A design project led by Associate Professor Hans Tan (Division of Industrial Design), has been named as one of the winners of the President’s Design Award 2023, Singapore’s highest accolade for design achievement.
R for Repair, an initiative of Hans Tan Studio, sets out to shine a spotlight on consumerism and redesign the act of repairing worn or broken objects into an inspiring and creative endeavour.
The project emerged from a 2019 class brief Assoc Prof Tan presented to his students to create a DIY repair kit allowing individuals to go beyond restoring an object, and make it better than the original.
For the R for Repair project, Assoc Prof Tan brought together 10 well-known Singapore-based designers with 18 students from the Division of Industrial Design (DID), who were briefed to create their own interpretation of repair and repair processes respectively.
The aim was to demonstrate how repair can enhance the meaning taken from an object, highlighting the emotional as well as functional value of repair and showing that sustainability can be both desirable and purposeful.
The brief resulted in 10 repaired objects and nine repair kits, developed by DID students, that were presented at an exhibition held at the National Design Centre to showcase how broken items could be enhanced, personalised, or even reimagined into outcomes better than the originals.
The R for Repair exhibition was such a success that it also spawned a cross-cultural London and Singapore edition that was presented at the Victoria and Albert Museum as part of the London Design Festival in 2022.
‘Emotional connection’
“Sustainable design is not just about using less material and being responsible with how you make an object; it’s also about establishing an emotional connection between objects and people,” said Assoc Prof Tan.
“If an object becomes part of someone, then there is very little room for them to think of it as waste – as something to throw away. R for Repair builds on this idea and I hope that the visitors to the exhibition thought about the meaning of the objects they own and buy.”
R for Repair was among eight winners of the biennial President’s Design Award which together tackled issues ranging from dementia and consumerism to the climate crisis. Other winners in this year’s award included the Singapore Pavilion from Expo 2020 in Dubai, and the landmark State Courts Towers in central Singapore.
Selected by an international panel of judges, the eight winners were formally presented with their awards by President Halimah Yacob at the Istana on Wednesday evening.
‘Repairing in a transformative way’
“As we celebrate the exemplary works of the PDA recipients who have applied their creativity and craft with empathy and care, we also learn how design can create a positive impact on the environment, our economy and the cities we live in,” said Madam Halimah. “I hope their contributions will inspire others to create a better world for our future generations.”
Praising what they said was a “beautifully executed” project, the awards jury said R for Repair was “a delightful reinterpretation of objects and memories that would have been discarded, but for the significance and meaning they hold for their owners.”
“R for Repair celebrates the idea of repairing in a transformative way…. uses design to empower people to extend and enhance the life of ‘broken’ objects and memories, and has the potential to power a movement toward care and repair,” the jury citation said.
R for Repair and the other PDA award-winning designs are to be featured in a travelling exhibition around Singapore, commencing at The URA Centre from 13 July to 24 August 2023 before moving to selected venues.
More information will be available at pda.designsingapore.org.
