DFA Awards 2019 Honours Design Giants

Shining a light on designs that impact work, live and play

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DFA Lifetime Achievement Award 2019 winner — Rei
Kawakubo

DFA Design Leadership Award 2019 winner — teamLab

DFA World’s Outstanding Chinese Designer 2019 winner —
Wang Shu

 

HONG KONG, CHINA - Media OutReach - 4 December 2019
- DFA Awards 2019 stands true to
its commitment of recognising design with an Asian perspective by both
established and emerging designers. This year, DFA Awards celebrates design
leadership and exemplary design by giving the highest honour and recognition
through its major annual award programmes. Design giants include DFA Lifetime Achievement Award 2019
winner — Rei Kawakubo, Founder of
Comme des Garçons; DFA Design Leadership Award 2019 winner
— teamLab, the International Art
Collective; and DFA World’s Outstanding
Chinese Designer 2019 winner — Wang
Shu, Co-Founder of Amateur Architecture Studio.

“This year, our honourable judging panel has highlighted individuals that
have created true impact to our daily lives, and teams that have shown
dedication to creativity in design project after project. Design is something
that enhances life, it’s not just cosmetic. It is important to show value for
the visionaries’ creations of unique experiences within this built world across
professional, personal and playful environments. The Awards programme allows us
to continue foster innovative thinking and creative confidence.” said Professor
Eric Yim, Chairman of the HKDC.

Underpinning the role of designers in society while celebrating design
leadership, exemplary designs and projects with impactful commercial success in
Asia, DFA Awards alumni are an incredible list of creators and innovators that
have shaped the conversation around today’s design thinking and design
excellence. DFA Lifetime Achievement Award, DFA Design Leadership Award and DFA
World’s Outstanding Chinese Designer are the highest honour ones can receive in
Asia. Every year, judges ensure to pick winners that make a difference to the
industry and our society.

DFA Lifetime Achievement Award 2019 (DFA LAA)

Rei Kawakubo

Founder of Comme des Garçons

Photo Credit: ©Paolo Roversi

The Award recognises an individual who has made
life-long contributions to the design profession, with visionary shaping
designs across a variety of fields, and who uses design to educate and promote
wider use of design in society.

Rei Kawakubo is one of the most iconic designers in
the late 20th century. Studying art and literature at Keio University, she
later entered the fashion industry as a freelance stylist at a textile factory
in 1967. As a self-taught fashion designer, she began making her own clothes
under the label Comme des Garçons in late 1960s and opened her first boutique
in Tokyo in 1975. By the late 1980’s Comme des Garçons was operating more than
300 stores worldwide and Kawakubo’s challenging designs had become accepted
within the fashion world. In 2004, she developed the brand into a market-based
department store concept ‘Dover Street Market’, stocking its main collections,
its other brands, such as Shirt, Play, and a wide range of international
designers. Numerous designers, including Martin Margiela and Helmut Lang, have
referenced Kawakubo as an inspiration for their own designs. Kawakubo is often considered
to be both a fashion designer and artist. This speaks to the ways in which her
designs are able to bridge the boundaries between fashion and art.

DFA Design Leadership Award 2019 (DFA DLA)

 

teamLab
International Art Collective

The Award is presented to a corporate or leader who
consistently demonstrates outstanding business performance, supports the design
development in his organisation and the international community.

teamLab (founded in 2001) is an international art
collective, an interdisciplinary group of various specialists such as artists,
programmers, engineers, CG animators, mathematicians and architects whose
collaborative practice seeks to navigate the confluence of art, science,
technology, design and the natural world. Digital technology has allowed art to
liberate itself from the physical and transcend boundaries. The philosophy is
that everything exists in a long, fragile yet miraculous continuity of life.
teamLab aims to transcend the boundaries of our understanding of this continuity.
teamLab has been the subject of numerous exhibitions at venues worldwide,
including venues in New York, London, Paris, Singapore, Silicon Valley,
Beijing, Taipei, and Melbourne among others. It also opened the permanent
museums MORI Building DIGITAL ART MUSEUM: teamLab Borderless in Tokyo in 2018
and teamLab Borderless Shanghai in Shanghai in 2019. The permanent museum
teamLab SuperNature will open in Macao in February, 2020.

