Innehållsförteckning för #19 från Design Anthology, Asia Pacific Edition

Before I co-founded Design Anthology, my career, like many others, travelled along often-dimly lit, winding roads that forked and turned and twisted. I spent my early career in the textile industry before eventually moving into what I felt was my destiny and my dream job: interior design. I had no idea that the universe had one more option for me… As an interior designer, it helps to have clarity of vision when it comes to your own aesthetic. Although good taste and an educated eye are not enough to cut it in this industry, I think my weakness was that I liked too many styles, never happy with one particular look, and ultimately wanting to change my own living space time and time again. In hindsight I have enormous respect…

‘At fifteen years old, I realised that I wanted to use my hands to create something,’ says Nagoya-born, Paris-based artist Yoshimi Futamura. Ceramics seemed a natural choice, as from an early age, Futamura was fascinated by the Buddhist ceremonies her parents hosted for family and friends. ‘The day before, everybody started to prepare food and organise the house,’ she recalls. ‘As a child, it was a big event.’ Guests used ceramic and lacquer tableware, and often concluded these memorable events with a tea ceremony using beautiful bowls. Futamura has loved ceramics ever since, both for their appearance and their functionality. From 1979 to 1981, Futamura trained at Japan’s Seto School of Ceramics, where she embraced historic techniques. Then, newly graduated and wanting to broaden her horizons, she applied to be…

Well before he was old enough to drink, Leon Jakimič knew all about wine glasses, whisky tumblers and champagne flutes. Both of his parents worked in the Czech glassware industry, the centre of which lay in Liberec in North Bohemia, where he was born. While sport may have been Jakimič’s first love — he had ambitions to become the world’s greatest tennis player — glass was the obvious alternative when injuries curtailed that career. Fresh out of university, Jakimič found employment at a Czech glassmaking company, where he learnt a lot but struggled to find meaning in his work. The role did, however, take him to Hong Kong; it was here that he decided, in 2007 and after eight years with the company, to found Lasvit. His aim was to…

‘I’ve been planting rice all morning,’ smiles Akira Minagawa. Dressed in top-to-toe white, the designer behind the fashion and textile brand minä perhonen fits in perfectly with the rural tableau of sea and rice fields that surround him. More precisely, he is on the shores of Teshima, a speck of a fishing island in the far-flung waters of Japan’s Seto Inland Sea, where he recently opened his first complete hotel project. Welcome to Umitota, a small but immaculately formed one-bedroom hotel created by Minagawa with his long-time friend Shinichiro Ogata of Tokyo design firm SIMPLICITY. This was the first of two new hotel projects recently masterminded by the designer, with a separate venture in a wooden machiya townhouse in Kyoto also opening last summer. Since launching more than 20 years…

A seasoned designer knows that their best work is rendered possible only with the patronage and trust of a visionary client. Irish entrepreneur Paddy McKillen in collaboration with owner the Maybourne group is credited with the vision of distinguishing The Berkeley from its sister establishments, The Connaught and Claridge’s (both housed in more historically significant structures) by embracing its contemporary roots and history of innovation. The iconic hotel was established in the early 18th century on the corner of Piccadilly and Berkeley streets before relocating to its current location at Wilton Place, in a classic building designed by British architect Brian O’Rorke, in 1972. Since the early 20th century the hotel has been at the forefront of innovation, paving the way as the first in London to install air conditioning…

With sleek new buildings and well-tended green spaces tantalisingly visible from the sky above Incheon International Airport, the Paradise City integrated resort aims to raise North Asia’s tourism ante. Promoted as a destination for K-style ‘Art-tainment’, the 330,000-square-metre development is the product of a joint venture between Paradise Group, a tourism and leisure company with 50 years behind it, and Japanese entertainment giant Sega Sammy. Masterplanners WATG designed the greenfield project as ‘a city that becomes complete with time’. The first phase, which has received more than 1.2 million visitors since its launch in spring 2017, encompasses a five-star hotel and resort, casino and convention centre. The second phase, opened this autumn, expands and diversifies the offer by offering a new public art gallery, nightclub, family theme park, spa and…

In the inner Brisbane suburb of Ashgrove, a unique property sprawls over almost a hectare of land. More of a compound, it comprises the heritage-listed Glen Lyon house, a billiards house (previously a chapel), a tennis court, a swimming pool, a pool house (previously a dairy), a cinema (previously maids’ quarters) and a recently added building. Home to an Australian family of four, this is the fifth project that Louise Walsh Interior Design & Decoration has designed for the owners, including the original heritage house on the same grounds. The new extension was designed by architecture firm Push in collaboration with Louise Walsh; the stand-alone structure — accessible from the property’s secondary entry — was conceived to both complement the adjacent historic buildings and facilitate a modern lifestyle. The three-level…

Archive Studio Just two years after Amsterdam-based Archive Studio began making bespoke ceramic tableware, the studio is now producing a series of functional and durable ceramic pieces in collaboration with local artisans working in Vietnam. These artisans are able to execute the technical and challenging process of preserving the raw texture on the outside of each vessel while achieving a crisp glaze on the inside; a unique felling technique then allows the rough and smooth edges to meet perfectly on its rim. Pieces in the collection are available in a variety of matte finishes and shapes. archivestudio.nl Gejst × Michael Rem Danish design team Gejst has launched a new collection in collaboration with award-winning German designer Michael Rem of Studio Rem. A modular shelving system, Sceene is designed to house…

