Christmas Together 2026: Designing Moments That Matter
Christmas has always been about more than decoration.
It is about people.
The moment you arrive somewhere and know something special is about to begin. The photograph you take with the people you love. The small traditions that somehow become the memories you keep for years.
That idea sits at the heart of Christmas Together 2026, and this year Atelier V&A is delighted to be helping shape two of the experiences visitors will encounter at Marina Bay Sands.
We are designing the welcome experience at the entrance and the Christmas Portrait & Postcard Studio — two very different spaces, but both created around one idea:
pause for a moment, be together and make a memory.
The moment you arrive
The entrance to an event matters.
It is the transition between the everyday and the experience waiting inside.
For Christmas Together, we wanted that first moment to feel unmistakably festive and immediately memorable — somewhere that quite simply says:
You’ve arrived.
Our welcome installation is being designed as a place where visitors can stop, gather together and take that first photograph of the day.
Not simply a decorative backdrop, but a marker in the experience.
A little moment of anticipation before moving into Christmas Together.
The design draws on the warmth, nostalgia and visual language of the festive season, while connecting to the broader storytelling journey visitors will discover throughout the event.
We hope it becomes one of those places where families, friends and children instinctively stop and say, “Let’s get a photo.”
Because sometimes a photograph is the simplest way of saying: we were here together.
A Christmas portrait you can actually keep
That idea continues in the Christmas Portrait & Postcard Studio, created in collaboration with Christmas Together and Epson.
Here, visitors will be able to step into a Christmas setting designed by Atelier V&A and have a portrait taken with the people who matter to them.
For a S$30 contribution, visitors will receive personalised postcards featuring their portrait, a keepsake sleeve and a digital portrait.
The aim is deliberately simple.
In a world where thousands of photographs can sit unseen on our phones, we wanted to bring back the feeling of something physical.
A photograph you print.
A postcard you write on.
Something you can send to someone, place on the mantelpiece or rediscover years later.
A small object that holds a much bigger memory.
Beautiful — but with purpose
The Portrait Studio is also about something far greater than the photograph itself.
Funds raised through the experience will support the Singapore Red Cross Young Hearts programme, which works with children and young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Last year, our involvement helped raise S$6,800.
This year, we want to go further.
Our hope is to surpass that figure and help create an even greater contribution through an experience that feels joyful, generous and easy to participate in.
For us, that combination is important.
Design can be beautiful.
It can create emotion.
It can make people stop, smile and take a photograph.
But it can also be used to bring people together around something bigger.
That is what makes this project particularly meaningful to us.
Designing for memory
As designers, we spend a great deal of time thinking about how spaces make people feel.
But some of the most memorable spaces are not necessarily the biggest or the most elaborate.
They are the ones where something happens.
Where a family squeezes together for a photograph.
Where friends laugh because somebody blinked.
Where a child insists on taking one more picture.
Where a postcard gets written to somebody who could not be there.
Those are the moments we wanted these spaces to enable.
The furniture, lighting, colour, materials and details all create the setting.
But ultimately, the people complete it.
Part of a bigger story
Our involvement at Christmas Together this year also sits alongside Atelier V&A's recognition as one of the 20 recipients of the Sustainability in Action Awards 2026, where we were recognised in the Trailblazer category.
Throughout the event, visitors will also discover the Sustainability in Action storytelling journey and the different businesses putting sustainability into practice in their own ways.
For Atelier V&A, that means thinking more carefully about what we keep, what we restore, how we design and the craftspeople and communities our work can support.
It is another reason Christmas Together feels particularly aligned with us this year.
It brings together creativity, sustainability, community and giving — not as separate ideas, but as parts of the same experience.
Come and make a memory with us
Christmas Together 2026 takes place at Marina Bay Sands from 26–29 November.
When you arrive, look out for the Atelier V&A-designed welcome experience.
Take the picture.
Then come and find us at the Christmas Portrait & Postcard Studio.
Bring your family.
Bring your friends.
Make a portrait together.
Send a postcard.
Keep one for yourself.
And in doing so, help us raise even more than last year's S$6,800 for Singapore Red Cross Young Hearts.
Because the best Christmas spaces are not simply the ones we look at.
They are the ones where we make memories.
We cannot wait to welcome you.
Aisha & Venetia
