Emerge exhibition highlights "intangible aspect of design" at Singapore Design Week 2025

A mycelium coffee table and an inflatable lamp were among the furniture and products on show at this year's Emerge exhibition at Singapore Design Week.

Now in its fourth edition, this year's showcase featured works by over 70 designers from across Asia, spanning Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Vietnam.

The largest Emerge showcase yet, it is also the first edition to include designers from China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.

Over 100 objects fill the exhibition space, which was on display as part of the FIND design fair at Singapore's Marina Bay Sands & Expo and Convention Centre.

Working with this year's theme of "Dialogue through Design", the exhibition sought to explore design as both a language for storytelling and a tool for navigating modern challenges.

To address this theme, many of this year's participants looked to sustainable designs that are intended to "provoke thought, foster connections and expand the possibilities of design".

Among the designers tackling this theme was the founder of Singapore-based design studio Bewilder Sze Kiat Ng, who exhibited a coffee table formed of a mycelium base and glass top.

The organically grown table was the latest mycelium work by the studio, which works exclusively with edible fungi that it sells to restaurants and uses in its design work.

"We farm edible mushrooms. That's our main business, but we also do design work with mushrooms," Ng told Dezeen.

"We've grown a lot of lamps, and then now we are moving on to other furnishings like side tables, coffee tables," he added.

Designed to express the material in different forms, the table's glass top is held up by mushrooms that grew once exposed to oxygen, while a more rigid base was formed using a plaster mould.

"With emerge, I really wanted to showcase the mushrooms themselves," Ng explained. "It's a very beautiful material. We want people to experience this organism that [they] have been alienated from."

Colourful textiles drape over the exhibition space, which has been curated by Edwin Low, founder of the Supermama design store, alongside magazine Design Anthology's founder Suzy Annetta and organised around two sections, titled Design Object and Design Social.

Rather than designing for the sake of it, these works look to address challenges in the design industry through intentional design and communication, says Low.

"As a language, I think design is very powerful, and design can be used as a tool for us to communicate our thoughts, our ideas, history, heritage," Low told Dezeen during a tour of this year's exhibition.

"A lot of the design intent [and] the power of design lies in [asking] 'why'," Low said.

"That intangible aspect of design suddenly holds a lot more value than the tangible. And that is why this year, the whole idea is Dialogue through Design."

Exhibited atop raised, rounded platforms, other products and furniture on show include a series of hand-crafted, table-top products by Singaporean designer Gabriel Tan.

Carved from clay and travertine stone, the collection includes a series of vases and bowls by Tan's eponymous design studio.

Also on display were a series of modular lamps designed by Big Hand Creation, a studio established by Malaysian industrial designer Eric Tau.

Showcased in a variety of colours, the Bēori Lamp is made using Beyon Rubber – a sustainable, leather-like material made from recycled nitrile gloves.

The lamp's rounded form is composed of snap-fit parts made of renewable bioplastic that can be personalised with a range of colourful rubber elements.

Other lamps on show included the (Air) Lamp by Singapore-based designer and researcher Eian Siew, featuring an inflatable lamp raised on two sets of legs.

Other highlights include Korean designer Ok Kim's sculptural lacquer piece that draws on traditional Korean techniques and Atelier Sohn's table composed of fragments of plastic waste that are bonded together by colourful solvents resembling "spilled cheese".

A range of this year's works focused on designing with intent by, for example, creating more inclusive design for those with disabilities or offering more sustainable alternatives to today's materials, Low said.

"Does the world need another plate? I don't think so," he said. "But what if I can use this plate to shake the perception that disability is something to be shied away from."

"It's something within our community, and we should embrace it," he continued. "And if there's a way for us to come in to do good, why not? Design is very powerful in that sense."

The photography is courtesy of Find – Design Fair Asia unless otherwise stated.

Dezeen is a media partner of Singapore Design Week.

The Emerge exhibition and Find – Design Fair Asia trade show took place at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore from 11 to 13 September 2025 as part of Singapore Design Week 2025, which runs until 21 September 2025. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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