Singaporean Designers Explore Chongqing’s Streets to Taste Chongqing Noodles, Fueling New Momentum for Chongqing Design to Go Global

Recently, designers from Singapore traveled across the ocean to Chongqing, embarking on an immersive culinary journey. Their visit aims to build a bridge for China-Singapore design cooperation and help boost the global reach of Chongqing’s design and specialty food industries.

Savoring the Local Flavors, Rooting Design in Everyday Life:
Tasting Noodles Through Alleys and Byways to Unlock the Cultural Essence of Bayu

Design is born from life, and culture gives it soul. The core purpose of the Singaporean designers’ visit was to uncover the cultural stories behind Chongqing noodles and gather fresh material for future packaging design. Immersing themselves in the daily life of the mountain city as ordinary diners, they explored time-honored noodle shops near Jiefangbei as well as hidden hole-in-the-wall eateries in older neighborhoods. They traversed both historic alleys and emerging commercial districts, documenting the flavors, preparation techniques, and consumption scenarios of Chongqing noodles, while listening attentively to the stories of noodle shop owners.

From steaming breakfast stalls in the early morning to lively noodle shops bustling late into the night, the designers used their cameras and notes to capture the vibrant essence of Chongqing noodles. They experienced the city’s unique mountain landscape and the warm hospitality of the Bayu people. This immersive exploration not only gave them a precise understanding of the cultural foundations underlying Chongqing noodle design but also initiated a preliminary fusion of local Bayu elements with Singapore’s minimalist and modern aesthetic sensibilities, laying the groundwork for internationalizing subsequent packaging designs.

China-Singapore Collaboration, Packaging Renewal:
Using Design as a Bridge to Create a “New Name Card” for Chongqing Noodles Going Global

This culinary exploration by the Singaporean designers was not merely a food tour, but a vivid effort to help local industries go global, facilitated by the Chongqing Food Packaging Design Competition. Leveraging the cooperation foundation between the two UNESCO Cities of Design—Singapore and Chongqing—Pinchdesign, a Singaporean design firm, has entered into a preliminary partnership with Xiangliao, a local Chongqing noodle brand. Moving beyond the traditional “one-way output” cooperation model, the two sides have deeply integrated the Bayu elements captured during this culinary journey with international aesthetic standards. Their collaborative innovation focuses on core areas such as visual design and functional adaptation, addressing practical challenges in noodle export such as preservation and portability. Together, they aim to create products that possess both strong regional identity and international competitiveness, helping Chongqing noodles break through barriers in the global market.

Empowering Through Competition, Building Dreams on a Platform:
Using the Competition as a Catalyst to Strengthen the Foundation of the City of Design

Additionally, leveraging the Chongqing Representative Office of the Design Business Chamber Singapore, the 2026 China-Singapore Design Salon was held at the Chongqing Industrial Design Headquarters Base. Representatives from ten Chongqing time-honored food enterprises, including Chen Changyin Crispy Twist, Zhang Duck, and Shancheng Tuocha, engaged in in-depth discussions with the Singaporean design team on topics such as packaging upgrades and international design trends, further broadening the horizons of China-Singapore design cooperation.

As a key initiative in the quality development of Chongqing’s City of Design, the Chongqing Food Packaging Design Competition is built on the goals of “empowering industries through design and facilitating upgrades through international collaboration.” By integrating high-quality international resources, the competition establishes an international platform that combines project incubation with the transformation of achievements, driving design innovation from concept to practice and fostering a virtuous cycle where “design empowers industry and industry sustains design.” This model of “government setting the stage and enterprises taking the lead” not only invigorates the innovation capacity of Chongqing’s local food industry but also enriches the substance of the City of Design’s development. In the future, Chongqing will leverage the competition as an opportunity to promote brand upgrades for more of its specialty food products, allowing the “Taste of Chongqing” to become an important calling card for spreading Bayu culture and showcasing the city’s design strength, injecting robust momentum into Chongqing’s design ambitions on the global stage.

Source: Productive Service Industry Division, Chongqing Municipal Economic and Information Commission
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