Creating inspiring and eco-friendly furniture for MBC’s business community

Singapore – Mapletree Investments Pte Ltd (“Mapletree”) today announced that it is launching an outdoor furniture design competition for its latest flagship development, Mapletree Business City (“MBC”). Design in the City is a competition that gives budding designers from Singapore tertiary institutions a chance to see their creative visions realised and installed at MBC. Design students can vie for a chance to win two top prizes of $12,000 cash each and have their designs fabricated and installed at two locations within MBC – the Open Plaza and Eco Pond.

Spanning over 1.98 million square feet in gross floor area, the integrated business hub within the Alexandra Precinct is home to the regional headquarters of many multinational corporations. MBC also houses extensive amenities including an auditorium and seminar rooms, sky gym and lap pool, a childcare centre, clinic and many dining outlets. Its wide public spaces and lush greenery, which is further enhanced by eight pieces of art installations, will be the perfect setting for students to channel their creativity into designing outdoor furniture that will inspire and promote communal interaction and activities within this dynamic business environment.

Mr Hiew Yoon Khong, Group Chief Executive Officer of Mapletree said, “We appreciate the need to nurture young design talent and we hope that through this competition we can help foster talented designers by providing students a platform to showcase what they have learnt and to apply it to a real-life setting.”

Students will be challenged to create functional, ergonomic and at the same time, thought-provoking pieces of furniture that is akin to contemporary art. In line with MBC’s eco-friendly infrastructure which has earned it Singapore’s highest Green Mark Platinum Award by the Building & Construction Authority of Singapore, the students’ designs will need to fulfill a requirement of using sustainable materials in their pieces.

Mr Hiew added, “As a company that strives to develop modern and progressive buildings and spaces, Mapletree has an appreciation for creativity and innovation. We also value good aesthetics, architecture and design. This competition is further in line with one of our Corporate Social Responsibility objectives which is to bring the arts to communities either by way of hosting art exhibitions and performances at our facilities or in this case, incorporating art installations within our developments.”

The competition’s judging panel comprises highly-regarded personalities of the design industry. They are Edmund Cheng, Chairman of Mapletree as well as of the National Arts Council, Jeffrey Ho, Executive Director of the Design Singapore Council and Lim Choon Hong, Managing Director of Xtra Designs Pte Ltd. These judges will be looking for excellence in design, buildability, sustainability and functionality in the design submissions.

More information on Design in the City is available on http://www.mapletreebusinesscity.com/design_city.html and www.facebook.com/MBCDesigninthecity. The deadline for entry submission is at 5 p.m. on 6 January 2012. Up to 15 finalists will be shortlisted and announced in January 2012 where prototypes of their designs will be built for the final judging, before the winners are announced in March 2012.