As part of P_DA20, the DesignSingapore Council (Dsg) will pair former P_DA recipients with the victors of Challenge X and Challenge Y, two national design challenges organized by the Council that solicit responses from individuals across Singapore to address a shared national concern. Both initiatives prioritize human perspectives and lived experiences in the quest to resolve real-world issues, amalgamating grassroots, community-driven concepts with the insights of professional designers. This year’s iteration of Challenge X convenes community members, care partners, and individuals from diverse disciplines to investigate how neighborhoods can enhance support for healthy aging. In parallel, Challenge Y, a national design challenge for youth, encourages students as young as seven to co-design strategies that foster friendships, transcend differences, and cultivate a deeper sense of inclusion and belonging in an increasingly fragmented society. Through this mentorship, shortlisted winners advance the solutions they developed during the challenges, generating new ideas and prototypes that Dsg endeavors to present to the public at the Singapore Design Biennale 2027. Furthermore, the National Library Board (NLB), Dsg, and the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) will collaborate on a new, comprehensive initiative to document Singapore’s design legacy. NLB invites P_DA recipients to contribute and narrate their stories via their archive of works, which the National Library of Singapore will collect, preserve, and make accessible, contingent upon their consent. NLB currently holds donated materials from P_DA recipients such as Andrew Gn and Mok Wei Wei. Additionally, URA will persist in its collaboration with NLB and the National Heritage Board (NHB) to amass and safeguard architecture-related materials and archives under the Singapore Architecture Collection. Collectively, these collections will not only aid in preserving the legacies of Singaporean designers but also serve to inspire current and future generations of creatives.

“Over the past 20 years, Singaporean design has progressed alongside our nation’s development. P_DA20 serves as an opportunity to acknowledge and honor the finest achievements and substantial influence of our design sector and the designers whose work enhances and elevates everyday life. P_DA20: Power of Singapore Design and its new initiatives with Challenge X, Challenge Y, and the Design Singapore Collection underscore the robust design legacy that has been established for Singapore—and the possibilities that lie ahead,” stated Dawn Lim, Executive Director of the DesignSingapore Council. “Effective planning and design fundamentally revolve around individuals and their interactions with the environments around them. Over the past two decades, the P_DA has acknowledged considerate buildings, public spaces, and neighborhoods that have contributed to improving the quality of everyday life in Singapore—places that unite communities, reinforce our sense of belonging, and hold significance for multiple generations. Equally important, the Award recognizes the designers behind these initiatives, whose creativity and dedication have shaped our modes of living, working, and connecting with one another,” remarked Ms. Adele Tan, Chief Executive Officer of URA. “As we strategize for a more livable, connected, and resilient urban landscape, the importance of good design cannot be overstated. We aspire for P_DA to continue setting high standards for the places we create and share.”

The Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM) in Singapore, in collaboration with the Musée du Louvre in Paris, proudly presents Crosscurrents: Masterpieces of Mughal, Safavid, and Ottoman Art from the Musée du Louvre from 19 June 2026 to 24 January 2027. This distinguished exhibition unites 100 masterworks from the Louvre’s esteemed Islamic art collection alongside 30 exceptional pieces from ACM, illustrating the intricate interactions of trade, diplomacy, migration, and artistic exchange that contributed to the formation of a cosmopolitan world extending from Istanbul and Isfahan to Delhi and Southeast Asia. It delves into the three illustrious empires—the Mughals, Safavids, and Ottomans—during the 16th to 18th centuries, an era that signified the zenith of their influence amid the transformative effects of European expansion on global trade and political dynamics. Within these empires, artists engendered works of extraordinary beauty that conveyed authority and visually manifested power. Commencing in ACM’s Islamic Art Gallery on Level 2, the exhibition examines the evolution of courtly life and artistic creation in Mughal India and Safavid Iran, which concurrently thrived alongside burgeoning trade routes. These narratives persist into the Level 3 Design Gallery, where artifacts from the Ottoman realm, encompassing provincial centers such as Cairo and Damascus, and Southeast Asia uncover the ways in which artistic forms were adapted and redefined across diverse cultural contexts.

Located in the breathtaking mountainous region of Al Baha in southwestern Saudi Arabia, Zahrah Alghamdi’s artistic practice thrums at the vibrant intersection of land art, material memory, and installation. Growing up amidst traditional stone-and-mud agricultural communities, where her grandfather proudly held land ownership, Alghamdi views her surroundings not just as a canvas for intervention but as a living repository of human emotion, toil, and heritage. Unlike the land art of the mid-twentieth century that often sought to reshape landscapes drastically, Alghamdi embraces a deeply intimate and labor-intensive process. With unwavering devotion, she gathers materials from her own environment—sand, rock, clay, leather, cotton, charcoal, and plaster—each telling its own story, and subjects them to meticulous hand processes like molding, dyeing, stitching, and layering. Rather than merely addressing ecology from an environmental standpoint, her site-specific creations pulse with embodied memory, revealing how physical landscapes, vernacular architecture, and human experiences intertwine with the timeless themes of loss, resilience, and the inexorable passage of time. In an era marked by the rapid degradation of precious arable oases, Alghamdi’s installations passionately assert a vital truth: land is a universal heritage that belongs to all humanity, powerfully bridging geographic and cultural divides, with the human body serving as a compelling instrument for expressing vulnerability, strength, and a profound sense of collective belonging.