The Red Dot Design Museum, Singapore

The Red Dot Design Museum

 The screaming red building is not a fire station. But it just might light a fire under Singapore’s designers…. MENG YEW CHOONG tours a museum that showcases the cutting edge of excellence in product and concept design. 

THERE’S a museum in a town called Essen in Germany that all the world’s designers – if they’re any good at all – make a point of visiting at some point in their careers. The Red Dot Design Museum is named after the widely sought after international design award called the Red Dot Award given by the Germany-based Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen (the North Rhine Westphalia Design Centre), one of the oldest and most highly regarded design institutions in Europe.  

Ken Koo’s passionate about design and wants to share that passion with this part of the world, hence his efforts to bring the Red Dot Museum to Singapore.

Designers, and lovers of good design, in this part of the world won’t have to travel that far now to glimpse cutting edge design because the Red Dot Museum’s first ever branch has been set up in Singapore. 

How this tiny republic, also affectionately known as “the little red dot” among its citizens, persuaded the German museum it is the right place for another Red Dot is a tale that deserves to be told. 

It was a matter of one man’s passion aligning serendipitously with government policy. Ken Koo started his own design business six years ago (it now focuses on lifestyle products). Then, in August 2003, the government declared that it wanted to make Singapore a design hub and launched the Design Singapore Council under the aegis of the Information, Communications and Arts Ministry. 

As an entrepreneur, Koo was interested in bringing Red Dot to his country, so he approached the Germans. Unlike most private businessmen, however, he had the backing of his government thanks to that decision in 2003, and that carried a lot of weight. He started negotiations in Essen in July 2004, and they went on for six months. 

“During that period, I visited Germany three to four times to present more than 10 proposals and their revisions,” said the 33-year-old when interviewed in Singapore last month.  

The Watchband, by Canadian Paul Bosveld, comprises a thin silicon tube that fits over the metal watch mechanism. Miniature piezo actuators push each Braille bubble up to allow the blind to tell time.

“Basically, (the Germans) were looking for people to advance Red Dot in Asia.”  

The German museum has been quite active in Asia for the past 10 years, organising exhibitions in Singapore and other countries in this region, and holding Red Dot design competitions, largely in Korea and Japan.  

Thanks to their familiarity with the island nation, and the Singaporean government’s support for design, the Germans finally agreed with Koo. He is now president of Red Dot Singapore Pte Ltd.  

Koo, of course, is hoping that Red Dot’s presence in Singapore will have further reaching consequences than just showcasing the cutting edge in design. He is planning an integrated design complex that will surround the museum currently housed in a fire engine red building on Maxwell Road. The complex will allow designers from different disciplines to work and relax together.  

“Right now, (designers) are found mostly around the Keong Saik Road and Tanjung Pagar areas, in addition to being spread over the industrial estates.”  

The whole idea is to have a cross pollination of ideas, and the proximity with each other is expected to make that happen faster.  

“When they are close to each other, they will begin to collaborate. For example, I don’t see why product design companies cannot work with the music industry. When people drink coffee together, or meet each other in the corridors, there will definitely be an exchange of ideas. 

“We will try to bring all design related activities here, and when everyone is based here, there will be a critical mass. For example, when furniture design melds with fashion, interesting results can arise.”  

Beyond making the place the nation’s design hub, Koo is also trying to uplift the industry’s image, especially among the more conservative, less arty portion of the island’s population.  

“We want this place to inspire and educate the young, especially students, including secondary school students. Currently, if a girl takes her boyfriend home and tells her mother that he is a designer, the response from mum is almost always, ‘Can survive, ah?’. Somehow, a designer does not enjoy the same prestige architects or doctors do, yet it is designers who touch every aspect of our lives.”  

The Uni-p, designed by a woman, Tamar Dax, of Israel, is a ‘unisex’ urinal that addresses issues of cleanliness and maintenance within technological limitations and ergonomic feasibility.

Refurbishing and renovating the building cost RM9.2mil (S$4mil), while the museum itself added another RM1.15mil to the bill. The museum takes up 1,350sq m of space in the 9,000sq m (100,000sq foot) complex, while another 4,950sq m has been allocated for design studios and offices. Another 450sq m of space has also been kept aside as a design incubator that will host six companies. The second and third floors will be taken up by other creative companies, while there will be a few food and beverage outlets on the ground floor. 

All the exhibits here are essentially like those that are shown in Germany: all past and present Red Dot Award winners. That’s a lot of winners, since the Design Zentrum has been marking outstanding international product design with its famous dot since 1955.  

Currently, there are 120 exhibits in Singapore, with plans to increase that number to 300. The design museum’s floor space is flexible enough to easily be doubled, which is Koo’s plan for the next few years. The Essen Red Dot Museum, by the way, is nearly 4,000sq m in size and has 1,200 exhibits.  

The Taiwanese Liteon Technology Corp created these Smart Labels that will change colour as they age along with the perishable products on which they are placed. The change in colour is accompanied by a change in the indicated price, so that supermarkets do not have to re-label when they need to drop prices to move the products off the shelves.

Singapore’s museum has a pretty industrial feel to it inside; this isn’t a deliberate design choice, however. It’s more of a necessity as the 80-year-old building had not, of course, been designed with air conditioning in mind. That means there is actually no space to put in a false ceiling to cover air conditioning blower units and ducts.  

The solution was to bundle the ducting with other cabling and wiring into neat lines, and suspend them in a tasteful manner from the ceiling. This concept has worked well for Red Dot, as it emphasises a gritty, industrial atmosphere that seems to suit the design industry.  

At the time of writing, exhibits were still being added to the museum, which is still being improved by the day since its official opening in November. 

The red certainly attracts attention! A peek inside the Red Dot Museum will reward lovers of good design.

This is not a building full of esoterica. Most people will recognise the things in here, ranging from a real Opel Astra car to things like shower fixtures, lampshades, prams, kitchen appliances, and a huge array of household appliances. 

What makes these ordinary seeming exhibits remarkable is the beauty some of them have as well as the ingenuity others represent. 

Winning concepts are displayed prominently in the form of posters, as well as in the form of miniature mock-ups. Unfortunately, what makes them award-winning products is not always explained, or if it is, not in great enough detail.  

March onwards would be a better time to pay a visit. Right now, there is still lots of work going on in terms of renovation and the installation of more exhibits. Things can get quite noisy and dusty at times. 

No matter what its present shortcomings are, however, if you have an interest in design, or just a desire to see how our daily lives can be enriched in small but meaningful steps, then the museum is a worthwhile place to visit.