DP Inspire Awards 2018 Winners

As part of DP Architects’ designFIRST thrust, the DP Inspire awards was launched in 2017 to encourage design excellence through innovation. The award programme is open to DP’s 16 global offices and is judged by an independent panel of industry specialists. This year, the award programme saw over 20 entries across three categories – Building of the Year, Design of the Year and Research & Innovation. The winners of the awards were announced during DP’s annual designFUTURE Conference.

Building of the Year: Honourable Mention
With the intention to create an integrated and cohesive development that adds value to the urban fabric along Stevens Road, Novotel & Mercure Singapore on Stevens is a hospitality development comprising two hotels and commercial spaces. In a refreshing organisation of hospitality spaces, the architecture adopts the form of ‘ren’ (meaning people in Chinese) and reflects the design concept of organic glass pods. The judges cited that the use of the character ‘ren’ as an architectural form is “a clever way of combining two different hotel brands into a unifying whole” and that the pod design of the facilities at ground level have “built into the hotel a sense of wonder”, acknowledging “the notion of travel and movement as journeys of discoveries”.

Building of the Year
Situated within the famed Orchard shopping district, Yotel Singapore is a 30-storey hospitality development sited on an existing seven-storey car park podium. It features a striking façade that complements the distinct aesthetic of the Yotel brand and appeals to tech-savvy, urban travellers. The interior spaces are thoughtfully planned and designed to create a sense of luxury and larger space. Despite constraints of a relatively small floor area and hemmed in on three sides by adjacent buildings, the architects have navigated these disadvantages to arrive at what the judges cited as “a high-rise slab block which is simple and elegant and meets the client’s investment needs and the programmatic brief of the hotel operator” and is a “positive and distinctive addition to the agglomeration of buildings at the corner of Scotts and Orchard Road”. Yotel Singapore was awarded Building of the Year.

Design of the Year: Honourable Mention
The design brief for the Hsinta Ecological Power Plant called for an innovative design to establish a green corporate image that creates a next-generation power plant that incorporates the wetland, historical and vernacular features of the local environment in its building form and landscape design. The response is Generating Ecology – a design project guided by eco-conscious principles of reducing the built area for the ecology, facilitating the growth of mangroves in a sustainable ecosystem and integrating the wetlands as a nesting and feeding ground for black spoonbills. Cited by the judges as “the ultimate in applying free space and in future-proofing the built environment”, the design was conferred Honourable Mention under the Design of the Year Category.

Design of the Year
Design of the Year went to Heartware Network, a project with the design aim of creating a new office space for a registered charity youth organisation. Working within a tight budget, the design team was able to create a convincing design that reaches out to today’s youth and influences the way they re-imagine their environment, identify with and participate in place-making. The design implemented innovative use of a modular and interactive grid furniture system that allows for customisation of the space. It was lauded by the judges’ panel for its incorporation of green and smart elements within the space, effectively “raises awareness in the youths of their responsibility to the environment – from the recycling of condensate from the air-conditioning to sustain the green features to the ability to monitor energy footprint through apps”. The judges also commented that the “inspiring design achieved so much with so little by using design to create a space of possibilities – that encourages and empowers participation and volunteerism in youths”.

Research & Innovation
Finally, the Research & Innovation award was given to Nimblesim: Pilot Project Testbed. Nimblesim is a simulation platform created in-house by DP Architects’ designINTELLIGENCE team and its specialist arm, DP Sustainable Design. The program closes the gap between design explorations at concept stage and building physics through streamlining the Building Performance Simulation workflow. This aims to reduce the time for model preparation and abortive work caused by time-consuming repeated actions. The judges lauded the research team for their “determination to reach its objective to maximise design explorations of multiple options in minimal time”. They also commended DP for being an architecture practice that “encourages and supports research and development”.