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DESIGN AND ARCHITECTURE
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HOUSE68
DESIGN COLLECTIVE ARCHITECTS
TEMPLE IN STONE AND LIGHT SPACEMATTERS
VIRTUAL REALITY INTEGRATING VR INTO THE DESIGN PROCESS
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SIZE DOESN’T MATTER Grace Espresso café by Studio SKLIM epitomises how design can overcome space limitations. / WORDS LOW SHI PING /
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DIAGRAM
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t is only 28m2 but under the deft hand of Studio SKLIM, the small space has perfectly balanced form and function to become Grace Espresso cafĂŠ. Located in River Valley, it is composed of a custom-designed module in the middle carved into the kitchen, seating booths, take-out counter and even a section for conducting workshops. Circular geometries dominate, cut into the module, for example, to form negative space for areas like the point of sale and seats. Powdered pink concrete forms the counter top, custom-casted in 11 separate pieces and seemingly joined to the floor in one continuous piece with a gently curved radii.
3 Above the counter is another curvaceous massing entirely holstered from the ceiling. Inspired by gritty coffee grounds, the finishing is a heavily textured stucco, almost as if like an anti-gravity coffee cloud. What this cafĂŠ lacks in size, it definitely makes up in design smarts best savoured over an espresso.
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/ SPECIAL REPORT /
CALL OF THE SEA THIS RESIDENTIAL PROJECT IN THE NETHERLANDS IS HEAVILY INSPIRED BY THE HISTORY OF THE SITE.
Standing on Amsterdam’s Zeeburger island in The Netherlands is an unusual structure. Its exterior is composed of strips of cedar wood of varying widths that play peekaboo with floor-to-ceiling glass windows and doors, wraparound balconies and generous terraces. Take a step back and its architecture is reminiscent of sailing ships.
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This is Freebooter, a residential building made up of a pair of duplexes, designed by Giacomo Garziano, who founded the Dutch Studio GG-loop. The allusion to maritime elements is no coincidence. More than a century ago, Zeeburger was underwater and served as a port for the Dutch navy.
/ PHOTOGRAPHY FRANCISCO NOGUEIRA
FREEBOOTER LOCATION COMPLETED AREA ARCHITECT DEVELOPMENT TEAM CONSTRUCTION ENGINEERING INSTALLATIONS ENGINEERING AWARDS
THE NETHERLANDS 2019 257M2 GG-LOOP JOHAN BEIJERS, GIACOMO GARZIANO PIETERS BOUWTECHNIEK MABUTEC A’ DESIGN AWARDS 2019 COMO (IT) WINNER – SUSTAINABLE AND GREEN DESIGN; DEZEEN AWARDS 2019 LONDON (UK) LONGLISTED – URBAN HOUSE; WAF WORLD ARCHITECTURE FESTIVAL AWARDS 2019 LONDON (UK) FINALIST (ONGOING) – HOUSING – COMPLETED PROJECTS
Taking inspiration from this, Garziano decided to design Freebooter according to the principles of marine architecture, and infused it with the adventurous spirit of sailors. The
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parametric design, its louvres deliberately angled to maximise daylight within the interiors of the homes. Traditional Dutch architecture informs the layout, which also takes its reference from the fluidity of water and wind propelling a ship. It is compact but dynamic, with open layouts and organic curves – all this while the charms of Zeeburger are in the background, complementing family living and entertaining, and retaining a connection to the outdoors. Flexibility is the key here. Both duplexes have a main core made up of the kitchen, bathroom and toilets. These
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bedrooms, dining room and living areas, evolving fluidly outwards. The duplex on the upper floors is topped off by a 21m2 roof terrace, while that on the lower floors is designed to have views towards the nearby river from every room, and has a private garden. Pine wood clads most of the interiors, accented by switches from JUNG’s LS 990 in dark aluminium. Its classic shape, minimalist style and bold colour tone is the perfect punctuation to this piece of visionary architecture. Says Garziano, “With Freebooter, I want to bring back the historic memories of the area and give the new inhabitants the feeling of belonging to it since centuries ago.”
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/ FEATURE /
/ WORDS SCARLET KOON
MASTER OF THE TRADE Considering furthering your Architecture education this year? Here are a few schools to choose from.
