Dubai design-fest

November is shaping up to be quite the design fest. A bonafide design extravaganza of a month will kick off on November 6, with the six-day IFI General Assembly and Design Congress.

Taking place at the Grand Hyatt Dubai, the bi-annual event is a massive coup for Dubai and its relatively young Association of Professional Interior Designers (APID). It is promising to be an interesting blend of workshops, masterclasses and design competitions, run alongside an exhibition and the IFI’s General Assembly.

Despite working to the very tightest of deadlines, APID has managed to get some big names onboard: Nadja Swarovski, Ross Lovegrove, Piero Lissoni and Sebastian Conran are some of the industry stalwarts heading up what looks like a diverse and informative speaker programme.

This is just the kind of event that Dubai’s design industry needs in order to hurtle itself onto the global consciousness. It is an invaluable opportunity for the industry to rally round and prove its credentials, and I genuinely hope that it will not be squandered.

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Next on the agenda is Index, which is taking place from November 14 to 17. Moving on from last year’s event, which was plagued by unfortunate timing and bad weather, this year’s edition of Index promises to be far more structured, business-friendly and design-orientated.

A new team is signalling a new, more focused direction for the show and I’m looking forward to seeing the results. Read more about what to expect in our Index Focus, starting on page 7 of our magazine.

Last but not least, the third annual CID Awards take place on November 15 at the Park Hyatt Dubai. The response this year has been phenomenal, with projects entered from a record number of design firms from all over the region.

There have been whisperings in the past that the awards weren’t fully representative of the region’s design industry as a whole – this year’s entries will quash any such suggestions. Book your seats now by contacting Annie Chinoy at annie.chinoy@itp.com.

Here’s to an exciting, exhausting, design-filled month. I look forward to seeing you out and about!

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