October is always an exciting month for design in Asia. In Singapore, the country’s annual architecture festival, ArchiFest, kicked things into high gear with a host of programmes centred on the theme of “Common Spaces”.

Highlights included ArchiTours and the ArchiFest Forum headed by keynote speaker Sir Peter Cook.

Architours 2011

Sir Peter Cook

The Future Memory Pavilion by London-based Asif Khan and Pernilla Ohrstedt was also a traffic-stopping installation of ice, sand and rope designed to provoke conversations on memories of Singapore’s past and its future development.

Khan and Ohrstedt

Future Memory Pavillion

Piero Lissoni gave a candid interview during a stopover in Singapore to present his new furniture collection for Pierantonio Bonacina; while IPE Cavalli’s maverick CEO, Lepold Cavalli, also in town for the opening of Visionnaire’s flagship store at Marquis@QSquare, showed us just how the young label plans to shake up the luxury Italian furniture industry with its clubs, events and fashion line.

Piero Lissoni’s outdoor design for Pierantonio Bonacina

Lepold Cavalli

Visionnaire has turned a former cinema in Milan into a Design Gallery

Over in Indonesia, we look at the impressive sustainable features of Austria’s first green embassy; then in Hong Kong, we explore the recently opened Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre designed by Daniel Libeskind. After which it’s down to China to check out the 300,000sqm Shanghai International Design Centre that when completed, will stand as the largest design complex in the world.

Austrian Embassy in Menteng, Jakarta

We also bring you our report on the recently ended Beijing Design Week, and the upcoming highlights of the 9th Business of Design Week, which opens in Hong Kong on 28 November.

Silent Heroes at Dashilar alley, an exhibition that offers an intimate look into the life of actress Zhou Xun. Photo: Eric Gregory Powell

Tom Dixon’s Flash Factory, where a limited number of exclusive products were made and sold on site. Photo: China News

If you happen to be in Singapore in November, don’t forget to check out the 2nd edition of ’A Design Film Festival’, a showcase of 15 groundbreaking films on design, architecture, fashion and technology.

The film ’How to Make a Book with Steidl’ at A Design Film Festival

Last but not least, we want to congratulate WOHA on being the first Singapore firm to bag the prestigious RIBA Lubetkin Prize for The Met, Bangkok!

WOHA’s The Met, Bangkok

For more stories from Asia, visit Indesignlive.asia