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ou’ve graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture and have worked a few years in a firm. But you feel ready to hit the books again and are considering doing a Master’s certification. Among the benefits include the opportunity to delve deeper into a specific
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area of interest within Architecture. There is also the option to enter academia after the course is completed. Other compelling reasons include a salary increase after graduation, and the network that you will be a part of. Here, we present a few programmes you might want to look further into.
/ NUS PHOTOGRAPHY ROY GARDINER
NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE (NUS) LOCATION: SINGAPORE LENGTH OF COURSE: TWO YEARS The NUS School of Design and Environment (SDE) is a high-ranking architecture school in the world with a strong curriculum supported by research and development. The focus of SDE’s Master of Architecture program is the impact of context and region on design. Learn to design with consideration towards the climate, location, culture, social aspects and global issues such as sustainability and learning global theoretical concepts, and adapt them to local needs. Train to be architects that are leaders and integrators of projects, not only creatively but also technically for their careers in the future. As Asia becomes the centre of growth for new development, students are trained and equipped with innovative ideas backed by
strong technical skills and knowledge of the latest technology and materials to further their potential in future building developments. SDE is also leading the way in environmental design, focused on health and wellness, named “Well and Green”, with the school’s latest building being the first new-build Net-Zero Energy building in Singapore and the first university building in the world to be awarded Well-CertifiedTM Gold.
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/ FEATURE /
/ WORDS ASIH JENIE
FROM VIRTUAL TO REALITY VR is no longer a fancy feature that comes after the design and documentation are done and dusted. Today, thanks to BIM, it is the platform on which architects collaborate and reclaim control as the master builder.
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he Cambridge Dictionary defines a prototype as “the first example of something [...] from which all later forms are developed”. In this context, if we approach architecture as an object-making process, then – barring some 1:1 scale prototype of some small parts or details – it doesn’t really have a prototype, because the final product (which is the built environment) is the prototype. For the longest time, scaled models were the closest thing to a prototype in architecture. Today, we have a more immersive tool: Virtual Reality (VR). In its early days, VR technology came
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at the tail-end of a built architecture project, after design and documentation processes, usually as the centrepiece of the project’s marketing campaign. The advent and subsequent availability of BIM (Building Information Management) has helped architects to integrate VR into both design and documentation production streams. No longer must architects split their time and manpower to produce items for both streams – they can document while they design. No longer do they need to complete the design and documentation processes in order to produce the VR campaign – the VR is the platform on which they can collaborate.
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Ryan Liew, Chief Operating Officer, VRcollab
ARCHITECTS REGAIN CONTROL First developed and flourished in the gaming and entertainment industry, VR technology has become ubiquitous in architecture, construction and engineering industries – be it as a tool for an internal design review, or cross-discipline collaboration between consultants. It is a highly effective tool of communication between those who speak the technical language of design and those who don’t. What then is the outlook for VR in architecture in 2020 and beyond? Ryan Liew, Chief Operating Officer of VRcollab, a Singapore-founded tech firm that supplies VR technology to architecture firms, sees two global trends that have been spurring the use of VR in the architecture industry. One is the increasingly complex, hybridtypology architecture projects being built, and the global increase of BIM take-up, via private and government-mandated initiatives (like in Singapore, via BCA). “I believe the most important progress ahead would be for all stakeholders to have a more collaborative process with trades other than their own,” says Liew. The original meaning of the word “architect” is “master builder”. Yet, in the digital age, often the architects are just one of many consultants involved in a project, and their voice may end up diluted or lost in the increasingly complex production stream.
VR technology is one of the ways for architects to regain that master builder role, to have more say in the project by creating a platform that can best communicate their vision to their collaborators. “In the past three years, the high cost and the cumbersome nature of VR setup have been the key barrier to the greater VR adoption in our industry,” he adds. There is also a general reluctance to don a VR hardware attributed to fear of isolation and ridicule, he says. Dubbed “head inertia” by the VR community, this fear is an additional factor that slows down the take-up rate of VR in the built environment industry (as opposed to VR’s popularity in the gaming industry). But Liew sees a global uptake in the use
/1 Screen grab of a VR mock-up environment integrated with notes from the designers and client.
/2 A VR demonstration hosted by VRcollab.
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/ COMMERCIAL /
/ WORDS LOW SHI PING
LIFTING THE VEIL Pencil Office has designed an outstanding corporate headquarters for a car dealership conducive for equatorial Singapore.
