D+A 091

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UNIVERSIDAD DE LA LAGUNA’S FACULTY OF FINE ARTS FRANKEL AVENUE HOUSE LAUD Architects CLAY ROOF HOUSE (KL) DRTAN LM Architect FRAME HOUSE Atelier M+A S HOUSE (MEXICO CITY) Taller Hector Barroso

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SKY residences/NYC Odette/NGS Gallery&Co/NGS SingaPlural/99 Beach Road iLight/Marina Bay

S I N G A P O R E

M A L A Y S I A

H O N G K O N G

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design and architecture

ISSUE 091. 2016 | S$8

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reporting from the front The theme for the 15th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice (May 28 to Nov 27) at the Giardini and the Arsenale is ‘REPORTING FROM THE FRONT’, curated

by Pritzker Laureate Alejandro Aravena, who was inspired by a photograph of an old lady on an aluminium ladder taken by English novelist and travel writer Bruce Chatwin (1940-1989). In his trip to South America, Chatwin had encountered the old lady walking the desert carrying the ladder on her shoulder; ‘it was German archaeologist Maria Reiche studying the Nazca lines. Standing on the ground, the stones did not make any sense; they were just random gravel. But from the height of the stair those stones became a bird, a jaguar, a tree or a flower,’ said Aravena.

‘We would like the Biennale Architettura 2016 to offer a new point of view like the one Maria Reiche has on the ladder. Given the complexity and variety of challenges that architecture has to respond to, REPORTING FROM THE FRONT will be about listening to those that were able to gain some perspective and consequently are in the position to share some knowledge and experiences with those of us standing on the ground...

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1\\ Thematic sketch

by Alejandro Aravena 2\\ Alejandro Aravena and Paolo Baratta (photo by Giorgio Zucchiatti) 3\\ Some of the exhibition venues in la Biennale di Venezia

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‘Our curatorial proposal is twofold: on the one hand we would like to widen the range of issues to which architecture is expected to respond, adding explicitly to the cultural and artistic dimensions that already belong to our scope, those that are on the social, political, economical and environmental end of the spectrum.

On the other hand, we would like to highlight the fact that architecture is called to respond to more than one dimension at the time, integrating a variety of fields instead of choosing one or another.

‘REPORTING FROM THE FRONT will be about sharing with a broader audience, the work of people that are scrutinizing the horizon looking for new fields of action, facing issues like segregation, inequalities, peripheries, access to sanitation, natural disasters, housing shortage, migration, informality, crime, traffic, waste, pollution and participation of communities. And simultaneously will be about presenting examples where different dimensions are synthesized, integrating the pragmatic with the existential, pertinence and boldness, creativity and common sense.’

Said Paolo Baratta, President of La Biennale di Venezia: ‘Several previous Biennale’s Exhibitions have seen us deplore the present, which seemed to be characterised by increasing disconnection between architecture and civil society. Previous Exhibitions have addressed this in different ways. This time, we wish to investigate more explicitly whether and where there are any trends going in the other direction, towards renewal; we are seeking out encouraging messages.’

The exhibition includes 62 national participations in the historic Pavilions at the Giardini, at the Arsenale and in the historic city centre of Venice. Five countries are participating for the first time: Philippines, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Seychelles and Yemen. The International segment will be laid out in a unitary exhibition sequence from the Central Pavilion (Giardini) to the Arsenale, and includes 88 participants from 37 different countries, 50 of them participating for the first time, and 33 architects under the age of 40.

Additionally are three Special Projects – ‘Reporting from Marghera and Other Waterfronts’ will be shown at

Forte Marghera in Mestre, Venezia. Curated by architect Stefano Recalcati, this exhibition will analyse significant projects for the urban regeneration of industrial ports, helping to fuel the debate on the conversion of production in Porto Marghera; in the Applied Arts Pavilion at the Sale d’Armi in the Arsenale is Victoria and Albert Museum of London’s ‘A World of Fragile Parts’ curated by Brendan Cormier; also at the Sale d’Armi is a pavilion dedicated to the themes of urbanisation, ‘Report from Cities: Conflicts of an Urban Age’, that focuses on the relationship between public spaces and private spaces, curated by Ricky Burdett.

