Beijing Design Week has taken over 751 D Park

The 751 International Design Festival is here, and it's incredible

If you live for innovative design solutions and revel in thought-provoking art (or just enjoy hanging round in neato industrial spaces, chomping ice-cream and snapping humblebrag photos for social media, as we all do), you should make a beeline for 751 D Park, where Beijing Design Week has again set up what is perhaps its largest and most impressive centre of innovation, creation  and mind-melting stimulation.

As always when dealing with Beijing Design Week, there's more to see and do than we could possibly cover here without you getting impatient and just buggering off to the International Design Festival anyway, so we've selected a few of the bits we enjoyed the most and urge you to just head over and wander around.

The Festival's enormous, so make sure to explore properly.

Although some of our highlights are best seen after dark, a lot of the festival shuts up shop at 5pm, so we reckon the best way to tackle this beautiful beast is to head over mid-afternoon, take in some of the best art and design Beijing has to offer right now, then head over to the late-opening attractions post-sunset. The festival is running until 6 October, so if you've got Golden Week off you could even make a return visit.

La Piece Vide Version 7.0

Subverting the conventional white walls and hushed tones of the contemporary gallery experience, this immersive installation combines a booming soundtrack, lighting and other visual effects for a result that's unxpectedly overwhelming.

The setup comes courtesy of Ding Dong Studio, with music carefully crafted by Soulspeak, and is made up of two complementary but very different parts themed around the classic nihilistic thought of staring into an abyss and the abyss staring back (although we promise, it's more life-affirming than that makes it sound). 'Nebula' is outside, and meshes colour and crecendo with the stark ex-factory structures of D Park itself, and 'Wormhole' takes visitors in to an elongated blank room which soon transforms itself into something far more compelling.

Nordic Space

Step through the nominal walls of this cheery wooden construction to find yourself in a temple to the virtues of Scandinavian minimalism and cosy interior design; if these facets of the piece sound like a contradiction, then the surrounding industrial rejects around the cabins provide even more of a jolt to the system. This installation is as aesthetically-pleasing as it is thought-provoking, and is situated right next to the equally intruiging 'The Best 50m Squared', which invites discussion about urban public spaces in the surroundings of an awesome timber-framed dome.

Life's a Beach

It might be autumn, but the party people at 'Life's a Beach' just don't know when to call it quits and have constructed a bangin' beach at 751 on which to throw parties and just kick back and enjoy the balmy climes of September. In the daytime, families are invited to pull up a deckchair and bask in one of the most laid-back bits of Beijing Design Week; at night, the music gets cranked up and the drinks start flowing. Don't forget the suncream.

Other unmissable attractions include the intruigingly named Self-lumious Lab; the 751 Design Market, where you can pick up gorgeous solutions to everyday problems; the ceramics workshop; the Lego workshop, which is perfect for kids or adults who know how to really enjoy themselves; a jammed-full schedule of talks and lectures; the Inconvinience Store, if only for the quality of that play on words.

Hit '阅读原文' for directions to 751 D Park.

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