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he biggest irony of A Simple Headquarters is that while the lead designer Pencil Syndicate intended for it to be a building that stands in the background, its design is so outstanding that it does exactly the opposite. The corporate office of car dealership Wearnes Automotive, it is nine storeys tall and is wrapped with a distinctive exterior veil made up of modules of a W-shaped motif, subtly alluding to the company’s first initial.
MULTI-FUNCTIONAL ENVELOPE Beyond its aesthetic quality, the veil acts as a shield against the sun thanks to its angled fins. It also conceals a series of mechanical system outlets. Made up of custom-extruded aluminium for its durability and easy maintenance, it also has a porosity that allows for more than three-quarters of the building to be naturally ventilated. Pencil Office’s lead designer Erik L’Heureux explains how when he first started on the project, the façade “was a mess of complicated and contradicting factors”.
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/1 A Simple Headquarters has an external veil made up of a delicate filigree, employing the techniques of depth, solar shading, and natural ventilation to work with the urban equatorial context.
/ PHOTOGRAPHY KHOO GUO JIE
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2 / OPPOSITE The envelope puckers and pulls at different parts, helping to provide a continuity across the entire facade.
3 /2 The five-storey car display case is a standout feature on the façade, as if like part of a highquality museum collection.
/3 Balconies are tucked behind the external veil on the upper floors, permitting staff to head out for a breath of fresh air.
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“We quickly realised that the best way to control this was to have two facades: an exterior one that operates as a screen and camouflage minimising heat gain to the building proper, and an internal facade that would resolve all of the performance requirements,” L’Heureux says. “Because of these complicated factors, we developed a W-shape for the exterior veil that moves vertically and horizontally across the building. I have been working with ideas of veils for some time now, and I reached into my previous research and adapted that for this building.” Another standout feature on the façade is a five-storey car display case. This was part of the original massing of the architect TEAM Design Architect’s approach, but L’Heureux decided to shift it to the side and increase its visibility by extending its protrusion. “We worked the veil to pucker at the display case to give it more prominence and to allow the cars to be celebrated as pieces of art and design. The display case frames each car, and alludes to a high-
quality museum collection,” he points out. This technique of puckering and pulling at the envelope repeats itself at the link bridge circulating to one of the car showrooms and other facilities within the project. SOCIAL MOBILITY Internally, the building houses carparks on the first three floors, and high-performance repair and automotive maintenance facilities from levels four to six. The latter double as laboratories where
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/ INSTITUTIONAL /
/ WORDS MICHELE KOH MOROLLO
HISTORY WITHIN THE HILLS A traditional Chinese musical instrument inspired the curving lines of this futuristic local history museum in Liyang City.
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n the new Yan Lake Park urban district in Liyang City, in China’s Jiangsu Province, architecture firm CROX has completed Liyang Museum, an undulating, organically-shaped local history museum inspired by the jiaoweiqun – a traditional Chinese mandolin that is one of the region’s cultural symbols. The brief from the project’s client, Suwan China Cooperation Demonstration Area Construction, was for a local history museum with contemporary architecture but Chinese cultural attributes.
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“Liyang Museum is a multi-functional venue that showcases a collection of cultural relics, as well as urban planning and temporary exhibitions on the waterfront of the new urban park,” says CROX’s Director, C.R. Lin who designed the museum as a 19,000m2 space with about two-thirds of its programme located above ground and the remainder underground. Within the building are three main zones – a hall dedicated to artifacts from prehistoric Liyang, a hall that showcases displays related to Liyang’s more recent
/ 1-2 Liyang Museum is bordered on the eastern side by Yan Lake.
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/ PHOTOGRAPHY XIA ZHI
LIYANG MUSEUM LOCATION COMPLETION SITE AREA ARCHITECT LEAD ARCHITECT LANDSCAPE
JIANGSU, CHINA 2019 ABOVE GROUND 12,000M2, UNDERGROUND 7,000M2 CROX C.R. LIN CROX
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/ INSTITUTIONAL /
developments, and a third zone spread across the three floors that showcases Liyang cultural relics from different periods in Chinese history. THE CHINESE MANDOLIN Though the museum’s flowing form looks somewhat futuristic, it was in fact an ancient Chinese folktale that led the architects to the idea of the jiaoweiqun, which in turn informed the silhouette of the structure. The story, which originated during the Han dynasty, tells of a Chinese imperial scholar and official named Yong Cai who
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listened to the crackling of firewood, sensed its musical potential and pulled the charred wood out of the fireplace crafting it into the jiaoweiqun. “Reconstructing the symbolic sense of form, we tried to integrate the allegory of allusions into the multi-faceted space, so as to connect the architecture and nature with the city, create an organic form and undulating mountain, an open and free atmosphere, and a landscape of oriental poetry,” says Li. Not wanting the museum to be a continuation of the cookie cutter, blockshaped modern buildings nearby, Li and
/ ABOVE The main road borders the west of the museum, connected to it via the southwestern end of the site.
