Now in its fifth edition, Design Shanghai (14-17 March) has established itself as the go-to exhibition for talents rooted in the heart of Oriental culture. Held in the Shanghai Exhibition Centre in the upscale city centre, it welcomes brands and designers from around the world to gather and showcase their creativity. Contemporary Chinese design is evolving, and Chinese elements are seen, not merely at the edges but in the nation’s core values – social and environmental – creating a lifestyle that facilitates and enhances its modern urban life. Here, we select our new talent highlights...
Wuu
Furong Chen started the brand WUU in 2014 and a year later won Design Shanghai’s China Emerging Chinese Designer Award. Dedicated to furniture, lighting and accessories design, Chen aims to produce timeless pieces in materials that focus on sustainability.
Jihe Studio
Tony Lee’s Shenzhen studio focuses on developing products for the home that are influenced by lines and clean surfaces with a strong minimalist aesthetic. One of his most important designs is Wait, a simple but versatile geometrical floor lamp.
Frank Chou Design Studio
Frank Chou Design Studio seeks to find a unique, modern expression of Chinese design while balancing the stylistic differences between East and West.
Designer, brand founder, businesswoman and mother, Sherry Xu aims to use design to balance work with the other aspects of one’s life. Born and trained in Shanghai, her ideas are mostly based on the city.
Endless Form
Founded by Zhang Zhoujie in 2014 and formally launched this year, Endless Form focuses on avant-garde, computer-aided designs while providing customisation services to shape and promote a new direction in the digital era.
Tells Studio
Tells studio was founded by Xinyu Dang and Jie He in 2015. Basing their work on craft and material research, the studio aims to balance the relationship between creativity and functionalism.
The brand caters to the rapidly growing Chinese middle class, offering furniture and lifestyle products manufactured in the country. Founder Shu Wei and Italian creative director Luca Nichetto this year launched their collaboration with China-based Japanese architect Shuhei Aoyama and French designer Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance.
Raffles Design Institute interior design graduates Jerry Huang and Eva Zhou co-founded Dongwest Design Studio in 2007, specialising in interior, exhibition and furniture design services. In 2010, they established the brand E-Y (which sounds like ‘surprise’ in Chinese) creating products, that aim to surprise.
Urban Craft Design
Founded by Ximi Li, Urban Craft seeks to integrate unique cultural elements of different regions around the world into its works. Li, who studied in China and Italy has worked for designers including Andrea Branzi, Luca Trazzi and Neri & Hu.
INFORMATION
Design Shanghai is on view from 14-17 March. For more information, visit the website
-
Meet the New York-based artists destabilising the boundaries of societyA new show in London presents seven young New York-based artists who are pushing against the borders between refined aesthetics and primal materiality
-
Inside a Montana house, putting the American West's landscape at its heartA holiday house in the Montana mountains, designed by Walker Warner Architects and Gachot Studios, scales new heights to create a fresh perspective on communing with the natural landscape
-
‘You can feel their presence’: step inside the Eameses’ Pacific Palisades residenceCharles and Ray Eames’ descendants are exploring new ways to preserve the designers’ legacy, as the couple’s masterpiece Pacific Palisades residence reopens following the recent LA fires
-
Reimagining roots: highlights from Design Shanghai 2025The 12th edition of Design Shanghai reflected the evolution of Chinese creativity despite challenges to the sector, with participants exploring the intersection of tradition and innovation
-
New global design destination House of Wang opens in BeijingA new retail destination offering a curated edit of the best contemporary design opens its doors within a historical setting
-
Plywood pavilion transforms into 410 furniture piecesIn Fuqing, a small rural community in China, 410 plywood tables and chairs have been constructed from Furniture Pavilion S, an architect-built exhibition space, giving a new lease of life to this temporary structure
-
Meet the next generation of creative forces reshaping Chinese design topography -
UAE’s thriving creative scene catapults Dubai Design Week onto a global stage -
The Salon Art + Design 2018: the Wallpaper* preview -
Prague celebrates its global creative identity at Designblok 2018 -
How Tokyo’s creative universe is evolving at Designart’s second edition
