At the Shanghai Municipal Government press conference held on September 6, Zhang Wei, Member of the Standing Committee of CPC Shanghai Municipal Committee and Vice Mayor of Shanghai introduced the World Design Cities Conference (WDCC) 2022. Wu Jincheng, Director of the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Economy Information Technology, Ruan Li, Deputy Director of the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Economy Information Technology, Lou Yongqi, Vice President of Tongji University, and Wang Nai, Deputy Head of Huangpu District, jointly attended the conference and answered questions from the media.
I Background of the Conference
In 2010, the United Nations awarded Shanghai the honorary title of "Design City" among many other candidate cities. Since then, Shanghai's creative design industry has accelerated its development. At present, a number of professional design institutions with core competitiveness, well-known design representatives, and widely influential design brands have emerged. As the industry develops further, Shanghai needs an international, professional and market-oriented platform when building a world-class "Design City” and developing a creative design industry with high added value and high brand value, and also needs to rely closely on international and domestic experts and scholars and industry professionals to provide advice and attract talent. In this context, the municipal government decided to hold the first WDCC, aiming to create an international design cooperation and exchange event to help build a more creative, innovative, competitive, and influential creative design industry in Shanghai.
The 2022 WDCC will be held from September 15-18 in and around the Ship Pavilion along the Huangpu Riverside. The theme of this year's conference is "Vision in Perspective", which will focus on the trend of interdisciplinary integration, innovation-driven effect, and ubiquitous empowerment of design, and will also showcase Shanghai's determination and mission to actively integrate into the UCCN and work together with other creative cities to gather insights, build platforms, share opportunities and create a common future.
II Arrangements for the Conference
Regarding the preparation of the conference, there are three main considerations
First, to lead the industry trends and build a high-end platform for international cooperation and exchange. Overall, the conference enjoys a "1+2+2+X" structure, i.e. 1 opening ceremony, 2 summit forums (including the Design 100 Summit and Design City Summit), 2 exhibitions (including the main exhibition and the Paris Exhibition), and more than 50 summit forums and design activities.
On the one hand, the forum topics reflect many forward-looking elements. Focusing on industrial design, architectural design, fashion design, digital design, service design, and other fields, the organizers invited leading figures from home and abroad to give keynote speeches. For example, international design masters such as Philippe Starck will offer advice for Shanghai’s development as a UCCN Creative Design City, and industry leaders such as academician Wu Guanghui, chief designer of C919, and Yu Chengdong, managing director of Huawei, will discuss the broad environment of industrial design. During the conference, forums will also be held in specialized areas such as automotive design, brand design, advertising design, youth creativity, and design education to exchange innovative ideas on hot topics.
On the other hand, the event planning incorporates various international elements. The conference will feature online messages from international guests, including the Deputy Director-General of UNESCO; Renowned designers and entrepreneurs such as Thomas Heatherwick, Alexandra Michelie, and Ye Hongmu will deliver speeches online; In addition, the conference will be interconnected with the 2022 Paris Design Week, Milan Fashion Week, and the Bonjour Brand, etc., and overseas exhibitions combined with international elements, Chinese trends, and cutting-edge technologies will be organized to create an international event where Chinese and Western cultures meet.
Second, to show the five-dimensional structure and convey the connotation of the building of the "Design City". According to the concept of building an "Innovation-oriented Design City", the main exhibition located in the Ship Pavilion is a prototype of Shanghai's world-class "Design City". The exhibition starts with a design narrative and combines landscape installations to outline the full picture of 43 design cities around the world.
The main part of the exhibition centers around the five-dimensional structure of the Design City, namely, empowering innovative development through design, creating vibrant urban spaces, optimizing social public services, bringing a better life for the people, and making efforts to build urban brands, etc., with special areas for France and Italy.
On the square outside of the pavilion, landscape installations such as Design Dream have been set up by East China Construction Group. The total area of the exhibition is nearly 20,000 square meters, with a total of over 110 brands on display and over 300 exhibit series, of which international brands account for 20%.
In line with the five-dimensional structure, the conference will also hold a new product release session, led by the new "Shanghai Design 100+", judges have selected the finalists among the 2,128 works designed by 1,416 design teams from 18 countries and will release the works on the conference. The selected works have achieved an economic value of 42.2 billion yuan, and the total economic value of the works’ life cycle is expected to be 398.7 billion yuan. Among them, enterprises such as MicroPort and Shanghai Jahwa will also hold specialized product launches.
Third, to gather global resources and create an active vibe for industrial innovation and development. The conference will be led by "One Award, One Think Tank and One Initiative" to create a variety of activities to stimulate the innovation vitality of various subjects.
The "One Award" is the "Frontier Design Innovation Award", based on the principle of specialization and socialization, the organizing committee gave full play to the resource advantages and professional advantages of the Shanghai Institute of Innovation and Creative Design, and established three sub-awards, including the "Design Contribution Award, Design Innovation Award, and Future Innovation Award", to create a new business card of "Shanghai Design".
"One Think Tank" means the "International Design 100 Think Tank”. Domestic and foreign master designers, well-known design school deans, and leaders from top design enterprises were invited to join the first think tank to lead innovative interdisciplinary cooperation in the international community.
The "One Initiative" is the "Design City (Shanghai) Initiative", which closely links with the UCCN to spread Shanghai's ideas, design dreams and cooperation visions to the world.
In addition, the conference will create a city-wide design carnival. Shanghai municipal government has mobilized all districts, relevant cultural and creative parks, and industry associations to select about 20 special design activities to join the carnival, including Centennial Industrial Design Exhibition, Jiangnan Living Room Exhibition, etc., and has invited new online economic platforms such as Tencent, TikTok, and Dewu to actively participate in the event to realize wider social coverage. The conference will also further promote win-win industrial cooperation, award the first design city demonstration zone, release a number of creative design industry projects and international cooperation projects, and invite innovative enterprises, institutions, and high-end talents in the field of design at home and abroad to jointly promote the development of Shanghai's creative design industry.
The conference has created a meta-universe online venue, the general public is welcome to view the exhibition and conference through the online reservation form, please cooperate with the organizers and comply with the epidemic prevention requirements, and witness a wonderful, cool, unforgettable, and safe event.