Collaboration between designers and makers is a common part of creative life, but a recent partnership forged between Japanese furniture workshop Ishinomaki Laboratory and Hong Kong-based Studio Adjective extends this alliance of imaginative forces beyond practical considerations — material, form, function — to help a seaside community recover from one of the worst natural disasters in Japan’s history. Ishinomaki Laboratory, an independent, community-based furniture workshop, was created after the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami devastated large swathes of north-eastern Japan, including the town of Ishinomaki, in March 2011. In the aftermath, Japanese architect Keiji Ashizawa saw the opportunity to help residents affected by the disaster repair or make their own furniture following a simple DIY process using Japanese cedar. The workshop has since evolved into a collection of easy-to-make furniture pieces…

In the Vietnamese city of Thủ Dầu Một , the lacquer artisans of Tuong Binh Hiep Lacquer Village have spent decades honing their craft. It is here, in what is considered to be the cradle of the local lacquer industry, that many pieces from Singapore-based furniture brand AKAR de NISSIM are produced. To ensure the quality and integrity of the techniques used, AKAR de NISSIM collaborates with a French master craftsman whose own master was a student of Jean Dunand, the greatest lacquer artist of the Art Deco period who worked with the likes of Eileen Gray and Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann. These techniques entail laborious processes: each of up to 12 coats goes through coating, curing, quality checks, wet sanding, drying and cleaning before the next is added. Should even a…

The colonial era has left an indelible imprint on UNESCO-listed Luang Prabang, and it was this that inspired lauded hospitality designer Bill Bensley’s work on the new Rosewood property. Cradled in the glen of the Nahm Dong River like a microcosm of this city on the Mekong, the series of buildings has been designed after the town’s distinct French-colonial style. The site’s challenging geography meant no heavy machinery, so the manual construction was carried out by 400 local craftspeople over three years. The result is Bensley at his chic-meets-quirky best, with the Riverside and Waterfall Pool Villas and Hilltop Tents truly fulfilling the potential of the location. Of these there are only a handful (and only 23 rooms in total), and each is unique. Every villa is named and styled…

Civilization: The Way We Live Now by William A Ewing and Holly Roussell (Thames & Hudson) In this ambitious work, author, lecturer and curator William A Ewing and China-based curator and art historian Holly Roussell set out to uncover how contemporary art photographers approach the astounding complexities of modern civilisation. More than 400 images have been selected from 140 eminent photographers, including Cindy Sherman, Edward Burtynsky and Walter Niedermayr, with a number of images never before published or exhibited. In his illuminating and thought-provoking essay, Ewing charts the rise of hypermodernity and reminds us that while we frequently celebrate the individual, we increasingly live a collective life. He itemises dystopian realities alongside mankind’s unprecedented power for progress and the greater good, and the images that follow — spanning the critical,…

Telling stories through design is nothing new, and there are plenty of creatives who continue to do it well. Companies like Droog and Studio Job have built a reputation around imbuing everyday objects with narrative, allowing their designers to better inform, engage and entertain the end user. It makes a chair, rug or utensil appear all the more intriguing and certainly doesn’t hurt from a marketing point of view. However, what sets design production house Broached Commissions apart is the rigour invested in its storytelling. The Melbourne-based studio was launched in 2011 by creative director Lou Weis and his business partner Vincent Aiello to create limited-edition collections of objects and furniture. Each piece is more work of art than product, the result of research-driven curatorial processes that leave no stone…

Design Anthology: How did the collaboration with ferm LIVING come about? Mario Tsai: I participated in Greenhouse at Stockholm Furniture & Light Fair three times from 2016 to 2018. It’s a platform for young designers from around the world, and many famous furnishing companies, especially Scandinavian design brands, select up-and-coming designers and products for their new collections from the Greenhouse. I met Trine Andersen, the founder and creative director of ferm, at Greenhouse in 2017. She really liked my Flying Shelf and said it looked like magic. There was another company interested in the shelf, but I thought it was really suited to ferm, and that’s how the collaboration began. The Flying Shelf collection became my first project for them. What was the inspiration and process behind the design of…

Located in Seoul’s buzzy Hongdae district, RYSE Hotel has firmly positioned itself — both literally, in a Ginza-esque area populated with art students and seedy underground hip-hop clubs, and figuratively — in the space where art, street culture and design meet. Designed by Soho House’s original designer Michaelis Boyd, RYSE is a design-focused hotel, but it’s by no means your run-of-the-mill design hotel, instead opting for an active role in the creative community. According to the hotel’s brand director Jason Schlabach, showcasing creativity within local and global communities and fostering a new culture in hospitality through its art partnerships form part of its remit. This is echoed in the physical structure; rooms include the Creator Room, Editor Room, Artist Suite and Producer Suite, while a top-floor penthouse-cum-events space is dubbed…

Only mad dogs and expat wives go out on a midday run. Here she comes now, our latest arrival, slogging down the river path, red patches blooming on her exposed shoulders, brave face streaming with sweat. The average temperature hovers around 28°C year-round, and climate change continues to dial up the heat. Welcome to Singapore, sister. I — five years assimilated — hurry on, beneath my UV parasol, en route from air-conditioned office to air-conditioned MRT to air-conditioned lunch destination. In this equatorial metropolis, a transplant from more temperate climes quickly learns that shade means safety; to leave it one risks sweat, burn, glare. At street crossings, smart pedestrians hang back in the shadow of surrounding buildings until the traffic light turns, then dash across. One also comes to appreciate…