The 8th IAI Design Award Ceremony and IAI Design Award Exhibition held by Asia Pacific Designers Federation (APDF) had a grand opening on April 29th at the Bird’s Nest Culture Center in Beijing. The following individuals are participants, international award winners, and core members of APDF.Liu Yanshen, Honorary President of APDF and Deputy Director of the National Secondary Vocational Education Teaching Reform and Innovation Committee; Kees Spanjers (Netherlands), Member of the IAI Design Award Jury, Co Chairman of APDF, and President of Netherlands’ National Association of Interior Design; Soon in Lee (South Korea), President of the IAI Design Award Jury,  Director of Seoul Design Center, and President of the South Korea 3D Printing Forum; Adam Chen (Taiwan, China), former member of the IAI Design Award Jury, Vice Council President of APDF, and Design Director of Taiwan Yuanjing Joint Design Associates; Antony Chan (Hong Kong, China), Member of the IAI Design Award Jury, Chairman of Hong Kong Interior Design Association, and Founder and Creative Director of Cream; Oskar He (He Changcheng, China) , Founding President of Asia Pacific Designers Federation and Initiator of IAI Design Award; Han Jingcao (China), General Manager of Bird’s Nest Cultural Center, and many others.

As stated by Oskar He (He Changcheng), the Founding President of Asia Pacific Designers Federation (APDF) and Initiator of IAI Design Award, APDF was initially founded in 2006. After its formal approval by the community center in China and the government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, APDF was officially established in 2009 as a multidisciplinary academic design organization.

As an international academic organization, the goal of APDF’s establishment was to advocate and uphold principles of design service. Specifically, APDF was built as a way to promote the creative design endeavors of different countries and regions as well as provide a foundation for these countries to cooperate and improve on design standards not only in Asia Pacific, but worldwide.

Through the creation of creative alliances around the world APDF has developed into a federation that is built upon the promotion of original design concepts and dissemination of design culture. In order to reach its goals, APDF extensively carries out academic activities to encourage the advancement and prosperity of Asia Pacific region’s design industry. Additionally, in consideration of the importance of cultural heritage as a means to benefit mankind and rationally improve social harmony, APDF is actively involved in the protection of historical, cultural, and ecological concepts.

APDF also provides design consulting services with both regional and urban development plans and actively supports concepts that promote local creative industries, social cultural development, low carbon economies, and green design. These services and concepts assist in fulfilling APDF’s ambitions of maintaining a prominent social value through creativity in the design industry and will provide valuable socioeconomic and cultural development through vital thought and experience.

As these ideas come to fruition, APDF will play a more active leading role in the promotion of design not just in Asia Pacific, but on a global scale. Through the process of cultural exchange and cooperation between leaders in the design field, APDF is positioned to lead the field of inventive and inspired Asia Pacific designers towards a greater goal. In the process of doing so, APDF expects world class masters of design to continue to join and attract elite designers to work together and found a stable platform for all Asia Pacific designers.

Following its establishment, APDF has successfully held the first Asia Pacific Design Biennial Awards and Asia Pacific Interior Design Elite Tournaments; and has held the Bamboo Beauty Award for seven consecutive years. In addition, APDF has held more than ten various academic forums, exhibitions, and exchange events; reinforcing APDF’s reputation and influence around the world as an elite design federation.

Since 2014, IAI Design Award has been developed into an award that expertly and simultaneously represents three professional design fields: interior design, architectural design, and industrial product design.

The IAI Design Award Competition itself is divided into two divisions. The first division, IAI Creative Award, represents the highest honor and academic level of the IAI Design Award Competition. The second division of the IAI Design Award Competition represents the most contemporary and innovative design pieces that stand to have significant commercial value. As the award grows, it is the intent to continue to attract creative designers worldwide to participate in the competition; thus allowing all designers to enjoy an enriching and influential experience.

For 2014 IAI Design Award specifically, designers from nearly 20 different countries and regions participated in the event including Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, Singapore, Malaysia, Italy, Australia, Sweden, Netherlands, Spain, UK, Mexico, Slovenia, Japan, and more. While the competition may not yet be well known to the general public, the international design competition has certainly become an attractive environment for many young designers.

It is reported that this year’s IAI Design Award Competition drew in nearly 1,000 excellent design entries, of which 174 entries competed for the top IAI Award. Japan architect, Koyasan Guest House, won the IAI Best Creative Award. Origin Architects & Planners and Jacksam Yang have won the IAI Outstanding Design Award. Yang Bangsheng & Associates Group has become the only Mainland China design institution to win the IAI Annual Best Design Institution. Jia Beibei, He Dan, and Zhao Rui have won the Best Design Award. Qinghua University has won the IAI Special Award; and other prominent awards were received by designers from Italy, Ecuador, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Mainland China.

As for the top award in the student group, IAI Design Star Award is received by the students from Malaysia. We can easily tell the strictness of the assessment and outstanding quality of the entries from the impressive winning entries. This year’s winning pieces are undoubtedly classic examples of this era’s innovation and creativity. Of course, from the overall level of all the entries designers from Japan, Korea, Europe, America, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore showed their extraordinary strength and have won over half of the awards. That being said domestic designers are also evolving rapidly, especially in the interior design category where their use of creative space, lighting, material usage, nearly reaches the same level.

We believe that on the stage of such a global design award, Chinese design stars will rise up from here. We are also looking forward to seeing more Chinese designers reshape our living environment and our planet, making people’s life better. As we move forward, we hope that IAI Design Award and the Bird’s Nest Cultural Center will join hand in hand to continue to make progress together.