Two decades ago, cultural relations between China and the UK were at an all-time high. At the time, I was the editor of the cultural and entertainment magazine Time Out in Beijing, and there was a constant stream of British talent landing in China.

The pre-Olympic build-up years saw China-based music promotors bring top-flight British musicians, including Frank Turner, Faithless, Friendly Fires and Joss Stone to clubs and venues in Beijing and Shanghai on what felt like an almost weekly basis.

Concerts, art fairs and theatre festivals were springing up in stadia and parks across the country, including the Midi, Intro, Modern Sky, Yue, and Zebra festivals, to name but a few. Major government-to-government cultural exchanges were the norm – such as the 2006 visit by then Director of the British Museum Neil MacGregor, to loan 272 of the British Museum’s most valuable artefacts to China.

This positive energy was crystalised by the 2008 CHINA NOW programme held in advance of the Beijing Olympics at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, the largest festival of Chinese culture in Britain. It featured contemporary photographers such as Chen Man, designers including Shao Fan, and architects such as Ma Yansong, along with filmmakers, artists, musicians and more.

In return, the British Council organised UK NOW in advance of the London Olympics in 2012, and a whole host of iconic British photographers, choreographers, artists and directors descended on China to showcase the best of British.

British media were making documentaries on China, journalists were writing about the Chinese contemporary art and music scene, and international film productions were shooting in locations all over China, from the outskirts of the capital to the far western deserts of Xinjiang.

From my front-row seat to the cultural goings-on between the two countries, it was incredible to witness these two nations working together and the impact it had on both the British and Chinese populations.

The impression of China among the British population was overwhelmingly positive, and Chinese tourists and students flooded to the UK to be in and around the British cultural scene that was promoted so well in venues in Beijing, Shanghai, and other cities.

This cultural explosion led to an openness and freedom of expression that showed a confident China on the world stage. “Culture has always been the most immediate form of social commentary and political criticism. And, for the moment, the authorities appear unfazed by this new-found freedom of expression. The strong sense of ‘Chineseness’ that artists and architects raise in media interviews, the patriotic and nationalistic pride depicted on canvas and on film, is, for the most part, accepted, encouraged even,” I wrote in the V&A Magazine for the launch of China Now in 2008. “It remains to be seen if the authorities will be quite so easy-going this time next year when the Olympics are just a memory. Will they clamp down as they might have in the past?”

It turns out they did. And it was a great shame when much of that cultural light started to fade. Increased restrictions on the number of foreign films allowed to be shown in cinemas, complexities around getting permits for international music acts and geopolitical tensions saw the number of cultural exchanges reduce. When Covid-19 hit in 2019, many of the independent promotors, corporate sponsors and international audiences in China left the country leaving not just a vacuum of events but also a lack of experience and knowledge that had been built up over the previous decades.

According to a new report, the UK has fallen behind Russia in its soft power ranking among Chinese people. However, Dom Hastings, the British Council’s Director of Arts in China hopes to bring back some of the cultural opportunities for British creatives with the re-launch of the website China Now – and in turn, boost the cultural standing of the UK in China.

The British Council have revamped and relaunched the website ‘China Now’ (no direct relation to the V&A’s 2008 blockbuster) as a central point for UK artists and arts organisations interested in exploring creative ventures in China.

According to Hastings, the site is now a central hub for people to “find resources about China’s creative sector, to build connections, and to highlight opportunities in China. It also highlights the risks such as intellectual property issues, too,” he says.

Hastings is quick to point out that there are still any number of major cultural exchange programmes between the two countries. The V&A has five exhibitions currently touring China, and the Royal Philharmonic are currently in the country, he says. But it is mostly the bigger national institutions who are putting on productions, and it is very “government to government. I want to ensure that all of the UK’s arts sectors are represented in China,” he says.

In a bid to boost cultural exchanges, the British Council has taken a number of Chinese cultural leaders to various festivals in the UK, including Great Escape in Brighton and Hove and the Edinburgh Festival, and invited British festival organisers to China to see if they can bring some of their projects to the country.

The China Now site not only provides information, reports and stories on the sector but also ‘how to’ guides on funding applications for projects. Currently, the British Council has grants of up to £10,000 under their Connections Through Culture programme. The grant, which runs until 2 September, provides seed funding for research, development and partnership outreach for collaborative projects between the two countries. Further down the line there are International Collaboration Grants of up to £70,000 for organisations that are ready to put on a project.