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C.R. Lin, Director, CROX
his team nestled the structure amidst a series of rolling green hills and decided on a horizontal rather than a vertical spread. When seen from afar, the museum appears to float above ground like part of the natural landscape. The façade was constructed as a vertical aluminum plate curtain wall with locked edges. Alternating light and dark brown coloured plates were used to give the curvy façade the striated appearance of an organic wooden object.
PART OF THE TERRAIN The site consists of four hills and the building’s volume conforms to the contours of the hills. The programme is divided into two parts: low, subterranean spaces set between the dips of the rolling green hills, and an upper “floating” portion that rests above the hilly terrain. The low spaces contain a central atrium surrounded by an office, educational room and a lounge.
/ 3-4 View of the northeastern section of the museum. Its shape follows the contours of the four hills on the site.
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/ RELIGIOUS /
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/ WORDS SASHA GONZALES
LIGHT IN THE DESERT Dedicated to the Hindu Lord Shiva, this sandstone temple in Rajasthan, India is traditional yet contemporary at the same time.
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he brief was an interesting one – to design a Hindu temple within the premises of a power plant located in the village of Bhadresh, in the desert state of Rajasthan, India. The temple would serve the large community of employees and villagers, and, because of towering industrial structures surrounding the site, the client requested that the temple be given a design that was contemporary, yet still complementary of the humble rural landscape. Three years later, the Temple in Stone and Light was realised. Dedicated to Lord Shiva, the Hindu god of paradoxes, the building combines the heavy materiality of stone with the lightness of form. The solid-looking exterior seems to dissolve after dusk, and, with the help of discreetly placed LED lighting that comes on at night, transforms into a glittering lantern in the dunes.
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF STONE Traditionally, Indian temples are associated with stone – a testament to the material’s beauty, strength and timelessness. But that is not the only reason why lead architect Amritha Ballal chose it for this project. “Rajasthan is also famous for its quality stone and stone craftsmanship. We selected locallyavailable, yellow Jaisalmer sandstone as the primary building material because we wanted the effect of the temple rising out from the sand dunes,” she explains.
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/ PHOTOGRAPHY AKASH KUMAR DAS, COPYRIGHT – SPACEMATTERS
/1 Although it has a contemporary design, the Temple in Stone and Light complements the rural landscape perfectly.
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/2 Locally-available, yellow Jaisalmer sandstone was the primary building material. It was specially sourced to meet the team’s requirements
/3 The team chose to show off the construction details rather than hide them and used marble for a more refined finish.
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But building with the material is a dying skill, since contemporary architecture incorporates stone mainly as a finishing material. To get around this, Ballal and her team decided to exploit the structural and masonry properties of stone. “Stone holds stone together in the case of this temple,” says Ballal, who is a founding partner of SpaceMatters, the New Delhibased company that oversaw the project, and who worked with its co-founders Moulshree Joshi and Suditya Sinha to design the building. “Other than the foundation and vedika (the peak atop the golden stone), no steel, cement or concrete was used in the construction process. Marble was utilised for a more refined finish and to add detail to the landscaping wall cladding and flooring separate from the masonry structure.” The team also drew inspiration from Fatehpur Sikri, an ancient town in Uttar Pradesh that epitomises classic Indian architecture and was mostly built with red sandstone.
“Instead of hiding away the construction details, we chose to celebrate them and make them an integral part of the temple architecture,” Ballal adds. “This radically new way of using stone as a structural material yielded a beautiful effect.” MODERN BUT RESPECTFUL While the design of the temple is contemporary, it still captures the essence of a traditional Hindu place of worship and is respectful of the original intent of the building. “Contemporary temples tend to be watered down replicas of, or radical departures from, historic versions,” says Ballal.
