Indesign Media Asia Pacific have announced a shortlist of six candidates for their 2017 Luminary award. 

As part of the inaugural Inde Awards (INDE.Awards), the prestigious title acknowledges individuality, expertise, bravery and intelligence in Asia Pacific’s architecture and design world.

For over 15 years, Indesign has been celebrating exemplary architecture and design professionals as Luminaries. Previous recipients include Sue Carr, Frank Bauer and Susan Cohen.

“Recognising the ongoing contribution of one icon to our industry, your 2017 Luminary will represent the richness of our region’s creative diversity and our industry’s innovative spirit,” says David Congram, content editor at Indesign Media Asia Pacific.

The shortlist was chosen by an expert panel of Inde judges and Indesign Media’s editors across Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Indonesia.

“Each of your 2017 Luminary nominees practice a form of design as ‘way-finding’: their legacies illustrate the personal, visceral responses we experience living through design,” says Congram. “Their ‘way-finding’ work reflects and directs the nature of modern ways of living: the smallness and immensity of our world is exemplified here, simultaneously.”

Vote for the 2017 Luminary here.

The 2017 shortlist:

SonnyChan-1.pngSonny Chan

Sonny Chan is the founder of Chan Sau Yan Associates, and is one of the region’s most comprehensive and diverse architectural practitioners. He has previously worked with Arup Associates in London, and with Kumpulan Akitek. Chan’s experience stretches across an array of sectors including commercial, residential, recreational, and tourism projects. He has also served as a long-time tutor, examiner and professor in the School of Architecture (National University Singapore), and as an external critic at the University Malaya.

heckerguthrie.jpgPaul Hecker and Hamish Guthrie

Founders of Hecker Guthrie, Paul Hecker and Hamish Guthrie draw on the foundations of design with principles that have been developed over ten years of practice. As a multidisciplinary practice, Hecker Guthrie’s approach to design has been to create a unique identity for all projects. The firm’s body of work stretches across the hospitality, residential, retail and commercial sectors, and the pair work both locally and abroad.

 

KerryHill.pngKerry Hill

Kerry Hill is the director of the Singapore and Australia design practice Kerry Hill Architects, and has been an influential figure in South East Asian architecture for over 30 years. With an ever-growing portfolio of hotel, resort, residential, mixed use and public project work, Hill’s lauded designs are featured across the Asia Pacific region, and have been published in books, journals and magazines across the world. 

 

 

NikKaralis.pngNik Karalis

Woods Bagot CEO, Nik Karalis, possesses a diverse portfolio of civic, architectural and interior projects. His work crosses many boundaries, ranging from master planning, civic and commercial buildings, to intimate interiors. Karalis has also worked under the Woods Bagot research and publishing sub-brand, Public, to bring many top architectural publications to the world, and along the way has transformed Woods Bagot into a globally relevant architectural practice.

 

WilliamSmart.pngWilliam Smart

William Smart is the founder and leader of architecture firm, Smart Design Studio. Since 1997, as Creative Director, William has been directly involved in each project and is continuously exploring ideas in his work relating to flexibility, contemporary living and the merging of art and architecture. His career has spanned across architecture and interiors of many forms, always with respect to the environment in which a project sits.

 

hassumm.jpgMun Summ Wong and Richard Hassell

Founders of Singapore’s WOHA, Wong and Hassell have a well-earned reputation for their combination of strong environmental and social principles, and top-level design talent. The duo’s best-known projects have been widely championed as benchmarks for sustainable design in the face of global climate change. WOHA’s architectural approach answers the joint crises of a changing world, unprecedented population growth in cities, and increasingly dysfunctional infrastructure.