Cultural exchanges might not always be seen as the most important or direct value stream when it comes to trade and relations between the UK and China, but companies want to invest in countries with a strong creative culture, students want to study where creativity thrives, and nothing helps public the understanding of two nations more than a shared love of culture. So whether it’s British rock bands to Beijing or Chinese photographers to London – building cultural exchange between our two great countries has never been more important than it is today. 

Visit the China Now website

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Over the years, the Design Intelligence Award has rapidly developed into one of the world’s most prestigious award programmes. Celebrating global design, entrepreneurship and business success, it represents an opportunity for UK entrepreneurs to access global decision-makers, investors and commissioners, build their reputation internationally, and grab a share of a £600,000 (RMB 5,000,000) award fund.

DIA has a strong trade and commercialisation focus, and its Industrial Transformation Service provides support for project landing, investment, entrepreneurship guidance, design refinement, marketing promotion and sci-tech transformation to accelerate market expansion. The DIA Trade and Business Portal helps applicants evaluate the potential of products or services, offering guidance on how to grow business in China. 

DIA recognises effort, dedication and innovation in four categories – spanning Cultural Innovation, Life Wisdom, Industrial Equipment and Digital Economy – designed to appeal to both established businesses with products new to the market and early-stage innovators with prototypes capable of being brought to market. The theme of DIA 2022 focuses on ‘Design Collaboration’,  hoping to bring together designers around the world to explore collaboration and sustainability in the post-Covid era through design.

UK applicants are serial winners at the DIA, receiving Gold and Silver awards in previous years. In 2021, Lancaster-based O-Innovations received one of the two Future Talents awards (worth RMB 80,000) for the O-Wind, the world’s first wind turbine that can harness both vertical and horizontal winds to generate clean electricity with a unique bladeless design that allows it to fit safely into dense urban environments.

At DIA 2021, UK companies were prominent among the Honourable Mentions too, including Shifa Technologies’ ShiVent, a simple, low-cost, non-electric and oxygen-efficient non-invasive ventilator created in response to the Covid-19 pandemic; and London-based material technology company Petit Pli, which has created a sustainable material that ‘grows’ as children grow, reducing the need to buy new clothes.

DIA is free to enter and you will gain invaluable exposure to supply chains, investors, commissioners, and other like-minded professionals. Plus, it’s super easy to enter, with just an online form to fill in.

Click here to apply for the 2022 Design Intelligence Award — the entry deadline is 8 July

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The results of China’s 2020 census showed that the population is ageing rapidly. There are now 264 million people over the age of 65 in China, accounting for 13.5% of the 1.4 billion population, an increase of 4.6% from the 2010 census. While the share of older people in the population is still lower than in neighbouring countries like Japan and South Korea, the pace of ageing in China is likely to continue to accelerate over the next two to three decades.

This problem is not unique to China, and it creates a growing challenge for governments, both in terms of how to maintain a sustainable working-age population and how to care for the growing number of older adults. In 2020, China’s Social Security Administration predicted that its pension fund could be depleted by as early as 2035 unless remedial measures were taken, and there is also a lack of nursing home provision, especially at the more affordable end of the spectrum. According to a 2019 China Daily article, only 3% of Shanghai’s elderly population lives in a nursing home, with 90% living at home. However, as the post-one child policy generations mature, there are fewer family members available to look after older people at home.

Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, recently announced that it is recruiting a group of people over the age of 60 to advise on how to make its app more accessible and appealing to older people

Companies from a wide range of sectors are coming up with hardware and software solutions to address these problems. The Healthy Ageing Challenge, one of UK Research and Innovation organisation’s projects, is investing up to £98 million in healthy ageing, and has identified seven themes that offer the greatest potential to stimulate innovation in the pursuit of longer, healthier lives:

• Sustaining physical activity
• Maintaining health at work
• Designing for age-friendly homes
• Managing the common complaints of ageing
• Living well with cognitive impairment
• Supporting social connections
• Creating healthy and active places.

In many cases, the best innovations start much earlier than retirement age. For Helen Crampin, the Investment and Technology Innovation Lead at Healthy Ageing, the key is trying to create a long-term sea change rather than short term fixes. “At the centre of what we’re trying to do is help people age better, so not even have to go to hospital or into social care… We don’t just aim our products at the elderly, we’re aiming our products at [people in their] 40s and 50s, making people think about the way they’re living,” she said.