SITE PLAN
Amritha Ballal, Founding Partner, SpaceMatters
“We wanted our design to evoke the traditional and to still be rooted in its time and place, so we started with the structured symbolism of traditional temple architecture and developed it to give it a contemporary edge.” The design also evolved to become an unusual juxtaposition of symbolically masculine and feminine elements of temple architecture. According to Ballal, the masculine and feminine are often approached as a continuum rather than a binary in ancient Indian philosophy and mythology. As the design process unfolded, a flavour of fluid duality developed, with the solid-looking stone exterior “dissolving” as day turns into night, and light from the inside transforming the heavy stone temple into a filigreed lantern. At different times, and from different points, the structure appears heavy and light, solid and translucent, full and void, and past and present, all at the same time.
WORKING WITH STONE IN THE DESERT The project posed a few technical challenges. “For one, we wanted a contrasting effect, like the use of a heavy material such as stone to create lightness,” says Ballal. “We achieved this by carving out the stone to allow natural light in, and thereby ending up using both stone and light as architectural elements.” Secondly, given the properties of stone as a building material, the actual construction process was far from easy. “The site engineers and workers were vigilant and took great care when handling the stone,” she adds. “It also took great skill to position the blocks such that you can only see the hairline joints between them.” The shikhar (spire) with its interlocking blocks was a big challenge, too, because it had to be structurally stable as well as retain its symmetry.
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/ ABODE /
2 / WORDS NIZAR MUSA
GARDEN SANCTUARY Behind a private dwelling’s rubble walls, an adroit amalgam of forms, materials and landscape creates evocative scenes that stir both heart and mind.
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mid tree-lined fairways and putting greens, the circuitous residential enclaves of Tropicana Golf & Country Resort are eclectic collections that appear more hodgepodge than à la mode. The endless roof-tile, tinted-window and wall-paint combinations of these bungalows and mansions – glaringly obvious thanks to capacious built-up areas – exude affluence howsoever mundane. House68, the resort’s latest entrant, cuts through that banality with razor sharp design and poised acuity. No wallpaper kitsch here. THE THREE PAVILIONS Getting to the finish line, which included a change of site, was an endeavour as
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Chan Mun Inn, director and architect at Design Collective Architects (DCA), relates. “We’ve been working for the owner for over 10 years, and this particular house itself, five to six. The owner, who’s a developer, had his own builder, and took his time in making sure everything was just right,” shares Chan. Judging by the end product, it was time well spent; spread over 3,488m2 of land, the three-storey abode is a composition of planes of materials and bespoke parts consolidated into three distinct pavilions, giving the residence a touch of five-star resort aesthetic. “We envisioned these little boxes, connected by outdoor corridors, with a DNA of open-concept plans and crossventilated spaces, where you can open
/ PHOTOGRAPHY CREATIVECLICKS PHOTOGRAPHY
/ 1-2 House68’s entertainment pavilion, with its signature glulam screen, is the showpiece structure within the L-shaped arrangement of formal, family and guest spaces.
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two sides and literally have an indoor-outdoor experience,” Chan explains of the house, using its entertainment pavilion as an example. The double-height structure of steel and glass is undoubtedly the centrepiece, one greatly enhanced by the inclusion of a vertical screen of Finnish glue-laminated pine. The glulam sections’ size, girth and richness clearly distinguishes them from the everyday faux-timber aluminium louvres, yet similarly functions as a shield that protects the internal glazing. Chan points out, “This (entertainment pavilion) being the most prominent space, where the owner entertains his guests, can’t afford to be hot or glaring under the afternoon sun, so we decided to use this screen. It’s
extended as well to become a verandah that creates the semi-indoor space we wanted.” LIVING IN A GARDEN Adjacent to its entertainment wing, the family pavilion of bedrooms, kitchens, studies and other adjoining spaces are lavishly surfaced, solid teak a persistent material of doors and wall panels, with expansive white marble flooring taking much of the ground floor. Likewise, contributions to the upscale interior are the glass lift and steel-and-timber staircase of the entrance hall, as is the glass walkway that springs over the driveway to the guest pavilion. A standalone unit, the guest wing and the entertainment pavilion can be completely
/ OPPOSITE The garden pool and koi pond, and its bamboo pavilion, extend the physical and visual landscape of the interior to create a resort-like setting of tranquility.
/3 The thoroughfare of the family pavilion is denoted by its solid teak entrance doorway, which has a warmth and vibrancy contrasting against the horizontal planes of split granite blocks.
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/ DINE /
/ WORDS PRAISE POH
URBAN OASIS Located in the central business district of Beijing, Oh Yeah Brewing distinguishes itself with warm, approachable interiors.
