PIID’s MANILA INTERIOR DESIGN SUMMIT 2025: Breaking boundaries and designing the future

In its third and most future-forward edition yet, the Manila Interior Design Summit (MIDS) 2025 successfully brought together visionaries, thought leaders, and emerging voices from across Asia-Pacific for a four-day gathering that challenged the limits of tradition, technology, and design thinking.

Held from July 31 to August 3, 2025 in key locations across Metro Manila, MIDS 2025 embraced the theme “Design/Shift: Breaking Boundaries”, underscoring a pivotal moment in design where innovation, artificial intelligence, and sustainability intersect with cultural consciousness and generational change.

A Bold Vision From the PIID

The Philippine Institute of Interior Designers (PIID), the summit’s main proponent, continues to lead the evolution of interior design in the Philippines. Now in its 61st year, PIID remains committed to empowering Filipino designers, fostering meaningful cross-industry collaborations, and creating platforms for continuous innovation through education and dialogue.

Throughout the four-day summit, MIDS 2025 demonstrated that interior design today extends far beyond materials to be a catalyst for innovation, identity-building, and interdisciplinary problem-solving. PIID’s program highlighted not just what design is, but what it can become in an era of technological acceleration and cultural transition.

The summit also marked the continued rollout of the Asia-Pacific Space Designers Association (APSDA) Accreditation Program, a collaborative initiative with regional partners to uphold design education standards and promote mutual recognition across Asia-Pacific. This joint effort affirms PIID’s role as both a national leader and a regional stakeholder in elevating the profession of interior design.

Inspired by global benchmarks like Milan Design Week but rooted in a distinctively Filipino design identity, MIDS 2025 positioned itself not just as a summit, but as an evolving platform that challenges designers to embrace disruption, champion purpose-driven creativity, and reimagine their impact on the world.

The PIID, and the force of the PIID Board of Trustees—led by President IDr. Paolo Castro, IDr. Cynthia Marie Fernandez‑Beltran (Vice President), IDr. Jose Enrico Santiago (Corporate Secretary), IDr. Lorenzo Valencia III (Treasurer), IDr. Rossy Anne Rojales (Executive Director for Professional Development), IDr. Carla Mae Leonor (Executive Director for Public Relations), IDr. Katherine Anne Correa (Executive Director for Events), IDr. Christine Villamora (Executive Director for Finance), and IDs. Ma. Carmen Lim‑Regala (Executive Director for Practice and Ethics)—together with like-minded industry partners, once again delivered an initiative that elevated design not just as a discipline, but as a force for meaningful, sustainable change.

The Summit Experience

The summit opened on July 31 with a ceremonial ribbon-cutting at BGC, followed by a lunch hosted by Focus Global Inc. and a series of showroom tours featuring Focus Global Inc., Furnitalia, Living Innovations, MO’s Design, and Dexterton. The first day capped off with a welcome dinner at Bigger Pictures, Mandaluyong. The inaugural day set a forward-thinking tone by celebrating creativity not only as an aesthetic force, but as a tool for progress in an increasingly digital and disrupted world.

The next day, attendees were treated to a curated sequence of showroom tours across Metro Manila. Industry leaders such as Porcelanosa, Rimadesio, Hooga, Studio Dimensione, and Casa Bella opened their doors to delegates, offering immersive experiences that highlighted material innovation, future-conscious aesthetics, and the power of storytelling in interior environments.

The highlight of August 2 was the MIDS 2025 Symposium, a full-day program featuring six keynote speakers from leading global practices. Hailing from Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, the United States, and the Philippines, these experts brought together diverse insights on designing for the next generation and adapting to digital disruption:

• Razvan Ghilic-Micu, Architecture Leader at Hassell, opened the day with a talk that reframed technology not as the focus of design, but as a facilitator of deeper creativity. He emphasized that the real challenge lies not in mastering tools like AI, but in rediscovering emotional and narrative agency as designers.
• Peter Tay, founder of Peter Tay Studio, shared a deeply personal journey of transformation, blurring the line between architecture and autobiography. Drawing from life-altering experiences, Tay showed how emotion, reflection, and memory can shape spatial narratives, turning design into dialogue and experience into atmosphere.
• Shashi Caan, globally respected design advocate and CEO of IFI, invited guests to see AI not as artificial but additive. She spoke of design as a humanistic, emotional force that shapes culture, behavior, and connection. Her message was clear: technology must serve values, not replace them.
• Norman Agleron, Principal Designer at HBA Manila, offered a uniquely Filipino perspective on the intersection of storytelling, space, and emotion. He highlighted how AI, when thoughtfully integrated into the design process, becomes a silent partner that expands creative potential without erasing the human hand. His talk was a reminder that the soul of Filipino design lives not only in visual cues, but in warmth, memory, and empathy.
• Steve Leung, Hong Kong designer and founder of SLD Group, urged designers to push beyond the expected. Through his work across luxury, commercial, and lifestyle sectors, Leung illustrated how bold thinking can disrupt conventions and reposition brands. His talk was a call to action to be courageous, strategic, and unafraid of reinvention.
• Amata Luphaiboon, Co-Principal of Bangkok’s Department of ARCHITECTURE Co., explored architecture as memory and movement. Rather than relying on digital spectacle, Amata demonstrated that the past can be a springboard for powerful, emotionally resonant design through stories of reimagined materials and historical echoes.

Together, these design luminaries unpacked the summit’s central themes: transition, disruption, digitalization, and the next generation—highlighting the new language of design shaped by artificial intelligence, sustainability, and a global exchange of ideas.

Audience engagement was equally dynamic, with participants actively engaging in discussions on the shifting boundaries of practice, user experience, and the future of interior environments.

MIDS 2025 culminated on August 3 with the highly anticipated PIID x APSDA Gala Awards, held at the Shangri-La The Fort. Themed “Design Without Borders”, the evening honored the region’s finest interior designers and celebrated the shared achievements of the Asia-Pacific Space Designers Association (APSDA) and its members.

The program featured keynote messages from APSDA leadership, the unveiling of PIID’s I am IDr. 2025 campaign, and a look back at the organization’s accomplishments over the past two years. The segment concluded with a forward-looking perspective from the PIID leadership on the vision and priorities that will shape the organization’s direction in 2025.

More than just an awards night, the Gala served as a prestigious celebration of shared ideals, regional solidarity, and the limitless possibilities of design across borders.

The Enduring Legacy of MIDS 2025

As MIDS 2025 came to a close, it sparked a renewed commitment to pushing the boundaries of what design can achieve in a world defined by complexity, connectivity, and change. It reinforced the role of interior design as a transformative tool that speaks to the needs of both people and the planet.

The Philippine Institute of Interior Designers continues to shape this narrative by bridging past and future, heritage and innovation, and local impact and global reach. With MIDS as its platform, PIID reaffirms its mission to lead and empower the profession for generations to come.

MIDS 2025 would not have been possible without the generous support of its Major Partners: Boysen, Daikin, Glassbox, Pivot, and Wilcon. The summit was also powered by its Showroom Partners: Focus Global Inc., Furnitalia, Living Innovations, MOs Design, Dexterton, Porcelanosa, Rimadesio, Hooga, Studio Dimensione, and Casa Bella. Finally, our Symposium Partners played a vital role in shaping the summit’s knowledge exchange—Opulence, Eurobel, Hardware Museum, Neu Muri, Vertiflute, Bigger Pictures, and Global-Link MP Events.