Press Release
Vigilscape Generative Ritual Sanctuary by Ting Han Chen Wins the A' Design Award in Virtual and Digital Art Installations Design
Ting Han Chen acknowledged for virtual and digital art installations design by the international grand jury of the 2025 - 2026 A' Design Award & Competition
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COMO, Italy, April 22, 2026 /DesignNewswire/ A' Design Award & Competition has confirmed the A' Design Award in the Virtual and Digital Art Installations Design category for Vigilscape Generative Ritual Sanctuary by Ting Han Chen, designed for Play Design Lab. The award was conferred within the 2025 - 2026 A' Design Award & Competition and was determined through blind peer review by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members, who evaluated anonymized entries against predetermined criteria.
The A' Design Award Explained
The Iron A' Design Award is awarded to good designs that meet the rigorous professional and industrial standards set by the A' Design Awards. This recognition is reserved for works that demonstrate a solid understanding of design principles and show creativity within their execution. Recipients of the Iron A' Design Award are acknowledged for their practical innovations and contributions to their respective fields, providing solutions that improve quality of life and foster positive change. These designs are a testament to the skill and dedication of their creators, showcasing their ability to address real-world challenges through thoughtful design.
More About Vigilscape Generative Ritual Sanctuary
Vigilscape reconfigures a conventional mortuary setting into a calm, dignified space through environmental projections and generative cloud and particle visuals. Scenes unfold at a measured tempo aligned with ceremonial cadence, creating temporal progression without demanding attention or interaction. The design offers configurable modes for different ritual contexts, enabling a single room to support Buddhist, Christian, and other faith responsive needs through backend scene switching, while maintaining operational flexibility for staff and a quiet atmosphere for families and practitioners.
About Ting Han Chen
Ting-Han (Daniel) Chen is an entrepreneur and designer specializing in experience design, service design, and branding. With nearly 20 years of industry experience, he has founded several design-centric companies and achieved remarkable success. Ting-Han's professional design works have garnered more than 60 international awards, including iF, Muse, Core77, Communication Arts, Australian Good Design Awards, A' Design Awards, and London Design Awards, among others. Notably, his ventures have received esteemed recognition, such as Play Design Hotel, which has been honored with Fast Company's Innovation By Design Awards, the Radical Innovation Award, and the iF Service Design Award.
Award Record
With this recognition, Ting Han Chen is a winner of 4 A' Design Awards. The awards were granted between the 2021 - 2022 and the 2025 - 2026 editions of the A' Design Award & Competition.
About the A' Virtual and Digital Art Installations Design Award
The A' Digital Installations Design Award is an international design competition recognizing good digital installations designs by leading designers worldwide. It is organized within the A' Design Award & Competition and is open to digital installation designers, virtual reality artists, interactive media designers and multimedia artists from all countries. Typical entries include digital art installations, interactive projections, virtual reality exhibits, augmented reality installations, digital sculptures and immersive environments. The awarded virtual art installation designs are published at https://desingers.org/design-category/digital-installations
About A' Design Award & Competition
Organized annually since 2008, A' Design Award & Competition is an international, juried design accolade. The competition is open to entries from all countries. The philanthropic mission of the A' Design Award is to advance society through good design, by recognizing and promoting superior products, projects and services that benefit society, and by creating a global awareness and appreciation for good design practices and principles. Nominations are peer reviewed and evaluated anonymously by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members against predetermined criteria such as functionality, ergonomics, engineering, presentation, innovation, usability, sustainability and technology, with score normalization applied to remove biases. Awards are conferred at Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron levels. Eligible laureates receive the A' Design Prize, which includes the award trophy, the certificate of design excellence, the hardcover yearbook, a lifetime license to use the A' Design Award winner logo, exhibition of awarded works, an invitation to the gala night and award ceremony in Italy, inclusion in the World Design Rankings and Designer Rankings, and public relations and publicity services. Registration, uploading a work and receiving a preliminary score are free of charge, and Professional and Digital Edition laureates are not contractually obliged to pay further fees to claim the A' Design Prize. More information is available at https://competition.adesignaward.com