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t is hard to miss Oh Yeah Brewing. Its name is displayed in a large font on the huge stainless-steel box positioned at the entrance and on the building’s beige, textured-finish facade. Designed by hcreates, an interior design and consulting studio based in Shanghai, the new craft beer bar stands out from the concrete grey of its surroundings. A GRAND ENTRANCE Tucked behind rows of skyscrapers, the building was formerly the site of an aviation
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parts factory with a notable 10m-high ceiling. “The client was opening an impressive venue that would instantly become a go-to in Beijing,” says Hannah Churchill, founder of hcreates. “It was also the flagship space for a new international beer brand that needed to stand up globally. Given the scale of the space, we knew we had to be bold with the design. “We felt right from the beginning that we wanted to have a dramatic reveal when people walked down the driveway. From there on, everything about the brewery
/ ABOVE The bar’s name is stamped on the façade in large letters.
/ PHOTOGRAPHY BRIAN CHUA
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/1 Large-format terrazzo floor tiles paired with outdoor-style furniture, plants and wood finishes lend charm to the beer garden.
/2 A blue, customised print depicting interesting beer elements can be seen on the bench seating in the beer garden.
was about creating a sense of an oasis in the middle of Beijing.” Interestingly, Churchill revealed that they initially wanted a different approach to highlight the entrance but the landlord insisted they needed to retain the existing box structure. In addition, she also needed to orientate the direction of the entrance as it was facing the doors of the building across the driveway, which was considered bad feng shui. Working around the existing box structure, they decided to give it a fresh new look and shifted the entrance to the side than front on. “Necessity, while adding challenges to the design process, can often give you the opportunity to balance the practical with design-centric response. In this instance, a double door entrance is a good barrier to help keep heat in the space in Beijing’s cold months. “Therefore, we decided to embrace this entranceway that people had to pass through
2 it and leave the grey of urban Beijing behind as they entered into this oasis. “The silvery material references the beer tanks inside. The facade material is the same patterned salmon tile that is on every factory in China, so we welcomed the opportunity to contrast it with a complete different material,” Churchill elaborates.
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/ OPPOSITE The team created a spectacular sight behind the bar by installing brewing tanks on two floors.
SCALING HEIGHTS With the impressive 10m-high ceiling to work with, there was the danger of getting lost in the midst of creating something grand and end up with a space that lacks intimacy. This became the team’s key design challenge. To ease the imposing height, the team divided the space into three intimate zones – pizza/beer garden, beer hall and VIP lounge – and used lights, furniture and plants to bring intimacy to the space. For example, the staircase was introduced as a divider for two distinct areas on the ground floor. Different seating
orientations were also used to enhance the feeling of intimacy. Other methods employed include the use of high-backed bench seats and planter boxes around them. Churchill expressed they were fortunate to be able to strip back everything to its concrete shell and start anew. However, they were also determined not to default to the typical full industrial garage den that is so prevalent in beer-centric bars. “When developing further on the concept of an urban oasis, we had to pay particular attention to how the differing
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/ PEOPLE /
THE EMOTIONAL DESIGNER As the Artistic Director, CEO and co-owner of Chinese luxury brand Shang Xia, Jiang Qiong Er dreams of sparking a renaissance for Chinese craftsmanship in contemporary lifestyle. / WORDS LOW SHI PING /
WHO IS JIANG QIONG ER: On paper, she is Artistic Director, CEO and co-owner of Shang Xia. This is a Chinese luxury brand, 90 percent backed by French maison Hermès, that offers a range of products including furniture and homeware, and will open a boutique in Singapore in April. But Jiang is so much more. She is responsible for conceptualising the brand when it was founded in 2009, setting its direction and that of all its collections in the past 11 years. You could say it is an acumen borne from her background as a jewellery and interior designer. Part of it is also nature – she descends from a grandfather who was a prolific artist, and parents who were both architects. In fact, her father designed the renowned Shanghai Museum in China. WHAT IS SHANG XIA:
with one finger. This sense of lightness is important in our designs – they have to be visually light too,” shares Jiang. DESIGN PHILOSOPHY: To Jiang, good design is about being emotional. It has to touch, surprise and move a person – and this could be in a happy or sad way – but also have a layer of functionality to it. In applying this to Shang Xia, she introduces cultural symbols found throughout China’s long history – such as how a fish is associated with abundance – into the products. She points out that craftsmanship can be emotional too. For instance, the marquetry of bamboo in Shang Xia’s tea sets has been labelled “lace from the Orient”. “Emotion can come from different possibilities,” she says. CREATIVE PROCESS:
