Registration is now open for the highly sought-after Furniture Design Award (FDA) 2010, organised by the Singapore Furniture Industries Council (SFIC).

Similar to last year’s competition, entries are not confined to any given theme, allowing participants the freedom to fully explore and express their creativity.

Andrew Pang, chairman of the FDA 2010 Organising Committee, says, “For FDA 2010, we will continue to offer FDA participants the breadth of scope to create furniture pieces that best reflect their design capabilities and realise their full potential. We hope this will encourage an even more vibrant design environment in Singapore and nurture a multi-cultural design talent pool that also possesses a strong understanding of global design trends and requirements.”

FDA 2010 consists of three categories – Open, Young Designers and Students. For the first time, participation in the Young Designers category will be extended worldwide. In the past years, this category was only open to the Asia Pacific region.

The Open category targets companies, seeking participants from all over the world with entries that have already been manufactured and launched commercially; the Young Designers category caters to local and international participants, aged 35 years and below as of 9 March 2010; and the Students category is open to all full-time students from educational institutions in the ASEAN countries (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, The Philippines and Vietnam).

 Since the inception of the Awards in 1993, FDA has been growing in participation and prestige. Up from 530 entries in 2008, the recently concluded FDA 2009 received an overwhelming total of 637 submissions from Singapore and 18 countries globally, namely Australia, Belgium, China, France, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, the Philippines, Spain, Taiwan, Thailand, United States and Vietnam.
To help nurture budding design talents, SFIC also provides mentoring sessions for all the finalists in the Students category.

Entries for FDA 2010 will be judged by a panel of prominent industry personalities and renowned international designers. The judging criteria include creativity, marketability and functionality, including aspects of environmental-friendliness and ergonomics.

The closing date for the Students and Young Designers categories is 1 September 2009 and the Open category is 21 December 2009, before 5pm Singapore time.

Entries in the Students and Young Designers categories will vie for the FDA Merits, FDA Honourable Mentions and FDA Grand Awards. An additional Best Use of Material Award will also be presented to a participant from across the three categories. Entries in the Open category will compete for the FDA Honourable Mentions and FDA Grand Award. Winners for FDA 2010 will stand to receive a certificate and trophy and up to US$6,000 in cash.

In addition, the FDA Grand Award winners for the Students and Young Designers categories will also be offered a 12 square-metre exhibition space at PLATFORM 2011, held in conjunction with the annual International Furniture Fair Singapore / ASEAN Furniture Show (IFFS/AFS).

FDA 2010 is supported by Design Singapore Council, International Enterprise (IE) Singapore, SPRING Singapore, American Hardwood Export Council, Designers Association Singapore, Interior Design Confederation (Singapore), Singapore Institute of Architects and IFFS Pte Ltd.