Service With Luxury Wins Award

Ministry of Design (MOD), a multi-disciplinary design practice headquartered in Singapore, with offices in Kuala Lumpur and Beijing, took home the Project of the Year 2021 – Designers’ Choice Award at the recently concluded 8th Annual Design Excellence Award.

MOD’s design for Citi Wealth Hub garnered the highest number of votes from both industry peers and panel of judges. The win is doubly significant for being one chosen by members of the design fraternity.

MOD bested six other nominees from Asia Pacific, which included Cheng Chung Design (50% Cloud Artists Lounge Mile City), Tara Bernerd & Partners (The Hari Hotel), Andre Fu Studio (Hotel The Mitsui), AvroKO (Nan Bei Restaurant), Inspiral Architecture & Design Studio (Ulaman Eco Retreat), and Aedas (Yi Restaurant).

A Biophilic Conservatory

Located along Orchard Road in Singapore, Citi Wealth Hub re-casts the typical wealth hub as a ‘banking conservatory’, according to MOD design director, Colin Seah, to challenge the conventions associated with a high net-worth banking experience.

“Inspired by the site’s soaring glass-lined atrium, our aim was to create a focal point that would anchor the entire experience. We created a lush thriving indoor conservatory and paired it with a series of lifestyle-inspired spaces nestled within or organized around it: observation deck, feature bar, banquette seating, lounge niches and garden meeting pods,” Seah elaborates.

“Although drawing from the virtues of biophilic design, the scheme aims to create a cultured conservatory with carefully detailed planter-box arrangements, sinuous to allow for pathways and meeting spaces to be carved out amid the landscape. The choreographed verdant and lush greenery evoke an atmosphere where everything seems to flourish in a natural and sustainable manner, a nod to the ideals of wealth management”.

Growth in Entries, Profile

Design Excellence Award (DEA) is an undertaking of the Interior Design Confederation of Singapore (IDCS). A leading industry event, it handed out 153 awards this year for interior design excellence, innovation and talent across 31 categories.

This year’s winners were selected from 202 entries in two tracks: The Interior Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) for completed built projects by industry professionals; and the Spatial Design Awards (SPADE) for completed academic projects by design students.

The Design Excellence Awards 2021 has become an international brand of excellence in interior design. A tremendous growth in the quantity of submissions was recorded in 2021, according to Cameron Woo, IDCS president. This year’s winners were selected by panel of judges that included Woo, Bill Bensley, Genevieve Gorder, Laurence Llewelyn Bowen and Niwa Hiroyuki.