It starts with identifying Literally meaning “up There are two things in the world the general direction down” in Mandarin, where there is no culture gap: beauty and of the collection. This Shang Xia symbolises a love. Whether you are French, Singaporean impacts the type of balancing act of opposing or Chinese, we all understand beauty, which craft that will be used. forces: past and present; is about aesthetics, and love, which is about Jiang then heads to the East and West; tradition emotion. I think whatever we do – be it respective workshop and innovation. Jiang architecture, interior design or furniture – to study the production reveals how she has these are two key elements. process and in doing a traditional Chinese so, “harmonises” her craftsmanship and design archive spanning 5,000 years to dip into for inspiration. creativity with the skill of the artisans. While there, she From there, she contemporises a select few to create immerses herself in understanding their advantages and the products for the brand, with the hope of giving them limitations and on occasion, pushes them to innovate. Once satisfied, she starts on the design concept longevity and a place in the future. For instance, the Da Tian Di is a collection designed development back in her studio in Shanghai. “This process in the spirit of the Ming Dynasty style of furniture. Its first is something we do together – half in the workshop, half edition was in wood but the second is made with carbon in my studio. If there is a new craft involved, it can take fibre. Jiang shares that she had initially wanted to do a up to three years of working very closely together,” she Shang Xia bicycle made of carbon fibre, “When I went says. Rounds of modifications and refinements later, the to the manufacturer, I said maybe we can also use the final prototype is presented to the retail team before she material somewhere else. So we started to work on the supports the artisans in setting up the production process possibilities of it in furniture and eventually, introduced it to start making the pieces. into Da Tian Di.” It took her team two-and-a-half years to create the Scan the QR code to see products by collection. The result is pieces that are 70 percent thinner, Jiang and find out how she has built a but just as strong and very light. “One of the pieces is network of craftsmen across China to nicknamed the ‘flying chair’ because you can pick it up collaborate with Shang Xia.
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/ PHOTOGRAPHY JEFF CHEONG
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THE SPARRING DESIGNERS Colleagues since 2000, Leslie Seow and Redzuan Abu Bakar have formed a partnership at the former’s firm Ensemble built on mutual understanding and respect. / WORDS LOW SHI PING /
LESLIE SEOW What is your design philosophy and style?
I believe good design makes life better. To do so, whatever we create must be beautiful, purposeful, meaningful, sustainable and life-enhancing. My design style is elegant, stylish and sophisticated. I use simple architectural elements as visual layers in an environment to sculpt the space in accordance to its required function. Spaces are finished in materials that befit the mood I want to create, which is usually a timeless look with a strong emphasis on good spatial quality. I employ detailing and furniture to bring out the personality of the individual or brand, but always with a modern twist. Where do you draw your inspiration from to create your designs?
This comes from the design brief, a client’s brand and/or the site/location of a project. I also look at how art, culture, fashion, nature, music, materials and technology can be used as an inspiration, relevant to that project. This allows me to use the right catalyst to move forward with the rest of the design process. For instance, our client ONE°15 Marina Sentosa Cove wanted to upgrade its rooms. We researched on the yachting lifestyle and introduced maritime elements to create the sinuous forms found in water vessels and sea waves. A bedhead wall feature has a canvas painting of soft undulating blues; a rectangular porthole window and full-height mirror are etched with nautical blueprints. In the suites, we injected colours, shapes, forms and patterns from beneath the sea. Yet, we were careful not to overwhelm the room with too thematic
a scheme, but provided sophisticated clues to the location’s maritime heritage.
through interior magazines that my mother had at home.
How does Ensemble differentiate itself from its competitors?
What is your role in Ensemble?
We design and advise our clients using a holistic approach, which allows us to deliver a solution more accurately and effectively, with time and cost as part of the consideration in our design proposal. Also, having Redzuan as my design sparring partner allows us to challenge each other to give our clients better service. Why do you enjoy purchasing pieces from Space Furniture?