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sound of movement

BY Chris Low | Photography by Lin Ho

Archicentre’s Clay Roof House in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, features a first-ofits-kind reuse of the original terracotta roof tiles from the demolished old house – ‘as a lattice screen of animated stone that swivels with the undulating wind, creating a triple corresponding effect. The outer skin or cladding of lattice clay brick work also acts as a solar shield, but more so a permanent screen for privacy that has a visually aesthetic membrane-like look.’

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o date, one of the simplest paradoxical wind accessory is the wind chime. A good wind chime captures the sound of wind, before it can even be felt. With the slightest tilt and quiver a tingle sounds through air. The sound it produces, suggests the movement of wind, yet it does not measure the amount of movement. There have been ill-constructed wind chimes in my personal collection, that sway in the wind, almost patronisingly, without making a faint vibration of song.

From these, I can ‘see’ the wind but am unable to ‘hear’ the wind.

Movement and sound, they possess a wonderful relationship that suggests the presence of each other.

When we look out of our air-conditioned rooms through the window and see the languid swaying of large raintrees during this month of March amidst the high heat, we hear nothing. Yet we instinctively imagine the rustling of leaves that sweep across in waves. When we listen to the tribal drums of an African chant, we can picture the rocking of shoulders and raising of arms in dance-like salutations.

house of clay roof tiles This link between memory and the present, the familiar and the suggested is dotted like spatial clues in this Malaysian house in Petaling Jaya. Built on a small plot of land in an old suburban neighbourhood, the house tries to

assume a quiet presence by adopting a simple cuboidal form. Originally a single-storey pitched roof house, its condition was too dilapidated to be restored. This new house stands at three storeys high, with a refreshingly simple and uncluttered plan. It provides succinctly for the function of residence and is a polite re-introduction of an old house among its neighbours.

The first two floors are used for residential living while the third is primarily a storage floor for water tanks and services. Designed entirely based on a self-sufficient water harvesting system, the water storage tanks provide a network of filtered water throughout the house. This is one of the hallmarks for green architecture – to be energy and resource conservative building. Apart from

Existing house

CLAY ROOF HOUSE location Section 11, Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia completion Dec 2015

built-up area 6,950ft2

land area 5,570ft2 architect DRTAN LM Architect

C&S engineer Perunding L&W Sdn Bhd contractor ELBT Builder Sdn Bhd

Opera b l e rec y c l e d c l a y r o o f t i l e ‘ Br i s e - s o l e i l ’

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Fr o n t E l e v at i o n

Gr o u n d f l o o r p l a n

Sect i o n A - A First floor plan

Sect i o n B - B

Roof Plan

its internal network of pipes and drainage that is invisible to the passer-by, one highly visible marked difference for this box-house, is the clay roof tiles. These clay roof tiles, like the new concrete box, have re-introduced itself as a building material. No longer serving as a roof-covering but now as a vertical screen facade, the existing 50year old clay roof tiles have been salvaged with care and determination from the original old pitch roof before demolition took over.

As part of a continuing effort by DRTAN LM Architect, the re-use of existing materials is one of the firm’s methods to practise adaptive reuse that is both efficient and direct. This way of building sustainably reduces the amount of aborted materials, and in the instance of readapting the clay roof tiles as a façade cladding, there is minimisation of acquiring new materials to create a screen façade.

As a roof finish, clay tiles are effective in absorbing much of the heat from the sun, acting as a shield that keeps the heat away from the inner sanctum of a house.

With its heat absorbent properties, the clay roof tiles are

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now re-employed for the same purpose – to absorb heat from the Westerly sun that beats against the façade of the new house. This way, the designed openings and windows in the new house could be enjoyed without compromise.

With each clay tile attached to a steel rod that turns freely, the terracotta façade metamorphoses into a moving façade, that ‘dances’ with the wind. Although it makes no sound, unlike a wind chime, the movement of wind is characteristically captured by the ‘displacement’ of each tile. Turning themselves to face the wind, the façade of the clay tiles is then an imprint pattern of the passing wind. Movement solidified.

Keeping to beat with the adoption of old materials and the adaptation into new form, the interior of the house is peppered with traditional elements and suggest an earlier existence, now renewed. Sourced over the years, a set of old Chinese teak doors finished with a copper green patina is suitably re-designed as a spatial divider to accord some privacy to the study space on the first floor. Exposed brick is used as a wall finish, suggesting the original construction of the house. There is an interplay of exposed brick in alternating directions enclosing a double volume living room space, that sets off an interesting complement of rhythmic openings and tradition against the clay tile façade on the adjacent side.