As a country that has only started to combat its ageing population more recently, China has a leg up in terms of designing products for older users from the ground up. Another area where UK businesses can learn from China is digital inclusion. The proportion of internet users in China aged 50 or above increased from 17% in March 2020 to 27% by the end of 2020, and many older people are using smartphones for everything from mobile payment to entertainment, particularly in urban areas. Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, recently announced that it is recruiting a group of people over the age of 60 to advise on how to make its app more accessible and appealing to older people.

As a judge in this year’s Design Intelligence Awards (DIA), Crampin believes that design plays an indispensable role in creating products and services that older people can and will actually use. “Design should come at the stage of ideation… you should be thinking about your end-user when the idea is sparked,” she says. In actuality, many software platforms that have a use elsewhere are being retroactively applied to ageing, “but the design for ageing hasn’t happened until that product is nearly fully formed.”

Offering advice to this year’s DIA applicants,  Crampin draws on her experience working on investor partnerships as part of the Healthy Ageing Challenge. Many social enterprises find it hard to access early-stage funding because commercial investors want to see a two to three-year exit strategy, which is not always possible for solutions that are targeting long-term change. She suggests that companies applying to the DIA that face this issue consider both the short and long-term strategies for their products, as well as how to highlight other attractive aspects of their company, such as their founder and leadership team.   

Visit this link to apply for the Design Intelligence Awards — the entry deadline for UK applicants is 9 July

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In 2020, UK applicants to the DIA were awarded more funding than Japan, India and Germany combined. UK innovators topped the international league tables outside China, with 18 finalists – and 20% of UK applicants – selected as finalists from a field of 7,000 applications.

Read on to find out more about two previous award winners that showcase the broad spectrum of design and innovation that has the potential to succeed in the DIA (and scroll down for how to enter).

Hero Arm, 2019 Gold Award (£115k)

Created by Open Bionics, Hero Arm is the world’s first 3D-printed bionic hand that offers market-leading functionality at a fraction of the cost of its nearest competitor.

Finally, they also recommend bringing a product user or advocate to the awards pitch, as seeing the tech in action makes it more meaningful, especially with a life-changing product like a bionic limb.

Finally, they also recommend bringing a product user or advocate to the awards pitch, as seeing the tech in action makes it more meaningful, especially with a life-changing product like a bionic limb.

Tampliner, 2020 Silver Award (£25k)

Visit this link to apply for the Design Intelligence Awards — the entry deadline for UK applicants is 9 July

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A recent CBBC webinar hosted by Mark Hedley, Director of Tech and Knowledge Economy at CBBC and featuring an expert panel including John Mathers, chair of UK Design Intelligence Awards (DIA) judges, Thang Vo-Ta, CEO of 2020 winner Callaly, and Dr Stephen Green from Imperial College London, explored how UK companies can leverage their skills in design and innovation.

Learn from China’s example

China’s innovation capacity has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years, and this trend is only set to continue. In a speech during the Two Sessions meeting in March, premier Li Keqiang said that China’s R&D spending is set to increase by more than 7% per year between 2021 and 2025.

The number of design colleges in China has increased from 300 to 1,800 over the past 10 years, and there are thought to be more than 50,000 design professionals in China, including a new generation of advanced digital designers.

As a result, China has numerous examples of outstanding innovation, both physical and technological. During the webinar, John Mathers pointed to examples such as Alibaba’s Hema supermarket chain (sometimes known as Freshhippo in English), which seamlessly blends online and physical retail, mobile payment and fresh produce delivery to create a powerful omnichannel strategy, as well as super-app WeChat, the multi-functionality of which has huge implications for the life services industry of the future.

Leverage the strength of UK higher education

Higher education is one of the UK’s key strengths, and ongoing design and innovation programmes offer key insights for companies. Stephen Green described how Imperial College London’s Innovation Design Engineering programme fuses “design thinking, engineering knowledge and practice, within a culture of innovation and enterprise.” The programme is run in partnership with the Royal College of Art, underscoring the importance of good design and even artistry in creating successful products. 

In addition, getting involved with higher education gives companies direct access to the next generation of design talents, as Stephen has found in his other role as director of the British Industrial Design Association.

