Beijing Design Week 2017

This coming Fall design professionals will take over the Chinese capital’s most iconic areas during two weeks for the 8^th edition of the Beijing Design Week. Originally a government initiative to bolster design and innovation in China, the event has quickly gained in popularity (8 million visitors in 2016) and has become a meeting point of hundreds of designers from all around the world with the Chinese public.

Around this year’s theme “Design +”, designers will implement concepts such as “Weaving Baitasi”, dotting the historical neighborhood with multicolored woven pieces of yarn made by residents. In the same area (Baitasi), the AaaM architects will set up their “Periscope Playground” project, which intends to create a social space for gathering within the hutong by installing periscopes in a courtyard. Through these periscopes, viewers will be able to peer through at different heights and view their home from different perspectives.

In the Dashilar area, Lava Studio’s exhibition “Lava & Community” will be a major attraction of the 8^th edition of the event. Through a photography exhibition the studio will present a retrospective of how it had engaged with local residents since 2013. In the same area, Zhou Yi’s “Body Memory’s Clinic”, which transformed body parts into jewelry pieces via plaster casts, will also be a must see.

Author: Florian Croisé