Category: Design

Design50: Space For A Nation to Play (1980s)

Mr Khor Ean Ghee standing atop the Dragon Playground he designed. | PIX: ZAKARIA ZAINAL
Mr Khor Ean Ghee standing atop the Dragon Playground he designed. | PIX: ZAKARIA ZAINAL

Dragons are everywhere in Singapore these days. As a pin, a door stopper and a toy rocker. On music album cover, a fashion spread and even an elections manifesto. This mythical animal has become a part of the Singapore story—and it all started with Mr Khor Ean Ghee.

Close to four decades ago, he dreamt up a playground shaped as this Asian symbol while working as an interior designer in the Housing and Development Board (HDB). Mr Khor had been tasked by the agency’s then head honcho Liu Thai Ker to design play spaces for a new generation of public housing that would go beyond providing just a roof over Singaporeans heads.

“The thinking then was to have more local identity and themes. We wanted something different, designs that reflect what we see in Singapore,” recalls the designer who joined HDB in 1969.

➜ Read the rest in SG50 Pulse

The Seriously Lighter Side of Design Criticism

If the term “design criticism” brings to mind long, rambling essays that pale in comparison to their accompanying images and layout—you know, the serious, yawn-inducing stuff most word-averse designers feel duty-bound to plow through anyhow, this crop of recent sites—The Passable Designer, The Message is Medium Rare, and Reading Design—will jolt you out of your endless-scroll stupor and show you how critical writing about design can be smart, funny, and unexpected.

➜ Read the rest at AIGA’s Eye on Design

Fashion Fashion to Lighting Design: Chihiro Tanaka

Japanese designer Chihiro Tanaka is a self-proclaimed “Light Couturier” who creates delicately crafted lighting inspired by his training in fashion. Having recently been named a Rising Asian Talent by MAISON&OBJET ASIA, Justin Zhuang finds out how he arrived at the bright idea to blend the craft and techniques of two different disciplines.

How did you go from studying at Japan’s first dress-making school, Bunka Fashion College, to designing lighting?

I have a fairly extensive knowledge of fashion and textile design, so I thought if I could use and apply this expertise in a brand new field that I knew nothing of it would lead to something innovative. Lighting equipment involves work to verify its safety and durability, so entering the market is quite difficult. But that difficulty stimulated my curiosity and I plunged into this unknown world.

➜ Read the rest at Habitus Living Singapore