The side profile of this box house is a double pitched concrete wall that calls to mind the traditional gabled end of a pitch-roof. This concrete wall, is semi-enclosed by the clay screen façade, establishing comfortable existence of new built and the memory of tradition. This semi-enclosed façade is also a welcome relief in the clay screen. With such an extensive presence, the terracotta tiles though arranged to let in slivers of light does form a formidable presence if turned fully planar. Perhaps, then following life’s simplest rules of thumb, it is best to leave things entirely to nature. And what it that means for this clay house, is to best let the clay façade dance freely with the sound of the wind.

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craft, poetry and reason

BY Luo Jingmei | Photography by Moritz Bernoully and Rafael Gamo

The playful and evocative architecture of the S House in Mexico City by Taller Hector Barroso is actually a pragmatic resolution to difficult site conditions. It also results beautifully crafted sceneries both inside and out

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an open stage

BY Luo Jingmei

| Photography by Robert Such

The Frame House by Atelier M+A is a simple construct that captures not only views of greenery and sky, but also embodies the homeowners’ desire for flexible and open communal living

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telier M+A was established in 2009

by Masaki Harimoto and Ng Ai Hwa. The couple spent several years in Tokyo, working for Kisho Kurakawa Architects & Associates (KKAA).

Harimoto had worked in Singapore on the Fusionpolis and Singapore Flyer project while Ng focused on the firm’s international projects. Setting up their office in Singapore, Harimoto and Ng have had to manage a shift in project scale from designing large-scale projects to small houses and HDB interiors, as well as some retail and office interior projects.

Over the years, they have developed a recognisable design language that can be described as a clean, minimal palette with a strong connection to the elements. This is particularly important for them, working in Singapore, as ‘only in the tropical countries can one truly enjoy the merging of outdoor and indoor spaces,’ says Harimoto.

A recently completed project that showcases these aspects is the Frame House. Like many such typologies, the original 50-year-old terrace house features a deep interior that lacks sufficient natural light. One of Atelier M+A’s key tasks was to open the house up and inject it with natural light and ventilation, making it ideal for easy tropical living.

A key datum in many of their projects is the courtyard, and here it is allocated next to the dining area, on a first storey that is designed to be extremely fluid. The dining room opens up to the courtyard, as does a guestroom while the kitchen opens up to the dining room. The abundant use of sliding glass doors accentuates the sense of openness both physically and visually. Functionally, the courtyard becomes an extended communal space for larger crowds during gatherings and parties.

‘The neighbourhood comprises of dense two-storey terrace houses with several redevelopments rising up to three stories…the internal courtyard brings one’s attention inwards and allows one to rest, contemplate and watch the sky from the interior,’ Harimoto expounds on the importance of this datum. ‘We always feel amazed at how cool one feels when in the internal courtyard of a traditional shophouse in Singapore,’ he says on the local reference.

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Interestingly, the guestroom also opens up to the dining area. It was a response to the homeowners’ request for a multi-functional guestroom. ‘On its own, the room provides adequate privacy as a guestroom or a separate reading space. When the room doors slide open, the space merges with the living and dining into a continuous space,’ explains Harimoto.

A longitudinal staircase is situated along one of the houses’ party walls, enabling the main space to be free of services. This vertical access, with open risers and minimal structure, is also designed for both light penetration and lightness of touch.

photos by Masaki Harimoto

Section X-X’ 1F Plan

Section Y-Y’

2F Plan FRAME HOUSE location Upper Thomson, Singapore

site area 143m2

floor area 191m2 completion 2015 architect Atelier M+A

project team Masaki Harimoto, Ng Ai Hwa

The courtyard, the open staircase – these are elements the design team has integrated in order to ‘provide relief to the confined spaces with [their] void and emptiness,’ says Harimoto. ‘While we tried to fit in all the functional requirements within the tight site, we also wanted to include some form of balance.’

Some of these features are made possible due to the uniqueness of this particular plot. Explains Harimoto, ‘It was a corner terrace house converted into an interterrace house. The first storey is an inter-terrace space with walls spanning between two party walls while the second and third stories are set back from the boundary

3F Plan

like a corner terrace house.’ What this means is that the bedrooms above are privy to an entire long elevation of window openings. Additionally, the first storey courtyard enjoys an unusual amount of natural light and ventilation as the second and third storey walls above recede.