Test the market and don’t make assumptions

Many of the companies that have successfully conquered the Chinese market have done so because they entered it with both “empathy and understanding,” said John. Both John and Thang Vo-Ta stressed the importance of market research, especially for FMCG firms, as many companies simply do not have a foundational understanding of the Chinese consumer. “Of all the countries we tested our products, China had the strongest results in certain things we would have never expected,” Thang commented. For example, China’s tech-savvy, smartphone reliant consumers have higher than average requirements for customer service due to the rapid response times that platforms such as Taobao have cultivated.

Look at the big picture

From initial idea to China launch, companies need to consider the big picture. Long before they start thinking about how their design will work in China, they should be asking what purpose it serves and what real-world problems it solves. In his concluding remarks, John pointed to the strength of China’s “long-term thinking, vision and pragmatism” as being something that the UK design industry can learn from.

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The Design Intelligence Awards represent an opportunity for UK entrepreneurs to access global decision-makers, investors and commissioners, build their reputation internationally and grab a share of a £750,000 award fund. The companies that enter are reviewed and advised by a panel made up of some of the leading minds in the UK’s design-led and creative industries.

This year’s UK partners and judges come from a broad range of industries and backgrounds, with partners including Innovate UK, China Britain Business Council, Barclays Eagle Labs, Imperial College London and Plus X Accelerators, as well as previous award-winners.

FOCUS spoke to three of the 2021 DIA judges about the strengths of UK innovators and how UK businesses can succeed in the DIA.

John Mathers, Chair of British Design Fund, Co-founder Design Age Accelerator, Chair DIA UK Judges Group

John has been working in the brand and design industry for 40 years. He was CEO of the UK Design Council for five years from 2011-16, and in 2017, he co-founded The British Design Fund, a venture capital fund supporting well-designed British start-ups. He also co-founded the Innovate UK funded Design Age Accelerator and Healthy Ageing by Design.

In the four years that John has been involved in the DIA, he has seen the competition go from strength to strength, reaching over 7,000 applications last year. UK entries rose from just four in 2019 to around 100 in 2020. “The key thing I’ve seen is a drive towards purpose-driven design,” John says. “[Companies that do well] are enterprises and innovators who are doing things because they believe there is a need… there’s a problem to be solved or there’s a human issue that needs to be addressed, and they’ve got an idea that can actually do that.”

In considering this year’s applicants, he advises companies to consider the “higher purpose” of both design and innovation. “I’m a great believer that things should be design-led not technology-led. All too often, things fail because they’re technology-led not human insight-led.”

Graham Hitchen, Head of Strategy and Policy, Creative Industries at Innovate UK

Graham is Associate Dean for Enterprise at Loughborough University London, and Head of Strategy for Innovate UK’s Audience of the Future and Creative Clusters programmes. He is an experienced adviser on creative industries, design and innovation, working with government agencies, cultural organisations, universities and cities to support the development of major projects.

“A successful creative proposition always has a strong combination of imagination or novelty but at the same time is achievable, is something that can scale.” — Graham Hitchen

Loughborough is a research-intensive university that also places a focus on instilling enterprise-based perspectives in students from the get-go and as a result, Graham believes the DIA is a great fit for its students. “It’s a great opportunity for some of our students who are themselves in the process of setting up a business, whether they are undergraduate or postgraduate students,” he says. Success in the awards not only offers external validation, but also introduces fledgling entrepreneurs to a global network or cohort just as they are starting out.

Graham also emphasises why design is important to business development. “One of the things design does is forces people who are building something or who have a smart piece of technology to pause … and to think from the beginning about how [their product] is going to be used,” he says. In terms of this year’s DIA, he is interested in novel ideas about how design can be used to redeploy existing technologies or apply them in new ways.

Mat Hunter, Co-CEO of Plus X Accelerators

Mat Hunter is Co-CEO of Plus X, a network of innovation hubs that help ambitious businesses to grow. Plus X aims to accelerate the economic regeneration of towns and cities across the UK by connecting entrepreneurs, corporate teams and University researchers. He has been immersed in the world of global innovation for 25 years, first with pioneering consultancy IDEO in San Francisco and London, and then as Chief Design Officer at the Design Council where he worked with UK Government, non-profits and enterprise to address innovation challenges in healthcare, crime and education. 

“We cannot solve the challenges of healthcare and environmental concerns by software alone” — Mat Hunter

Over the years, Mat and his teams have found that there is often a lack of support for new physical design products. “We’ve supported innovations in the main that are environmentally focused and healthcare-focused, [although] it wasn’t our overt theme,” Mat explains. Many of the projects they have supported have been in the fields of novel or bio materials, for example.