I love the brands they represent, especially Cassina. I tend to introduce iconic, classic furniture pieces into my projects and the Italian brand ticks those boxes. Now that Patricia Urquiola is Art Director, its collections have a wider range of colours and styles, making it much fresher. All these details are visible when I shop there, especially because Space is very adept at displaying the pieces attractively. Another reason is the variety of more than 20 brands found under one roof. I also like how the service staff are very responsive to queries and requests. REDZUAN ABU BAKAR Why did you decide to become a designer?
Ever since I started doodling in books and on desks and chairs in primary school, I’ve known that I wanted to be in a creative environment. The decision to work as an interior designer was further cemented in secondary school, when browsing
I am the Creative Director. This means I receive, collate, digest and regurgitate a client’s brief for a design solution that the team can work on. Leslie’s responsibilities are more concerned with business development, company administration and project management. How would you describe relationship with Leslie?
Having known Leslie for 23 years, there is a familiarity with each other that makes our business relationship work. We communicate well and understand what the other is thinking. Yet, we are equally comfortable questioning each other’s solutions and decisions, with the primary objective of producing a design solution that reaches its fullest potential. You’ve been a designer for 20 years. What is a challenge you face right now?
Having worked in the pre- and post-Internet era, information on design has become much more accessible to everyone. The challenge we are facing now is to educate and convince clients that design is not just about copying an image from Pinterest. Meeting such clients makes me feel like our years of education are redundant. The constant reminder that their “solutions” might not work is something we have to keep doing. While Pinterest is good in that it reduces the guess work of what a client wants, we tell them that we can only reinterpret what they like.
This story is produced in collaboration with Space Furniture.
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your
/ PHOTOGRAPHY CHINO SARDEA
LESLIE SEOW DIRECTOR, ENSEMBLE AGE
47 PAST EXPERIENCE
CO-FOUNDER, SIX PLANES INSPIRED BY
TADAO ANDO, KENGO KUMA, YABU PUSHELBERG, VINCENT VAN DUYSEN AND PATRICIA URQUIOLA
REDZUAN ABU BAKAR CREATIVE DIRECTOR, ENSEMBLE AGE
42 PAST EXPERIENCE
CREATIVE DIRECTOR, SIX PLANES INSPIRED BY
LOS ANGELES-BASED ARTIST CLEON PETERSON
Leslie and Redzuan sit on the Bowy L-shaped sofa by Patricia Urquiola from Cassina.
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ELDER CARE
LOUNGE OUTSIDE W. Atelier has added Gloster to the list of brands it now represents. The award-winning outdoor furniture company from Germany uses materials such as teak, sourced from the carefully-managed Indonesian plantations of state-owned Perum Perhutani, on the island of East Java. One example is the Kay collection by Henrik Pedersen. A Scandinavianstyle teak frame is used to create a curved back panel for its seating pieces, making them stand out in a distinctive and welcoming manner.
American furniture maker Janus et Cie has launched Alta, a dimension of chairs just for the silver generation. Available in the Amari, Arbor, Cortino, and Koko II collections, it features a seat that is raised, wider and less deep, combined with an overall increase in height. Each piece can be complemented by a cushion with more than 250 outdoor fabric options, and is suitable for high-traffic interior and exterior environments.
NEO-CLASSICAL SPIN Be dazzled by the interior fittings designed by Cypriot studio YO2. It creates wallpapers, rugs and planters under the direction of Pericles Liatsos, with the philosophy of enriching lives through “creating contemporary designs that both respect culture and bring with it a twist of classical influence�. The planters are statement pieces made with cast iron and corrosionresistant finishes.
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A POSSIBLE MASS HOUSING SOLUTION / WORDS LOW SHI PING /
In the commune of Massa Lombarda, in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna, a house is being 3D-printed. TECLA, as it is named, is a collaboration between Mario Cucinella Architects (MC A) and World’s Advanced Saving Project (WASP), Italy’s pioneering specialists in 3D printing. Its premise is to be an affordable housing solution made from reusable, recyclable materials taken from the local terrain, as a response to the exponential population increase in urban centres. Designed by MC A and engineered and built by WASP, TECLA is a zero-waste building with a structure entirely produced by a 3D printer using locally-sourced clay. Even elements like thermal performance and living comfort of the building envelope were taken into consideration, with inputs provided by material specialist RiceHouse to use bio-materials derived from rice cultivation waste. The outcome is a highly flexible home that is resilient in any climate and more energy efficient than traditional housing models. Ultimately, TECLA is symbolic of how technological innovation can be leveraged even as we are respectful towards the environment and understanding of Earth’s natural processes.
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