Smart Design Get Creative: Change It Up. The Vietnam Design Association relaunches the activities on design through a panel and networking event on the theme of Covid-19 impact on the design sector

HCMC, July 3rd 2020 – The impact of Covid-19 on the interior design and architecture design industry has been the main topic of the very first event organized by the Vietnam Design Association (VDAS) after the lockdown. VDAS is a long time partner of the Consulate General of Italy in HCMC in the promotion of quality design, also through initiatives such as the VMARK awards and VMARK design week arranged yearly. In a stimulating panel at the presence of Consul General Dante Brandi, Italian Trade Commissioner Paolo Lemma and the Chairman of the Italian Chamber of Commerce Michele D’Ercole, four practitioners, including two Italian architects active in Saigon Truon V. Hoang and Nino Marano, discussed about the evolution or revolution caused by the Covid-19 pandemic to the design industry at a global level. On one hand, we have a push for a back to normal, but on the other the industry needs to rethink itself. In Vietnam, focus has been driven to the domestic industry, in the attempt to promote local consumption of quality design and a growing presence of local designer in the most important firms active in the country. Nevertheless, Vietnam’s borders are still closed to foreigners and this will add uncertainty to a creative industry, which is in constant need of global influences to re-adapt, for instance to the new thinking of spaces where residential and working goals need to co-exist or collective spaces that need to be re-designed to prevent any promiscuity risks.