Singapore Archifest 2025
Commissioned by the Singapore Institute of Architects and curated by RT+Q Architects, Apause Studio developed the full visual identity and branding for Singapore Archifest 2025, themed 'Don’t Just Think Like an Architect!'.
The Archifest 2025 key visual captures the essence of the year's theme by exploring the role of play, curiosity, and counter-intuition in architectural thinking. These qualities are essential as they invite experimentation, challenge systems, and open the door to more adaptive and intuitive mindsets.
Client
Singapore Institute of Architecture
Year
2025
Discipline
Festival Identity, Website Design, Environmental Graphics
Country
Singapore
Collaborators
Joo Chiat Photos by Ong Chan Hao
“I want you to see familiar things differently.”
We didn’t want the visual identity to simply represent architecture. We wanted it to question. To provoke. To play. To ask: what happens when something "wrong" enters the system, and remakes it?
At the heart of the visual is a typographic system built from modular forms, symbolizing structured, conventional mindsets in architecture. Into these fixed, rational grids enter soft, foreign shapes — forms that shouldn't logically fit. This visual tension is deliberate: a play on counter-intuition, where these unexpected elements defy architectural "rules" by not only entering but reshaping. They break through assumptions, push boundaries, and suggest that solutions can be found should we try to see things with new eyes.
The most inventive ideas are born not from unlimited freedom, but from the tension between limitation and imagination. The zone of the unknown may feel uncomfortable—but it’s also where boundaries are pushed and breakthroughs happen. Visually, the palette of purple and red intensifies this disruptive energy. As opposites on the warm-cool spectrum, these colours create a tension that refuses to fade into the background.
From there this push and pull of the animation expanded into our brand language.
They mirror the festival’s call to rethink what architecture is and who gets to shape it.
This key visual isn’t just a graphic device—it’s a provocation. A reminder that architecture becomes most meaningful when we stop thinking only like architects and start thinking like explorers, problem-solvers, and risk-takers.