Meanwhile, in the front of the house, an extended car porch roof provides the homeowners with a sheltered patio space on which to enjoy the outdoors. Here, sliding glass doors rather than conventional opaque swing doors continue the open experience.

Another key design aspect of the Frame House can be found in its name. Several framing elements define the architectonics of the home, the most evident of which is in the front façade where a blackened aluminium frame extends beyond the wall and window line. Along the longitudinal elevation, the other window openings continue this blackened steel framing language.

photo by Masaki Harimoto

‘We acknowledge the heavy rainfall Singapore receives every year, and while the big frame on the front façade and the frames around the window openings act as part of the architectural statement, they are primarily aluminium window sills protruding from the wall to shield the rainwater away from the window and wall [surfaces],’ explains Harimoto. The idea of ‘framing’ is also extended to the idea of capturing views, be it picture cutouts of sky or greenery through the windows, or even from the courtyard space looking upwards.

In light of the theme, the architects have also managed to create a ‘framework’ for the homeowners to live out their lives. The first storey is an open space designed for the best of flexible, communal living; the second and third stories are more enclosed, designed as private respites for individual family members.

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sky life

BY Rebecca Lo | images courtesy The Moinian Group photography by ©Ines Leong/archphoto renderings by Visualhouse

David Rockwell creates showflats and public areas for SKY, a luxury 71-storey residential tower at the edge of Manhattan’s notorious Hell’s Kitchen in New York city

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he section of Manhattan bordered by 34th Street, 59th Street, Eighth Avenue and the Hudson River has historically been home to Irish immigrants. No one really knows definitively who coined the nickname Hell’s Kitchen for the community. Yet for more than a century, it was an apt description for the derelict living conditions in this slice of Midtown. Due to its proximity to Broadway, it inevitably became the haunt for struggling actors and performing artists. Over the past quarter century as Manhattan’s real estate prices soared, Hell’s Kitchen has been gentrifying into a trendy place to live while retaining some of its grittier characteristics. One of the first developers on the scene was The Moinian Group.

Along with assets in Dallas and Los Angeles, The Moinian Group has been sprucing up Manhattan’s downtown and West Side with mixed use developments that combine live, work and play all in one complex.

For SKY, a 71-storey residential tower situated at the hub where Hell’s Kitchen meets the Hudson Yards District, Moinian looked to Goldstein Hill & West for the contemporary architectural shell and David Rockwell for interior design of its lobby, amenities and two typical showflats. The founder of New York City-based Rockwell Group is perhaps better known for his hospitality spaces — in particular, his long association with celebrity chef

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Nobu Matsuhisa and creations for Buddha Bar. At SKY, he envisioned a home that would suit a new breed of urbanites: well heeled, well travelled, well connected and who want to live at centre court. Although all of the 1,175 units are rental only, 234 have been reserved for tenants with income below a specified level. With many New Yorkers priced out of the Manhattan property market, many are opting to rent instead. Yet Rockwell

understands that affluent renters also want to have their cake and eat it, too. To that end, Moinian Group allows committed tenants to choose if they prefer Dusk or Dawn colour palettes for their Vue Penthouse Collection, studio, one- or two-bedroom unit, just as if they were potential homeowners of the flats.

‘The Dawn option features light oak kitchen cabinets and plank flooring, while the Dusk cabinets and flooring have a walnut finish,’ explains Rockwell. ‘A custom marble top kitchen island, a white Parapan wrap that frames a wall of white lacquer storage cabinets, and asymmetrical Arki handles from Frost add to the kitchen’s clean aesthetic. The apartment corridor walls

are wrapped in Groove-V Out of Sight, a wallcovering we designed for Maya Romanoff. It is made from a custom material with corrugated flutes embossed with a linear pattern, and creates a highly tactile surface. The corridor carpet is a custom ombre pattern. The bathrooms have visually striking elements, including showers with vertical striped tiling that runs from the wall to the floor, sculptural surface mounted basins and custom vanities composed of mirror black steel with walnut drawers.’

SKY commands sweeping panoramic views of the Hudson River, Midtown and Central Park beyond through full height glazing with a chair rail height mullion that runs horizontally across every floor. Along with offering more rental units in one single tower than any other property in New York, SKY also offers 20,000ft2 of retail and F&B therapy at its podium base. The building contains amenities previously unheard of in rentals, namely the 70,000ft2, membership-only Lifetime Athletic at SKY; two zero-edge outdoor swimming pools; a 60ft indoor swimming pool; a water club with Turkish hammam; a regulation size indoor basketball court; a spa and a health-oriented café. All of these facilities were designed

by Rockwell Group.

