Moe Pet Station: Stubborn Group Reimagines Pet Farewells Through Ritual, Memory and Design
At the Future Art & Design Award 2026 Summer Season, Stubborn Group — WEI, TING-LING, LI, GUAN-RONG, and WANG, RUO-HUA — received the Gold Prize in the Product Concept Design category for Moe Pet Station. Inspired by the profound emotional bond between people and their companion animals, the project reimagines the experience of saying goodbye through a concept centred on dignity, remembrance, and ritual. Rather than allowing farewell to be defined solely by grief, Moe Pet Station envisions it as a symbolic interstellar journey—a gentler passage through which love and memory can continue.
Behind the concept is a deeply personal understanding of pets as family members. Through careful consideration of form, material, functionality, and emotional experience, the team seeks to give physical expression to something inherently intangible: the desire to honour a beloved companion after their life has ended.
Interview
Q. What initially inspired this project? Was there a particular idea, moment, or question that sparked its creation?
WEI,TING-LING/LI,GUAN-RONG/WANG,RUO-HUA:
The inspiration stems from our personal experience as pet owners. To us, pets are far more than just animals—they are irreplaceable family members who share our daily lives.
Yet when facing the end of life, there is often a lack of a farewell that offers both genuine warmth and comfort in grief. This deep bond led us to reflect on an important question: could saying goodbye become something more than sorrow?
We believe our companions deserve a farewell that offers dignity, respect, and a meaningful final resting place.
Through Moe Pet Station, we aim to transform a heavy goodbye into a romantic, ritualistic interstellar journey, allowing love to endure in a gentler way.
Q. Looking back at the execution process, what proved to be the most compelling milestone or the most complex hurdle you had to overcome?
WEI,TING-LING/LI,GUAN-RONG/WANG,RUO-HUA:
The most challenging yet memorable part was the relentless refinement of the structure, form, and dimensions.
To find the right balance between aesthetics, functionality, and sustainable materials, our design drafts and prototypes underwent numerous iterations and revisions. Every adjustment was driven by our commitment to making this tribute the best it could possibly be.
The most exhilarating milestone was seeing the final piece successfully bring together a warm, tactile quality with the emotional depth we had envisioned.
At that point, we felt we had succeeded in giving tangible form to remembrance.
Q. How was your experience taking part in the Future Art & Design Award UK?
WEI,TING-LING/LI,GUAN-RONG/WANG,RUO-HUA:
Being recognised by the Future Art & Design Award UK is both an immense honour and a profound joy.
This recognition is a tremendous encouragement for our team—not only for our design capabilities, but also for the philosophy at the heart of the project.
Receiving the Gold Prize has added an invaluable and memorable chapter to the journey of Moe Pet Station, encouraging us to continue exploring how thoughtful design can respond to deeply human emotions and experiences.
Editor’s Note
Moe Pet Station begins with an experience that is both deeply personal and widely shared: the difficulty of saying goodbye to an animal that has become part of the family.
Stubborn Group responds not by attempting to remove grief, but by reconsidering the form that farewell might take. The project’s concept of a ritualistic interstellar journey shifts the emotional language of loss away from finality alone and towards passage, remembrance, and continuing affection. The imagined journey becomes a metaphor through which separation can be approached with tenderness.
This emotional intention is accompanied by a process of repeated physical refinement. Structure, proportions, materials, tactile qualities, and functionality were reconsidered through multiple iterations, reflecting the team’s attempt to reconcile practical product design with the sensitivity required of an object associated with remembrance.
Recognised with the Gold Prize at the Future Art & Design Award 2026 Summer Season, Moe Pet Station demonstrates how product concept design can extend beyond solving practical problems. Here, design becomes part of a ritual—giving physical form to memory and creating space for dignity, affection, and emotional connection at one of the most difficult moments in the relationship between people and their companion animals.
Ultimately, Moe Pet Station proposes a gentle idea: although a shared life may come to an end, the relationship it created does not simply disappear. Through memory and ritual, love can continue its journey.