Press Resources
- Winner Page: https://desingers.org/182644
- A' Design Award Page: https://competition.adesignaward.com/182644
- Media Showcase: https://www.designnewsroom.com/!182644
- Laureate Profile: https://desingers.org/d/317983
- Further Information from the Laureate: https://www.playdesignlab.com/works/immersivechantingroom
Media Contact
Giulia Ferrari, Press Office
Designers.Org
Via Leone Leoni 32, 22100 Como, Italy
press@designers.org
+39 031 4491953
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Fact Sheet
The Work
- Project
- Vigilscape Generative Ritual Sanctuary
- Function
- Generative Ritual Sanctuary
- Category
- Virtual and Digital Art Installations Design
- Discipline
- Communication Design
- Industry
- Arts and Entertainment
- Colors
- Dark Slate Gray, Dim Gray, Black, Slate Gray and Light Slate Gray
- Images
- 5
- Client
- Play Design Lab
The Recognition
- Laureate
- Ting Han Chen
- Country
- Taiwan (China)
- Recognition
- A' Design Award
- Edition
- 2025 - 2026
- Design ID
- #182644
Design Details
- Unique Properties
- A slow-technology immersive space for chanting rituals, this project uses environmental projections and algorithmic cloud-particle scenes unfolding at a measured tempo aligned with ceremonial cadence. Rather than creating a spectacle, the system is designed to provide calmness, dignity, and psychological comfort during moments of farewell. Its distinctive value lies in enabling one ordinary mortuary room to serve multiple faith-based ritual needs through configurable projection modes and backend-controlled interactive guidance.
- Inspiration
- Inspired by the need to ease families’ anxiety in conventional mortuary chanting rooms, the project draws on grief-support research, ritual cadence observation, and slow technology design principles. Generative particle imagery and environmental projection mapping were developed as a controllable time-scale ambience, offering culturally adaptable modes without intrusive interaction.
- Research
- Type of Research: practice-based design research. Research Objectives: apply slow technology and ambient design to support long mourning rituals. Methodology: site implementation + temporal choreography design. Data Collection and Research Tools Used: observation, informal interviews, photos/diagrams/annotations. Participants or Experiments: mortuary director, funeral staff, families in ritual use. Results: improved sense of temporal progression and cultural fit. Insights and Impacts: configurable, slow-paced atmospheres can reframe mortuary rooms as transitional spaces. Effect: informs emotionally sensitive immersive architecture.
- Challenge
- The key challenge was designing support without intrusion in a culturally sensitive setting. The room needed to transform a clinical space into a contemplative atmosphere while avoiding spectacle, distraction, or religious mismatch. Achieving this required slow pacing, restrained visual density, and mode-based adaptability that funeral directors could operate reliably in daily practice.
- Realization and Technology
- A site-specific three-wall projection environment deployed in the mortuary of Tri-Service General Hospital. Particle-based animations generate culturally attuned atmospheres. Funeral directors select modes (Chinese, Western, Neutral) and run a timeline-based sequence where motifs emerge gradually as symbolic milestones. Ambient soundscapes support contemplative focus without requiring interaction.
- Operation and Interaction
- Operation is intentionally non-intrusive. Staff select one of three cultural modes and start the session. The room then plays a slow, continuous sequence where imagery unfolds over time and milestone motifs appear at intervals, giving families a sense of progression during long chanting rituals. No user interaction is required, preserving ritual attention.
- Project Duration and Location
- The project started in Jun 2024 and was completed in Nov 2025 in Taipei, Taiwan, for the mortuary of Tri-Service General Hospital. The installation has been operated during extended chanting ceremonies, with configuration handled by funeral directors according to family preferences and ritual context.
- Specifications
- Wall projection installations with edge-blended panoramic playback; particle-driven visuals with programmable parameters (mode selection, tempo, motif density, session duration). Timeline choreography triggers milestone motifs at set intervals.
- Keywords
- virtual installation, digital art installation, projection mapping, generative particles, slow technology, ambient interface, mourning space, ritual design, transitional architecture, culturally adaptive atmosphere
