From Grit to Pearls
“The World is Your Oyster”, the theme of the Singapore Good Design (SG Mark) Awards 2026, invites us to imagine what could be. Care is what turns that possibility into something real.
At this year’s awards ceremony hosted by the Design Business Chamber Singapore (DBCS), three Conexus Studio projects received SG Mark accolades in the Spatial Design category: Murex’s APAC headquarters, Manulife Financial Advisers’ office and ComfortDelGro’s headquarters.
Seeing our team cross the stage at JW Marriott Singapore South Beach was a proud moment. Not because an award completes the story of a project, but because it draws attention to the thinking and decisions that might otherwise go unnoticed.
Those decisions led to three distinctly different workplaces. Murex’s APAC headquarters grew from listening to how its multicultural FinTech community focuses, learns, and connects. Manulife Financial Advisers brought two offices together in an environment that supports private consultations, training, and company-wide gatherings. ComfortDelGro drew on its transport heritage using spatial movement, archival photography, and works by local artists to connect its past with what comes next.
Siva Ganesan, Creative Director at Conexus Studio shares: “These three workplaces should not look or feel alike. Why would they? They belong to three very different organisations. For me, innovation starts with questioning the obvious, but not every idea needs to announce how clever it is. Sometimes the best move is to simplify, take something away or admit the first answer was wrong. Knowing when to push and when to hold back is what keeps a concept honest and the people using the space in view.”
The ceremony placed our entries alongside winners across nine categories, each responding in its own way to the challenges of contemporary life. When the ballroom filled again for the DBCS-WDBO Gala Dinner, clients, partners, stakeholders and teammates joined the celebration. Together, the two gatherings revealed the breadth of Singapore’s design talent and the collective effort required to realise a well-resolved idea.
At Funan, the SG Mark Winners Exhibition carried that shared story into the public realm. Presentation panels offered visitors a glimpse of the awarded entries and the thinking behind them.
A panel can explain a workplace, but its true test happens elsewhere. It happens when people return each morning, find the right place to focus or talk, and move through the day without the space getting in their way. Perhaps that is our answer to this year’s theme. The pearl is not the trophy. It is the everyday experience that remains after the ceremony is over.
