“Design serves for well being to create a new mode for life including basic necessities.”

——Zeng Hui

Zeng Hui, Deputy Director and Planning Director of Beijing Design Week. Graduated from Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University, Zeng Hui taught there in 1991 and served as the executive editor of Design. He was appointed as the director of Landscape Planning Implementation Bureau of Cultural Activity Department of Beijing Organizing Committee for 2018 Olympic Games and minister of NCPA Art Department. Zeng Hui has many titles: member of China Artists Association, expert of Culture Industry Committee of Ministry of Culture and Tourism of The People’s Republic of China, head of Baihuazhou National Traditional Craft Workstation, deputy secretary general of Beijing Gehua Cultural Research and Development Center, executive vice secretary general of Architecture and Culture Society of China, member of Central Culture Committee of China Democratic League, deputy director of Beijing Culture Committee of China Democratic League, chief Supervisor of Beijing Design Society, vice chairman of Beijing Industrial Design Center, chairman of Academic Committee of Design Power 100, contract research fellow of Institute for Culture Creativity, Tsinghua University. Zeng Hui has won Hirayama Ikou Award, “China Star” Best Design Award, the Grand Design Prize of Fine Brand Image and Gold Finger Award. He was honored with “Advanced Individual of Beijing 2008 Olympic Games” by Beijing Municipal Committee, the People’s Government of Beijing City and Beijing Organizing Committee. He won the Outstanding Contribution Award of China Packaging Design Business, and the Most Influential Graphic Designer Prize of China Advertisement Top 100. His design of The Beautiful Olympic Cultural Scroll won the 24th Hong Kong Print Awards 2012 and the Golden Medal of China Design Contribution Award, 2016 Dragon Design Foundation Award.

In Xiongan Design Forum of HIDW 2021, Zeng Hui gave the speech of “Eastern Design Wisdom” to explain how Chinese traditional culture system to empower design in our times.

Mentioned in the speech, the concept “grand design” stressed the deep integration of creative design with various fields in related industries to break the boundaries of design discipline.

Represented by China, eastern design aesthetics system highlighted sustainability, which contained the thought of “harmony between man and nature” and “respect nature and care people”. How to truly revere nature and make rational use of nature? How to truly connect with life? With these thinking, Chinese traditional design system embraced the design attitudes including “love and cherish things”, “make the best use of everything”, and “make everything as beautiful as possible”.

Zeng Hui said, chopsticks used in everyday were the most classic example in Chinese tradition design. Knives and forks showed the design thinking and design style in the west. Chinese used knives and forks in Bronze Age and gradually changed into two sticks, showing minimalism in dining. Ancient Chinese tried to use few resources to produce the best possible results, which was closely related to our contemporary design.

With the advocating for trivial formalities, Chinese pursued the aesthetic of totalitarianism, which was still retained in current. We should rethink why there was a trend of sparing no expense in the contemporary aesthetic system. This trend was contrary to sustainable development and the prospect of design playing inclusively valuable role to make more people enjoy good design and good life.

The concept of “grand design” indicated culture industry and design can empower related industries. The development core of culture industry was to empower traditional industries by culture, aesthetic, design and art, not just make related culture content marketization and industrialization.

How to make agriculture full of culture, aesthetic and creativity? How to transform equipment industry and manufacturing industry from made-in-China to created-in-China? How to make cities in urban renewal and villages in rural revitalization conform to their design system? For these thinking directions, Zeng Hui thought grand design should be taken into consideration for policy system in future.

In the contemporary era, industrial design was not only limited in the single industrial manufacturing system, but also the design for the industrial and information age. In a way, the current industrial design should not only serve for one product, but also take the concept of grand design to empower truly agriculture design, rural design, urban design and other fields by industrial design including its thinking, methods and ideas.

The eastern design considered how to take full advantages of every common objects, which showed its value. The ancients were good at use natural defects. For example, mottled bamboo was defective for bacteria erosion, but their plaque patterns were endowed aesthetic value by our ancients. Zeng Hui said, it was hard to wave grape vines in a standard way and it was also good enough in a nonstandard and random way. In addition, Chinese traditional residence combine bricks and stones to create the construction mode of “bricks in stones”, which showed the design thinking for eastern natural aesthetics. 

As the high-quality model of urban construction, Xiongan New Area integrated eastern design wisdom into inheritance and innovation to build the development demonstration area of excellent Chinese traditional culture inheritance, by infusing history extension and cultural heritage in all aspects of construction. At the same time, Xiongan should introduce high-tech industries to create a smart and eco-friendly city by using the advanced technologies and the people-oriented concept.

Since the first Hebei International Industrial Design Week (HIDW) in 2017, Xiongan attracted related experts and scholars of industrial design all over the world. On this background, some urban plannings and construction designs arose with the characteristics of Hebei’s region and culture at this historic moment, which provided the government a significant academic support for city construction and high-quality development. Adhering to Chinese “harmony” concept, Goldreed Industrial Design Award (GIDA) cooperated with HIDW and contributed to Xiongan construction and Hebei industry development, aiming to offer eastern wisdom for creating a beautiful life in future and spread design value and spirit. It was committed to according with information society and sustainability and seeking future design to enlighten future life and empower future city. Let’s see and find eastern wisdom in Xiongan New Area.