DFA World’s Outstanding Chinese Designer 2019 (DFA
WOCD)

Wang Shu
Co-Founder of Amateur
Architecture Studio

It awards a Chinese
designer who has an exceptional track record for quality and success, is
involved in academic exploration or practical application, and displays a
strong social conscience.

Wang Shu co-founded Amateur Architecture Studio with
Lu Wenyu in 1997 and in 2003, they founded the architecture department at China
Academy of Art in Hangzhou, where Wang was the department chair. In 2007, the
School of Architecture was established, where he served as the first dean of
the school. His academic interests and research is focused on the
re-establishment of a contemporary language for Chinese architecture, which is
reflected in his built works such as Ningbo Historic Museum, Xiangshan Campus
of China Academy of Art, Renovation of Wencun Village, and Fuyang Cultural
Complex.

Wang is often found guest lecturing at top
universities such as Harvard, MIT and Tongji University. He’s swept numerous
awards and doctoral degrees, naming him one of the 100 Most Influential People
in the World by Time in 2013. He is now a juror of the Pritzker Architecture
Prize 2019.

High-resolution images can be downloaded at:

http://www.hkdc.hk/download/awards/DFA2019_hi-res_image.zip

Full DFA
Awards winner list can be downloaded at:

http://www.hkdc.hk/download/awards/DFA2019_WinnerList.zip

About DFA Awards

In 2003, the Hong Kong Design Centre has launched the DFA
Awards to underpin the role of designers in society, to celebrate design
leadership and exemplary designs and projects with commercial success or impact
in Asia, as well as to recognise the rising force of emerging designers in Hong
Kong since 2005. The DFA Awards, through its five major award programmes, has
grown in its international influence in Asia.

DFA Lifetime Achievement Award (DFA LAA)

Signify
the design community’s respect for individuals who have made lifelong
contributions to the design profession, education, and the society, especially
in Asia.

DFA Design Leadership Award (DFA DLA)

Recognise
the business leaders or companies who create exceptional and sustainable
business success through strategic and innovative use of Design.

DFA World’s Outstanding Chinese
Designer (DFA WOCD)

Acknowledge
the designers of Chinese origin who have significant design achievement and
international recognition.

DFA Design for Asia Awards (DFA DFAA)

Commend
a wide range of design that embodies Asian aesthetics and culture, with
influence to the design trends in Asia and for Asia.

DFA Hong Kong Young Design Talent
Award (DFA HKYDTA)

Nurture
the development of emerging designers by providing a maximum financial sponsorship
of HK$500,000 for overseas work attachment or education.

Learn more about us at www.dfaawards.com

About Hong Kong Design Centre

Hong Kong Design Centre (HKDC) is a
non-governmental organisation, and was founded in 2001 as a strategic partner
of the HKSAR Government in establishing Hong Kong as an international centre of
design excellence in Asia. Our public mission is to promote wider and strategic
use of design and design thinking to create business value and improve societal
well-being, with the aim of advancing Hong Kong as an international design
centre in Asia.

HKDC’s flagship programmes include
Business of Design Week (BODW; since 2002) — Asia’s leading annual event on
design, innovation and brands; DFA Awards (since 2003) — a well-recognised
annual awards that celebrate outstanding designs with Asian perspectives; and
Knowledge of Design Week (KODW; since 2006) — an annual thematic programme that
gathers the global design community to explore how design can solve complex
challenges of our society.

We also manage a Design Incubation
Programme and Fashion Incubation Programme (since 2012 and 2016) — 2-year
programmes to nurture future design and fashion entrepreneurs; and launched
FASHION ASIA HONG KONG (since 2016) — an initiative combining conversations,
interactions and cultural exchanges to position the city as an Asian hub for
fashion trade and business development.

Learn more about us at www.hkdesigncentre.org