Two of the start-ups he supported at accelerator and co-working space Central Research Laboratory — Mimica, which uses bio-reactive food labels to reduce food waste, and Bright Sign, which uses a smart glove to turn sign language into speech — were highly commended in the 2020 DIA. Mat says that he is consistently impressed by companies that consider solutions to the “big problems in the world.” “I am always looking for those ideas that push forward, because they really are possible these days.”

Webinar: Win in China Through Innovation, Design and Awards

On 15 June, Mark Hedley, Director of Tech and Knowledge Economy at CBBC, will be joined by an expert panel including John Mathers, chair of UK DIA judges, Thang Vo-Ta, CEO of 2020 winner Callaly, and Dr Stephen Green from Imperial College London to discuss design and innovation in UK enterprises and how both can benefit them in the China market.

Click here to find out more and sign up for the webinar.

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Conventional Western thinking has often positioned China as a “fast-follower,” an absorber of technology rather than an innovator. However, in recent years, growth in multiple indicators, including R&D spending, patent applications and scientific publications, show that China is taking measures to dramatically upgrade its domestic innovation capacity. For example, in 2019, China became the world’s biggest source of international patent applications, filing 58,990 applications via the World Intellectual Property Organisation’s Patent Cooperation Treaty.

China has also made significant strides in intellectual property protection, formerly a key area of concern for design-led companies considering the Chinese market. The introduction of a new Civil Code in 2020 brought with it important changes to the country’s IP system, in particular by cementing the principle that punitive damages can be claimed against infringers.

Beyond that, a new generation of creative talents are finding inspiration within China, rather than from foreign products or designs. The number of design colleges alone has grown from 300 to 1,800 in the past 10 years. Some sources suggest that there are now more than 50,000 designers in China, including architects, urban planners, industrial and graphic designers, and, most crucially, advanced digital designers.

The rapid pace of change in the Chinese market and the openness to new technologies and experiences represent a major opportunity for innovative UK companies, which they can leverage via programmes such as the Design Intelligence Awards (DIA).

What are the Design Intelligence Awards?

Now in their sixth year, the DIA is one of the world’s most prestigious award programmes. It represents an opportunity for UK entrepreneurs to access global decision-makers, investors and commissioners, build their reputation internationally and grab a share of a £750,000 award fund.

DIA 2021 has a strong trade and commercialisation focus, with partners including China Britain Business Council, Innovate UK, Barclays Eagle Labs, Imperial London and Plus X Accelerators. The DIA Trade and Business Portal helps applicants evaluate product or service potential, offering guidance in growing business in China. The Industrial Transformation Service provides industrial transformation support, including project landing, investment, entrepreneurship guidance, design refinement, marketing promotion and sci-tech transformation to accelerate market expansion.

“China is becoming an ever more important market for UK businesses. It’s vital for British jobs that we continue to develop our economic ties with the world’s fastest-growing major economy.” Matthew Rous, CEO, China Britain Business Council

This year’s UK partners and judges include John Mathers, chair of the British Design Fund and chair of the DIA UK judges; Mark Hedley, Tech & Knowledge Economy Director, China Britain Business Council; Thang Vo Ta, CEO of previous winner Callaly; and Dr Helen Crampin, Innovation and Technology Lead, Healthy Ageing, Innovate UK.

A golden opportunity for UK businesses

Asia’s rapid growth markets, particularly China, offer a major boost for UK innovators. Growth in China surged by 18.3% in the first quarter of 2021 and it was the only major economy to grow in 2020 (by 2.3%). In 2020 British exports to China rose by 10.7%, compared with 2019, up £837 million.

The DIA offer exposure to these markets and UK applicants are serial winners. In 2019-2020, UK winners included Tampliner and Hero Arm, who were awarded £140,000 and have gone from strength to strength, winning Fast Company, Time, and Dyson innovation awards. In 2020, UK applicants were awarded more funding than Japan, India and Germany combined. UK innovators topped the international league tables outside China, with 18 finalists, and 20% of UK applicants were selected as finalists from a field of 7,000 applications. 

Visit this link to apply for the Design Intelligence Awards — the entry deadline for UK applicants is 9 July.

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The renders of the 1000 Trees Project under construction along the Suzhou River in Shanghai look stunning and extremely ambitious. Can you describe the project?

The project has the shape of two mountains topped by living pillars. Each pillar will contain plants, hence the name ‘1000 Trees.’ There are two phases of the project: Phase one is the west mountain, which is about 60 meters high and is going to open next year, around Chinese New Year.