Arguably, the showflat designs captivate most, with Rockwell’s signature play on materials to give each room a contemporary interpretation of luxury.

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RESIDENCE S FLOORS 12-49 1 BEDROOM

RESIDENCE M FLOORS 14-49 STUDIO

RESIDENCE U FLOORS 14-49 1 BEDROOM

RESIDENCE A FLOORS 23-47 2 BEDROOMS

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1\\ Floor plans of SKY apartment units 2\\ Third floor swimming pool and recreational facilities, floor plan 3\\ Indoor swimming pool and spa, floor plan

For any potential tenant who falls in love with Rockwell’s choices for the showflats, there is a detailed showflats brochure that allows them to easily find and purchase the BoConcept Osaka sofa, Flos Lampadina table lamp or Avenue Road Bell coffee table that they adore. ‘The layouts were inspired by modern urban lofts,’ says Rockwell. ‘The kitchen opens up to the living area. It is designed to serve a space for prep and cooking, and a casual area for dining with family and friends. The living area and bedrooms are clean, streamlined spaces, allowing residents to personalise and configure them to fit their lifestyle. For the model apartments, we selected simple, elegant furnishings with a few quirky accents, including a puffer fish print wallcovering for an entry, a chandelier with a custom vinyl ceiling graphic to create the illusion of a shadow in one of the kitchens, and a live edge headboard in a master bedroom. They are timeless yet modern interpretations of luxury, with furniture and finishes that are eclectic mixes of clean lines, neutral hues and playful pieces.’

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wonderland of shapes & patterns

By Yvonne Xu | Images courtesy Foreign Policy Design Group

Starting with a clever graphic scheme, Gallery & Co engages in playful exchange with the national monument it is housed in

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allery & Co might be a kind of wonderland. In this space, display pedestals are strewn about like island clusters; by glass windows, stepped drawer units, awash in sunlight, appear glacial white, not unlike ice shelves; on the other side, in sharp contrast, towers the black partitions – steep, leaning cliffs forming a range of moving mountains.

It is landform origami, and, as its lead designer Yah-Leng Yu of Foreign Policy Design Group points out – ‘a return to elementary shapes, to the basics of dots and lines.’

Yu wanted the space to be fun and welcoming, for its shapes and colours to recall the familiar wooden blocks and colour wheels of childhood. It’s the idea of play, a play on the notion of ‘high art’ – that art, at its highest, at its best, is created from the ‘basics’ of the dot and the line, of the colours blue, yellow, and red. Yu also believes that Gallery & Co should offer a friendly, light-hearted visitor experience; this provides a crucial counterpoint to the sombre but sometimes distancing character of a national institution.

It is a good starting point. Inherent in the buildingblock toolkit is its creative and generative potential: not least, in geometry, points, lines, surfaces, solids, and

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GALLERYÂ & CO, NATIONAL GALLERY SINGAPORE

total floor area 800m2 completion Nov 2015 client By AndCo Pte Ltd design Foreign Policy Design Group

project team Arthur Chin, Yah-Leng Yu, Liew Liquan, Vanessa Lim, Hafizah Jainal, Elita Ong, Choo Min, Natasha Pricilia, Keira Lin contractor Kingsmen Projects Pte Ltd

left wing layout plan

volumes can be permutated and iterated limitlessly. It is a muscular tool, applicable not just in 2D, but also in product design (merchandize) and in interior space (the polyhedral blocks). Visual graphics gains a physicality.

Such exercise is imaginably very fun for the designers, and the result is rewardingly functional too.

The display pedestals, for instance, are wrapped in vinyl skins that can be easily changed with new graphics to suit new retail and exhibition themes. Having modular islands and partitioning shelves that slide open and close to create alternative circulation paths means the space is flexible and ready for event needs.

The landscape is ever-changing. It moves between shopping and food offerings, walking and stopping.

Interior elements shape-shift, patterns and volumes grow to supersize or shrink to miniature, display surfaces

right wing layout plan

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step up and rails turn down. The detailed observer will be rewarded with discoveries of subtler quirks and whimsy: some of the table legs and clothes rail are set oblique, for example, or that the hexagonal floor tiles, laid scrambled, can actually be aligned into patterns. Indeed, this is space of twists and turns, where iridescent waves play against a black and white grid wall, and the moody book and stationery section broods side by side the cheerful children’s play area. The space is plotted with surprises, not unlike an adventure tale. In fact, the design has all the tropes of a Carrollian wonderland, including its characteristic subversions.

