The Design Wall

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Mumbai 30^th August 2013

On my last day in Mumbai I attended the Design Wall, the “pre-quel” to the later in October to be held AceTech Lighting and Green Summit. I had not been able to participate in the event in previous years due to conflicting schedules, but as this happened to coincide with my involvement in the Architecteure and Design Summit yesterday it was a logical extension. With over 90 of India’s leading architects, interior designers, builders and developers in attendance the event was certainly worth-wile not in the least for the networking opportunities.

The Design Wall is an event where through invitation, pre-selection and shortlisting a number of new and innovative products are being presented to an eminent jury panel of architects, interior designers and other luminaries in the design and building industry. The shortlisted companies each get a small booth in the hall to display their innovation product and each of them get 3 minutes to present and the key elements of their product. The presentations follow a strict format in which in sequence explain the unique selling points, the innovative parts or concept of their product, what impact the product is going to make and finally how sustainable the innovation is. If they can manage within the allocated 3 minutes they are allowed to show pictures or video’s of the product, concept or application. The jury then judges each product on these criteria and adjudicates a score between 1 and 5 (poor to excellent). These scores, compiled from about 50 jury members, is then compiled into a final score under strict supervision and control of Ernst & Young. The winner will then be announced during the Acetech event in October.

While I felt that the level of innovativeness was mixed from nothing special to something really innovative, I found the mix of products a bit unbalanced. Predominantly we saw building materials, like flooring, tiling as well as sanitary, but little in the sense of lighting, furniture or other common products. In fact lighting was restricted to one chandelier (I did not get the innovative part), lighting controls (flush mountable, cool),a local LED company (here also I failed to grasp the big innovation element). In total more than 50 products were presented to the jury in two sessions over the day. I certainly like the concept but I feel it does need a bit of tweaking and direction to become even more exciting… I was surprised to see little on lighting as I was expecting that with the fast developing LED technology there would be ample opportunity to showcase some of the latest innovative developments…perhaps next year.

Light Watch 4-145: Here are some images taken with my I-phone of the event as well as the hotel itself (the Taj, Lands end) where the event was held. Have a great weekend