The east mountain is the second phase, and is 100 meters high. They’re probably going to commence piling this month. It’ll be quite interesting to see the first phase opening while the second phase is still under construction.

The project will have living pillars filled with plants

What will the spaces contain?

Well, the first phase is predominantly retail and food and beverage. The second phase is going to have 50,000 square meters of workspace and a 200-room hotel. There’s this very dramatic bend of the Suzhou Creek which we are turning into a riverside park.

How did you come up with the idea of such original buildings, topped by pixelated, elevated pillars?

The idea came up as a natural response to the site. It was the area that inspired us: Imagine a brownfield site with a few historic heritage buildings, right next to this incredible Arts District, the M50. Plus we had the gift of this park running all along the Suzhou Creek. We wanted something that unified the whole site together, although technically the M50 isn’t part of our site, in our minds it is.

Embedded in the south facade there is a huge open-air art wall, which used to be along Moganshan Road. People would come and paint from all over the world, so it was a very special place for the city. We’ve worked with artists to create new pieces of art that can then be positioned within our south façade. It will be a bit like keeping the wall.

Initially, we had permission for a very classic podium, two towers, with a typical building form. All you could see around the area were copycat residential towers. We felt compelled to create some sort of contrast to the existing urban landscape.

Height restrictions also helped define the project. On the west, we could build up to 60 meters, and up to 100 meters on the east. That is how we came up with the idea of a park rising up to these two peaks, from which the park just slopes down.

And the more we worked on it, the more we developed this pixelated language. We created a grid that encompasses the whole site. Then, on every point of the grid, we put a piece of the park. And that’s how we came up with the idea of 1,000 Trees, of creating these elevated pops.

Also, green roofs usually have the problem of being very heavy, and they lower the floor to ceiling height inside, so placing the landscape right on top of the column is the most structurally efficient solution, which frees up all the roof space to be used as terraces.

We were able to create 1,000 large terraces as well, measuring nine by nine metres. The retail units will have their own outdoor terraces, the restaurants can spill out.

Having exposure and understanding a different culture is a great influence for our designs

The site will contain retail and dining areas as well as a 200-room hotel

What was the biggest difficulty you encountered working in Shanghai?

Working during and after the lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic has definitely been the biggest challenge. There’s been nothing quite like this. Not being able to go to a physical meeting, not being able to be in the same room, always seeing things on footage…

Our site architects, who are based in Shanghai, are doing site visits at a distance. That’s only commenced in the last couple of weeks. As a lot of meetings have resumed in the clients’ offices, they all wear masks. Everybody’s very vigilant about lift buttons and are taking it incredibly seriously. As long as this is carried out safely, we are happy, so we are fine with projects taking a little longer to complete.

Working with your architects on site must have felt like taking a peek into the future…

We’ve been seeing how they would have responded to working under lockdown conditions before we had to. We watched our colleagues doing video calls with their children appearing in the background. And then, a month later, here we are.

1,000 Trees as it stands in 2019. Picture credit: Qingyan Zhu

How have you adapted your way of working with China during the pandemic?

Well, we’ve always had a connection over video call. It feels like we’re just that little bit more connected now because everybody’s doing it. During the lockdown in the UK, we’ve had a couple of competitions that we’ve been doing in China. Taking the design process remotely and everybody sketching on-screen has been pretty interesting. Bizarrely, it’s been quite efficient, because everybody can just work in their own space and in their own time.

Do you have any plans for China in the future? And what are your expectations for this market?

What we’ve seen most recently is that a lot of competitions focus on bringing back to life some of China’s industrial heritage, such as factories or grinding mills. That’s something that we’re very aligned to. In South Africa and the UK we refurbished a distillery and other heritage buildings. It is something we’re very passionate about, especially because of sustainability.

I think in China in the next few years there’ll be some really interesting sustainable projects coming out because they can potentially leapfrog into the future. They can see mistakes that we’ve made and skip them and move straight to the next phase. We’re very excited about projects where environmental agendas are high on the list of priorities.

You have identified sustainability as one of the main trends for the future. What do you think are the main architectural trends for the years to come in China?