Perhaps the boldest move in the entire undertaking is Gallery & Co’s logo, which plays off that of National Gallery’s – as ‘a version’ or a ‘sub-version’ of. National Gallery’s logo is an abstract rep­res­ent­a­tion of the two build­ings it is housed in, and as its designer Chris Lee suggests, the two blocks are open to reading – they can

be two build­ing blocks, two dia­logue boxes, two plat­ forms, two plinths or two spaces for visual arts.

For Yu, Gallery & Co’s brand story layers meaningfully on these Reductionist blocks. The museum store identity rightfully builds upon that of the museum’s. ‘Also, & Co is about collaboration and exciting possibilities in partnerships*,’ Yu adds. ‘Our first partnership is with the National Gallery. You see, the word “gallery” is in the first box. We want this to be a dialogue, a conversation.’

If this space was indeed a dialogue with the establishment or the established (the art, the museum, or the museum shop typology), what Gallery & Co offers is clever banter. *& Co is a lifestyle and design partnership between Foreign Policy Design Group creative directors Yu Yah-Leng and Arthur Chin, hotelier and restaurateur Loh Lik Peng, and Alwyn Chong, managing director of cosmetics and fragrance distributor Luxasia. Gallery & Co is & Co’s debut project.

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floor art from nature Story and images courtesy The Rug Maker/Outofstock

The Rug Maker’s collection of The Tropicals, created in collaboration with design collective Outofstock, took the team three years of research, experimentation and construction to complete, and was finally launched at Maison & Objet Asia (Mar 8 to 11, Marina Bay Sands)

‘The beauty of the Tropicals collection is not so much the final outcome but its process of creativity that allows anyone to be able to create their own rugs if they are so inspired.’ Wendy Chua, Outofstock

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ropicals’ encapsulates the idea of exploring the micro details of flora and fauna, and the rediscovery of nature in equatorial forests that are flourishing in Singapore yet ignored or taken for grated. Looking into the natural art form of tropical flora, the design team explored Fort Canning Park where they handpicked and examined the foliage found there, discovering multi-layered intricacies of shapes and textures, of hidden hues and striking overtones. We are surrounded by the lush, verdant foliage of our tropical parks and yet, curiously, we barely take notice of them.

Perhaps it is the hot weather or the bugs, we take refuge in air-conditioned shopping malls and the underground city mode of life. By taking a lens to the diverse flora,

Colours for the collection are matched with the vibrant palette of tropical nature – in leaves, flowers and tree barks.

Each of the six 1.7 by 2.4m handmade rugs is distinguished by its raw and organic design.

quite literally, we hope to recover the awe and sense of wonder that reside in all us deep within.’

Guided by the founders of The Rug Maker, Outofstock Design spent three years researching and examining the craft of rug making. ‘There are few companies from Singapore, in the short history of our country, who have laboured with persistence over a craft. We are grateful to learn from Foong and Freddy, who bring with them three decades of unending passion for the art of rug making. Every single step in the craft process intrigues us, but none more so than the belief that a good product takes samples after samples and only come to fruition with time. Improving on the sample, getting the blending right, the stippling perfect, the colours to match, the technique precise, the types of tuft that complement the design; the process can be likened to aging wine, you know it will only get better with time and patience.’

The sense of wonder that is the life of the collection is both figuratively and literally magnified to delve deep into the intricacies of every specimen. Using magnifying lens – 7x, 14x and 21x – the detailed patterns and textures are observed, deliberated and subsequently selected for the make-up of each rug.

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teasing all the senses story and photos by TLH

SingaPlural, the anchor event of the annual Singapore Design Week, showcases one-of-a-kind unique works across all creative fields such as art, advertising, architecture, and interior and fashion design. The fifth edition (Mar 7 to 13), which was ticketed this year and likely henceforth in future, located as previously at 99 Beach Road (the former Beach Road Police Station), featured a record number of 71 installations by designers, manufacturers, builders and design schools, based on the theme ‘Senses - the Art and Science of Experiences’. Several of the exhibits were designed in collaboration with commercial materials’ suppliers whose products, for instance, tiles and laminates, were imaginatively used beyond their conventional applications. In the week-long programme line-up were also workshops, talks and tours that saw full turn-outs. Some of the exhibits may be rough on the edges, yet many were intricate and skilfully made, but most were thought-provoking, sensorial and engaging, befitting the design theme.

