Ten winning teams of One Bangkok Urban Furniture Competition 2022 “Seatscape & Beyond” are ready to get their designs off the ground.

Bangkok – 1 September 2022 – One Bangkok, Thailand’s largest integrated development built with the highest-quality standards in the central business district, announced the ten winning design teams of One Bangkok Urban Furniture Competition 2022 “Seatscape & Beyond”. All winning teams were awarded cash prizes from Lim Hua Tiong, Chief Executive Officer of One Bangkok, and visited The Prelude One Bangkok to learn more about the project’s concept and specifics as well as the location where their public seating components would be placed. The winning teams will next participate in design workshops and development sessions before having their final design built and installed at One Bangkok's public realm.

One Bangkok Urban Furniture Competition 2022 “Seatscape & Beyond” is organized by One Bangkok in collaboration with THINKK Studio, a design studio of young designers with different talents and forte, along with support from eisa (Education Institute Support Activity) program by Thai Beverage Public Company Limited as well as Amarin Printing and Publishing Public Company Limited, to create opportunities for young design talents to experiment and showcase their creative ideas in the design of public furniture. The ten winning teams will receive production cost subsidies for building and installing their products in One Bangkok’s public realm, with a chance to win prizes worth 500,000 baht in total in addition to joining design workshop with several of Thailand’s leading design professionals and enjoying the benefits of taking part in the creation of a new world-class development.

Worawat Srisa-an, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of One Bangkok said that “We have been overwhelmed by the response and are delighted that the competition has attracted a lot of attention from students with 247 entries submitted from 23 institutions in Thailand. The success reflects One Bangkok’s commitment to supporting the creativity of young design talent. The ten winning teams will join us in the design of creative public spaces that will introduce extraordinary new user experiences. This will bring us a step closer to achieving the vision of creating a new global landmark lifestyle destination that redefines urban living and fulfills our role as an advocate for Thailand's cultural and creative industries.”

Surapol Utintu, Vice President of External Affairs, Thai Beverage Public Company Limited and Director of eisa (Education Institute Support Activity), a program that supports youth development in universities, the recruiter of the competition, added that “Our promotional activities for the competition have received an overwhelming interest from students of various design disciplines from many universities with the submission of 247 entries. Students are highly engaged to this competition because its design brief allows them to design and develop workpiece for real-life application in real world location with unprecedented opportunity to learn and develop their skills from well-known design experts. This is a valuable experience for young people with high potential to grow to become successful in product or furniture design career. We hope to see more and more empowerment initiatives like this in the future where students can greatly benefit from learning outside the classroom with a concrete support from capable business organizations. Meanwhile, One Bangkok as the initiator of the competition can also explore new fresh creative ideas from young design talents.”         

As stated by Wannaporn Phornprapha, Managing Director, P Landscape Co., Ltd. one of the judges of the competition, “Given the fact that One Bangkok is a world-class mixed-use development with offices, hotels, residences, retail spaces, convention halls and much more, the design of the public spaces in the project needs to be highly flexible to meet lifestyle and activity diversity of people, with abundant green spaces for improved quality of life in urban areas. Public seating should accommodate different types of uses and serve a variety of purposes – a sitting place, a component of public art and landscape, or a playground for relaxation and imagination enhancement.  I am impressed with fruitful results from the hard work and dedication of competing teams in gathering information and getting to understand user behavior as required in the design brief as well as how well they work together as a team in combining creative ideas and coming up with fun and lively designs, all of which demonstrating that they have got what it takes to become professional designer in the future.”

Nattanon Jamlongrad and Koki Yoshimoto from the School of Architecture and Design King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi, members of one of the winning teams SE[AT]QUECE added that “We are proud of winning this competition from the design of public seating to enhance the comfort of those who sit while taking a short wait before heading to another location. It is really exciting to see the next step where coaching sessions from team of specialists and production and installation processes await us.  As One Bangkok will be a megaproject that redefines urban living in this city, witnessing the design we create becomes a part of this project is our great honor as well as a key element of our profile for our future career pursuit.”

The 10 winning teams will join 10 sessions of Design Development Workshop led by Decha Archjananun and Ploypan Theerachai, co-founders of THINKK Studio from August to December in which participants will gain knowledge and advice on how to develop and improve their design until it is fully usable and suitable for the target groups, and responsive to the usage behavior and context of the location. Participants will also learn how to collect information to improve the design work and make a good presentation, with speakers from THINKK Studio and other guest speakers who are experts in various fields such as furniture structure, installation of workpieces and presentation skills. Upon the completion of design workshop and development phase, the designs of the 10 winning teams will enter production process in early 2023. In February 2023, the prototypes of 10 final urban furniture designs will be showcased in the Bangkok Design Week 2023 and contest for three special awards. Finally, the 10 pieces of urban furniture will be installed in One Bangkok’s public realm in late 2023.  

For more information, visit www.onebangkok.com/urbanfurniture or other communication channels of the competition.