Besides sustainability, there is craft – there is a resurgence of craft. What we’ve found working in China is incredible access to makers and to materials. On the contrary, in Europe, everything is imported. In China, we always try to talk to the people who are actually producing materials. In a country like China, where things are produced on such a vast scale, we’re always looking to bring forward the idea that there can be individuality and personality in the production of materials. Craft-based influences are the reason why we love working in China. Besides sustainability and craft, the third most significant trend we have identified in China is that of wellbeing and health. This is especially important in the new age of the pandemic: having good public spaces is more critical to our lives than ever.

You were mentioning materials. What do you think is the best project when it comes to the way materials have been used?

For us, it’s always about a level of detail and some kind of richness and texture. As we were looking at doing a project in Zhengzhou recently, we looked into the history of an ancient iron pagoda in Kaifeng, a city to the east of Zhengzhou. Made of bricks clad in iron, it almost looks like a metal pagoda. Imprinted into every panel are ancient texts and fantastic figures. It’s inspiring to see that level of detail and craftsmanship.

More locally, the 1,000 Trees team were inspired by the Moganshan Mountain Retreat.

The 1,000 Trees team were inspired by the bamboo forests at nearby Moganshan

Has working with a different the culture changed your way of dealing with all projects?

We see things from different perspectives, we understand things from a different point of view – and I think that’s really, really important. Sometimes we’ve presented a project and we thought we loved it for one reason, but then they loved it for a different reason. Having exposure to and understanding a different culture is a great influence on our designs.

Did you have to adapt your style to Chinese tastes?

Not really. We felt like we were understood there. The British Pavilion, which we designed for the Shanghai Expo ten years ago, was such an important project for the studio. There was a worry that people wouldn’t get it. Instead, they got it quicker and better than everyone else. Before we knew it, they had a nickname for it, they called it “The Dandelion.”

It was such a special project for us. It’s the smallest, yet the most extreme and memorable. As a studio, it meant so much because it opened us up internationally. From that project, we were invited to do ambitious, interesting things. One was the Bund Financial Centre, for which we collaborated with Foster & Partners. Then came 1,000 Trees.

I think The Dandelion has been our best project in China so far, but I hope 1,000 Trees will be our next best project.

Heatherwick Studios designed the British Pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai Expo

What trait do you think made the Chinese audience like what you do?

I wonder if it’s about our confidence and our ambition to do things. In all the projects that came through there has to be real confidence to commission something so different. We do things wholeheartedly and our clients are aligned with this. That’s why we would love to continue our relationship working in China.

Chinese people are entrepreneurial, so ambition and confidence must have resonated with them. Do you think that this spirit makes projects go faster than in Europe?

Well, like in the case of 1,000 Trees, sometimes we come up with a design, and it’s commissioned before there is a physical mock-up. And you could never commission anything that quick usually, but they’ve done it. It still needed some adjustment, but the passion was there.

There are two sides of the coin, though. While some things are incredibly fast, some others have gone more slowly – partly because of regulation changes. Maybe something is approved at one point, and it might change in the future. We’ve found that quite difficult to navigate. But all in all, working in China has been a great experience.

Lisa Finlay, partner at Heatherwick Studio

You seem to love Shanghai and China in general, where does this love come from?

I think they love us. It’s like a mutual thing that we feel because it’s a place where we can do creative things. It feels like anything can be possible there. I don’t think that you get that feeling everywhere. That’s something we’re very, very drawn to. And I also think due to the cultural history, all the layers of culture that come into daily life. For example, the traditional ground-breaking ceremony. Learning about that culture and being part of that is very special as well.

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Scottish S1 Pupil Emma McCain had the chance to see the tartan she designed coming off the looms at the Johnstons of Elgin mill last February.

Earlier this year, she has won the design competition launched by the Moray Council and the Confucius Institute for Scottish Schools (CISS), with a design that reflects the links between Scotland and China.

With the supervision of Mrs Fionna Shearer, Principal Teacher of Art and Design, and Laura Garner, the Design Director at Johnstons of Elgin, Emma designed and produced the winning tartan.

The pattern she created includes colours that are common in Scottish tartans, namely, blue and white for Scotland, red and yellow for China, and green for the Confucius Institute.

The colours chosen embodied the spirit of the competition, which had the double aim of celebrating the educational links between Scotland and China, and raising awareness towards the increasing need for language employability skills.

At the time of writing, the Elgin mill manufactured a limited number of scarves – 400 units – and the CISS is planning to buy them.

The idea of the competition came from Willem Smit, from The Moray Council Education and Social Care Department, who approached Johnstons of Elgin asking if they would be interested in the project.