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1\\ Entrance to 99 Beach Road 2\\ Corridors and exhibition spaces inside the old police station blocks at 99 Beach Road 3\\ TILE IT UP by Wy-To Architects and Hafary, an interactive outdoor installation in which a wide range of tiles from Hafary are displayed in different settings of usable, playful structures.

4\\ DOORS by IDCS, SILA, SFIC and Mediacorp.

In this installation, a 360m 2 grass patch is transformed into a mazelike arrangement of five pockets of spaces using recycled set props from previous MediaCorp productions. To create the different areas, doors set at various heights are used as entrances and dividers. Each of the five spaces are specifically curated with interactive features to engage a specific sense. Among these features are digital voice recordings with sound effects, containers of aromatic sponges, shrubs and herbs, textured doorways lined with inspirational quotes, tunnelled walkways, all of which are designed to tease and delight the visitor’s five senses of sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste.

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5\\ ENGULF by Celine Ng and XTRA stimulates a seascape with form and sound; this highly creative installation ‘highlights the mild, tranquil weave on the “scale” tiles from the Flow collection of BOLON (carpet tiles), which echoes the grace and movement of breaking waves’.

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6\\ SCOPE by Lekker Architects and EDL is ‘an oversized kaleidoscope that invites visitors to walk into and inhabit – teasing their sense of sight. The installation draws attention to the many colours and visual textures of EDL laminates and how they create a unique, emotive experience through our sense of vision.’

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7\\ AURORA, by Andrew Loh, Tan Sock Fong and Lindis Chi, inspired by the northern lights, recreates a forest of light and fluctuating light casts, using simple materials of cut metal plates and molded glass, and clever, precise mechanisms.

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8\\ JOURNEY by M!lk Inc (Tan Eng Liang Dickman) and ADMIRA. The centrepiece is an ensemble of a series of individual cylindrical wheels in different colours and textures which can be spun like prayer wheels. ‘The spinning motion will cause an interaction of colours and demonstrate how the use of different textures can affect the speed of rolling, which can be experienced from the sound effects emanating during the course of spinning.’

9\\ SCALE UP YOUR FEAR

by Stickyline, a Hong Kong-based design studio founded by Mic Leong and Soilworm Lai, whose work, typically with paper, transforms twodimensional planes into three dimensional forms.

In this participatory installation that ‘plays on the common fear of roaches’, visitors are given pre-cut paper parts to assemble and fold into ‘roaches’ and place these freely in the space.

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10\\ A GREENER MILESTONE by Kingsmen design team (Gerald Tay, Crystal Chu, Jason Chua, Samuel Lee) is a hanging installation constructed from individual pieces of recycled wood, each piece is written a single statement from the designers on their interpretation of green design. Visitors participate as well by writing their thoughts on wood pieces provided and adding to the installation.

11\\ WHAT I PUT IN MY HEART IS HEAVEN by Alvin Fan/Topos Design Studio is an immersive installation with soundscape that ‘explores the cultural phenomenon of duality in today’s social context. The timber-laid chamber represents our body and soul, and is an interplay between the opposite energies we encounter each day. Its dimly lit ambience and stillness emanates the female qualities of sensuality, empathy, and patience. In the chamber lies a heart, where a juxtaposition of colours and light represents the masculine energies of movement, strength, and focus.’

12 12\\ A BREATHE RESPITE by Poiesis Studio and Panelogue explores the themes Retreat, Respire and Relate: ‘Using an innovative laminate material, Organoid, the installation creates a novel sensory experience in an interior space. Organic materials such as rose petals or coffee beans are treated with a special technique to retain its appearance, feel and natural scent yet impervious to rot and decay, giving a whole new dimension to home furnishings.’

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13\\ BENEATH THE SURFACE

by Miun ‘is an interactive conceptual artwork incorporating impossible film as the main medium; exploring what’s beyond the mylar sheet, constantly experimenting with the amazing layers beneath the surface by slicing open, peeling and manipulating the strength and weakness of the impossible film...’ Instant pictures frozen in time are ‘brought to life’ (light up) with the gentle click of a tiny switch.

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