural light.
Haikou Gaoxingli Insun Cinema (One Plus Partnership Limited, Hong Kong) captured the Balance of Aesthetics and Function category, earning enthusiastic praise for its ingenious integration of natural materials, masterful use of curved design elements, and the artful introduction of natural light that created both visual drama and practical comfort.
Gento (SAAD - sudo associates), selected as most desirable destination, harmoniously blends traditional Japanese aesthetics with contemporary spatial design.
Gento (SAAD - sudo associates, architecture and design, Japan) topped the Desirability as a Destination category, with visitors particularly drawn to its harmonious blend of traditional Japanese aesthetic principles with contemporary spatial concepts, creating an environment that felt simultaneously timeless and innovative.
Playground of Possibilities (BLACK), chosen for its excellence in human connection through thoughtful urban greening and communal music spaces.
Playground of Possibilities (BLACK, Singapore) dominated the Human Connection category, resonating with visitors through its thoughtful urban greening strategies and communal spaces designed specifically to host musical performances and foster social interaction—embodying design's power to bring people together.
What made these public choices particularly fascinating was their occasional divergence from typical jury selections. The public showed a marked preference for designs that evoked immediate emotional responses and offered clear social benefits, sometimes valuing these qualities over technical innovation or conceptual sophistication that might impress professional judges. This insight offers valuable guidance for designers seeking to balance professional standards with public engagement—and suggests that truly successful design speaks meaningfully to both audiences.
The exhibition's impact extended well beyond DX design hub through strategic educational initiatives. Specially organised tours introduced jewellery arts students to award-winning designs in their field, whilst mentees from 'The Strive and Rise Programme' participated in guided experiences that connected design thinking to broader career aspirations.
These educational engagements created profound moments of knowledge transfer. One jewellery design student, visibly moved after examining an award-winning piece that incorporated traditional techniques with contemporary materials, remarked, 'I never considered mixing these processes before, but now I see endless possibilities'. Similarly, a mentee from the Strive and Rise Programme observed that the exhibition had 'completely changed how I understand design—it's not just about making things look good, but about solving real problems in beautiful ways'.
By engaging these educational audiences, the exhibition's influence multiplied far beyond its physical location, seeding design appreciation and creative thinking in unexpected contexts across Hong Kong society. The impact of these outreach efforts will continue to resonate long after the exhibition's conclusion, as students and mentees apply newly discovered design principles in their own work and lives.
The DFA Awards Exhibition 2025 has achieved remarkable success not only in showcasing design excellence impacting Asia, but also in pioneering an innovative approach to exhibition curation that places public engagement at its heart. With visitors participating enthusiastically in the interactive elements, the exhibition has demonstrated the powerful potential of democratising design appreciation while simultaneously serving as a showcase of exceptional design and an innovative curatorial experiment.
By creating meaningful dialogue between design professionals and the general public, the exhibition has effectively bridged their often separate worlds, revealing both the overlaps and divergences between these perspectives. This dialogue enriches the design field by ensuring that aesthetic and technical excellence remain connected to genuine human needs and experiences while initiating conversations that will likely influence future design directions across multiple disciplines.
Most importantly, the exhibition has shown that interactivity dramatically enhances visitor engagement with design showcases. By inviting active participation rather than passive observation, the exhibition created deeper connections between visitors and the displayed works, fostering greater understanding and appreciation of design's role in shaping our world.
As we reflect on the success of the DFA Awards Exhibition 2025, we are pleased to announce that submission of 2025 editions of DFA Design for Asia Awards (DFAA) and DFA Hong Kong Young Design Talent Award (HKYDTA) are now open. This represents an opportunity for designers across the globe to gain recognition and contribute to the Asian's growing design dialogue.
For those inspired by the exhibition, we encourage you to explore submission opportunities at the DFAA website (dfaa.dfaawards.com). Additionally, design practitioners and current graduates are invited to submit applications and portfolios for the HKYDTA with more information at HKYDTA website (ydta.dfaawards.com)!
The DFA Awards Exhibition 2025 has demonstrated definitively that public engagement strengthens design's role in society and culture. By creating spaces where professional expertise and public perspective can meaningfully converge, we enrich the design ecosystem and ensure that it remains responsive to human needs, desires, and aspirations. This inclusive approach to design appreciation represents the future of the field—a future that HKDC is proud to champion through initiatives like this groundbreaking exhibition.
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