The panel decided on Emma’s tartan design as it married the colours together well in a bright colour pattern being popular in China today

The company accepted his proposal with enthusiasm, as the competition fits perfectly into its Schools Interaction Programme, which looks at ways in which young people in Moray have a better understanding of Johnstons of Elgin and assist them in developing their skills for work.

Pupils from six establishments in Moray had entered the competition, and all of them are learning Mandarin with exchange teacher Miss Fang.

“The panel decided on Emma’s tartan design as it married the colours together well in a bright colour pattern being popular in China today,” said Smit of the judges’ decision.

“We were delighted that the pupil who designed the winning tartan would spend time in our Design Department, seeing how the new design would be prepared for the Design Team for the production phase. The winning pupil & her classmates also had the opportunity to see the winning design going into production in our Weaving Department,” said Jim Morris, People Development Coach at Johnstons of Elgin. “It has been a real pleasure working with The Moray Council and the CISS on this exciting project.”

And Emma’s successes are not over yet: her tartan is going to be presented at the Scottish Parliament in June.

The project is testament to how Moray young people, their teachers and local businesses like Johnstons of Elgin can work together to bridge cultural and international gaps for the common good of all concerned.

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It all began with an archaeological adventure

Our Chinese adventure began back in 2008/9 when an unlikely opportunity was presented to us. At that time, as the financial crash started to bite, we were already considering the merits of working in China when the British Council alerted us to an opportunity in Xi’an – the historic home city of the famous Terracotta Warriors – where another UK company, Team Tourism, was developing a tourism strategy. From this, we agreed to design an archaeology discovery centre, albeit with a degree of trepidation.

With the decision made, Imagemakers’ CEO, Jane Sillifant, packed and left for five-months of ‘full cultural immersion’ into Chinese working methods, as she experienced, first-hand, how a museum project is delivered. After a great deal of stress and some valuable lessons learned, a handful of new friends were made, promises of more work were given and the Daming Palace Archaeology Discovery Centre was complete – the first dedicated archaeological visitor attraction in China.

Slow and steady does it

Since this initial foray into China, we’ve adopted a cautious approach to growing our activities. This has seen us make regular visits to clients, attend topical (and sometimes impromptu) talks, workshops and conferences across China and inevitably getting into the brave new world of WeChat. Absolutely everything happens on this social media platform.

When working in China you quickly learn the importance of guanxi. Guanxi involves taking time to cultivate relationships, and it is by far the most important step if you’re trying to establish a working presence in China. It means showing your face – regularly. It also demands having someone ‘in the know’ to help guide you through the minefield of potential business blunders and cultural catastrophes. After nearly 10 years, we’ve obviously been doing something right as we’ve branched out from our one initial partner and project and now work with a range of different design agencies, real estate development companies, cultural and heritage tourism destination management companies as well as directly with attractions and museums.

We employ a small ‘on-the-ground’ China staff and we’re also able to sustain a core UK-based design team whose work is pretty much exclusively planning and conceptual design for Chinese museums and attractions.

To date we’ve delivered more than 50 projects across 20 provinces. These range from initial concept planning and design schemes to overseeing the implementation and quality control of exhibition fabrication. We have worked at a variety of scales and across widely varying sites and subjects – large natural history and science museums, regional cultural tourism destination sites, scenic and protected areas and city wetland visitor centres, to give just a few examples.

Becoming an ‘umbrella species’

Wherever we go we encounter a genuine appetite to collaborate with Western and, in particular, UK creatives and experts. We’re routinely asked “Do you know anyone who can help us with this or that city master planning scheme, architectural brief or heritage tourism project?” to which our answer is “yes, sure”. To borrow a term from ecology – we’ve become something of an ‘umbrella species’ in China.

The profound growth of China’s economy in recent decades is well documented. Less well known (outside the museum / cultural sector bubble anyway) is the dramatic ‘museum boom’ and growth in China’s cultural and tourism industry and the opportunities this brings for the UK.

We are proud to fly the flag for UK creativity and expertise and are increasingly presented opportunities to collaborate with UK partners across a diverse range of creative disciplines in the heritage and tourism sector to provide the services our Chinese clients need.

Moving forward in troubling times

In these tricky times, and in spite of the obvious current restrictions on travel, we remain optimistic about prospects for working in China moving forward.

There remains a real hunger for the UK brand of creative thinking and there’s continuing heavy investment in cultural projects right across China, and continued collaboration is key.

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