Our Best Night at DEA Yet
There's a moment at every awards night when you quietly wonder: will tonight be the one? For us at Conexus Studio, it was.
On 14 May 2026, the region's design community gathered at the Shangri-La Hotel for the IDCS Design Excellence Awards (I-DEA) 2025 gala dinner, with Mdm Halimah Yacob — Chancellor of the Singapore University of Social Sciences and former President of the Republic of Singapore — as Guest of Honour.
We walked in with six shortlisted projects and two tables full of the people who made them happen. We walked out with one Bronze and five Highly Commended awards — all in the Best Workplace Design (≥ 5,001 sq ft) category.
What the evening represented wasn't just a strong result — it was a snapshot of the range of work we've been doing. Six projects, six clients, six different questions about how a workplace should feel. Every award that evening was, in its own way, a recognition of listening.
Conexus team celebrating the Bronze award with Astha Malik, Head of HR at Baker McKenzie Wong & Leow (pictured centre)
A Bronze for Baker McKenzie Wong & Leow
The standout of the evening was a Bronze award for the Baker McKenzie Wong & Leow office. The 42,000-square-foot, three-floor headquarters began with a question the legal profession doesn't ask often enough: what should a law office feel like in an era of collaboration, yet still rooted in professionalism and trust?
The answer placed hospitality at the centre of professional life. A social lounge with an integrated wine bar sits alongside meeting suites, so conversations move seamlessly from casual dialogue to formal negotiation.
As Kelvin Poa, Managing Principal at Baker McKenzie Wong & Leow, shared: "What Conexus Studio designed for us is not just visually strong, but something our people genuinely enjoy using every day — from the shared spaces to the quieter corners."
Words like these remind us why we do what we do. As Aviruth Trungtreechart, Group Design Director at Conexus Studio reflected: "This project pushed us to rethink what gravitas means in a modern workplace. It's not marble for marble's sake — it's the moment a client walks into a lounge and feels welcomed rather than intimidated. That shift is subtle, but it changes everything."
Five more stories worth telling
Beyond our Bronze win, five Highly Commended awards rounded out the night — each one a different challenge and a different answer.
AET & MISC Group Two maritime companies, one shared address. A sculptural spiral staircase linking two floors bridges the gap without erasing what makes each one unique.
Allied World A global brand amplified without a single logo wall. Its identity lives in the architecture itself — you feel the brand before you ever see it.
Arkema Values like inclusion and solidarity are easy to print on a wall. Making people feel them is harder. The solution: communal zones that dissolve departmental boundaries.
CTC Global Singapore A tech headquarters that refuses to feel cold. Digital spectacle at the entrance gives way to Japandi-inspired warmth deeper inside, proving that innovation and hospitality can share the same address.
Vallianz Holdings An offshore marine specialist that sidesteps nautical cliché. Ship models float against the harbour horizon in a curved glass boardroom, making heritage poetic, not performative.
Our best night — and we didn't celebrate alone
Several of our clients were right there at the gala, celebrating alongside us. That's the image we'll carry — not the stage, but the table afterwards. The handshakes, the laughter, the shared sense that something we built together had been recognised.
In a world where workplaces increasingly look the same, these awards remind us that the ones worth celebrating are the ones that started with a question worth asking. We just happened to ask six good ones.
Here’s to our best night at DEA yet.