BEST PRACTICE

WORDS

LOW SHI PING

THE PHYSICAL AND METAPHYSICAL

A MATERIAL MOOD BOARD RANKS HIGH IN IMPORTANCE FOR A FURNITURE DESIGNER WHILE FOR AN ARCHITECT, IT IS THE PROCESS OF DREAMING THAT MATTERS.

Before creating and designing a brand or collection for Commune, I like to curate a selection of materials that could be used to make what I have in mind. This is important because only by touching and feeling the physical item, can I start to envision the forms that they might take. It is also a way for me to assess if it can be commercially viable to produce; otherwise I’d just be making art.

These materials could be gathered from anywhere, but an important source for me are markets all over the world. What guides me is the persona or thematic environment that I want to portray through the collection.

For instance, when we created Volta for Commune, we knew it was styled for a rock star. My material mood board therefore had elements like music amplifiers and biker “

jackets, which I later incorporated into a TV unit and sideboard, and a chair with a chevron pattern, respectively.

Another example is the Alt.o Collection, Commune’s new high-end range. A visit to a fashion market in Dongguan in Guangdong, China had me picking out the leather used for shoes and bags to incorporate into the leather ropes and belts found in the pieces. I later also sourced them from vendors there.

The material mood board influences the setup of the showroom experience where the collection is presented as well. With Volta, we had elements like a musky, woody scent and whiskey-based cocktails at the launch. With Alt.o, we used a scent evocative of the coast, and when customers are checking it out, we serve Moroccan mint tea.”

Julian Koh, Brand & Design Director, Commune

At Gensler, we are deeply committed to shaping the future of cities. Prior to the planning and design of a client’s project, we go through a process I call Strategic Visioning. It encourages alignment and focus among the client’s various stakeholders, has a unity of purpose and ultimately yields master plans and facilities well-suited to the present and poised for the future.

It explores and challenges the client’s assumptions, and encourages them to take a long view of what they are wanting to do that is both broad and strategic. It moves the conversation from “how” to “what”. Thinking about what could be done, rather than how to get it done, keeps great ideas from being dismissed prematurely. As designers, we hold tremendous power to conceive what doesn’t yet exist. We need to focus on what we want our future to look like, and only after that has been decided, should we attempt to figure out how we will bring it to reality.

A project that we applied this to was Rochester Commons, a mixed-use development currently under construction, located in one-north, Singapore. It will provide grade A offices, a shared executive “

learning centre, hotel and F&B options. Some of these will be housed in the 12 conservation-status colonial bungalows on the site.

The larger objective of the project is to establish a global landmark of learnerfocused support within a collaborative learning environment. To accomplish this and accommodate the diverse programmatic elements in an integrated whole on a challengingly compact site with significant elevation changes, a Knowledge Trail, comprised of elevated decking, connects the bungalows with the main building, a mixeduse high-rise, creating a central activity spine that transforms a relatively congested site into a cohesive and stimulating three-dimensional learning ecosphere.

In this case, the integrating Knowledge Trail element was the key “how” discovery, but it didn’t become a part of the project until the “what” questions of program and function were settled.”

David Calkins, Regional Managing Principal, Asia Pacific and Middle East, Gensler