The Malta Independent on Sunday
Malta Design Week: Design Dialogues 2018
The Malta Design Week (MDW) Design Dialogues will this year showcase some of the best national and international design practitioners, promote good design, and also ask critical questions about our society and the role of design.
Next week’s Malta Design Week (MDW) is an event presented by Foundation 808, which will be returning for its fourth edition with Design Dialogues 2018, a curated series of lectures, presentations and discussions. The event will be held at the University of Malta, Valletta Campus Theatre.
Design Dialogues is a Valletta 2018 project and is part of the Valletta 2018 – European Capital of Culture Programme. The programme is produced by 808, in partnership with Valletta 2018 and the Valletta Design Cluster".
Valletta 2018 Foundation, Chairman, Jason Micallef said that, "One of the main aims of Valletta 2018 is to facilitate, promote and celebrate development across the arts and culture sector, including the design industry in Malta. Malta Design Week will provide several designers and workers within the art industry with the opportunity to meet, discuss, create and share their knowledge together".
Design Dialogues 2018speakers include: Award-winning Japanese architect, Tetsuo Kondo, founder of Tetsuo Kondo Architects, (Japan), Dmitri Jajich & Karl Micallef, from Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM, USA) the world-renowned architecture and urban planning firm with a portfolio that includes some of the most important architectural accomplishments of the 20th and 21st centuries. Other speakers include Toby F. Blunt senior partner at Foster + Partners (UK), the innovative global studio for sustainable architecture and design. Prof. Arch. Marco Casamonti, co-founder of Archea, (Italy), a network for Architecture, Research and Communication of over 100 architects, operating in six different locations: local graphic designer Marco Scerri (Malta), Prof. Andrew Walters, Director of Research at PDR (Wales) a company that promotes how design can be improved through intervention at the organisational and government policy level, 72 Hour Urban Action (GER), the world's first realtime architecture competition, where 10 international teams have 3 days and 3 nights to design and build projects in public space in response to local needs, product designers OS Δ OOS (NDR), Germans Ermičs (Latvia/NDR), and Neil Pace O’Shea (Malta), local designer of custom kayaks and founder of ‘The Floating Project’, plus other special guests.
Although coming from far and wide, many of the Design Dialogues speakers and organisations have strong connections to Malta; Archea designed the recently renovated Is-Suq Tal-Belt, Tetsuo Kondo is designing the new Valletta Design Cluster roof garden, and Foster + Partners have designed the Manoel Island Masterplan. Design Dialogues presentations will be followed by an open forum where members of the audience can propose questions, join in the discussions and learn more about these, and many other projects of local and international significance. For more information please contact: info@designweek.com.mt | Web: http://designweek.com.mt/ | Facebook: maltadesignwk/ | Twitter: /maltadesignweek | Instagram: maltadesignweek Design Dialogues is a Valletta 2018 project and is part of the Valletta 2018 – European Capital of Culture Programme. The programme is produced by 808, in partnership with Valletta 2018 and the Valletta Design Cluster, in collaboration with Air Malta, Ursulino, and JPA, with additional support from local businesses.