Singapore Furniture Industries Council (SFIC) is proud to unveil the exceptional furniture range composing Singapore Lah! – The Design Showcase in the framework of Milano Design Week 2013.

Singapore Lah! – The Design Showcase, from April 9 to 14 April, presents the inaugural official podium featuring the finest of Singapore furniture design at the Milano Design Week 2013, held in Zona Tortona, Milan. For the first time, the Singapore Furniture Industries Council (SFIC) will present a collective of the island's young award-winning designers and their stellar collections to the international audience, of design diversity and rich cultures thrown into the melting pot.  Seven design studios have been selected by the official body of design industry in Singapore to represent the country at Milano Furniture Fair with new collections on world premiere by: Acidstudio, Creativeans, Desinere, Jarrod Lim Design, Kelvin Teo, NextOfkin Creatives, Studiorigins.

The fusion of the best Asian crafting with local industrial abilities, the sparkling lifestyle rocking between East and West, an unpublished way to cultivate new habits, new boundaries to read up overused materials, enhance functions and the research to satisfy the more sophisticated home, office and outdoor needs. Above all, by entering Singapore Lah! – The Design Showcase distributed on more than 400 squared meters, visitors and design professionals will be inspired by an entirely new interiors philosophy on an exceptionally wide range of home furniture and complements in any material, including experimental textures.

On world premiere more than 60 pieces of furniture, the made in Singapore design on show and sell is including lighting for any surface; sitting elements; tables and tableware; cabinets; advanced shelving systems; modular furniture for exterior, office&communities, interior uses; uncommon pet furniture; technology and related accessories; toys to be collected by youngsters and adults.

Acidstudio mixes wood, steel and pvc for an innovative collection, ASAP, composed by six elements: Wings, Butterfly Table, Tangible Shadows, Tang’s and Kopitian chairs, Fortune Five.

Wings – a contemporary oriental concept driven furniture – is a foldable table made of mild steel sheet laser cut that can be powdered coated into customizable colors. Stackable, simple, light and ready to take flight, its personification of lightness juxtaposed with its intricate pattern created a very distinctive contrast.

The foldable and stackable Butterfly Table has also the added value to be flat packed for minimum storage. This furniture is designed for the lower and middle class target group.

Shadows are intangible but in this furniture they appear as touchable, visible and, so, tangible. Tangible Shadows combines 3 pieces together: a decorative amenity, a room partition and a chair, a clothes hanger for jackets and hats. The shadow cast on the furniture is being laser -cut out from the powder-coated mild steel and given a usage and a purpose to it. The tangible shadow silhouette acts also as a back/shoulder rest.

The sittings like Tang’s and Kopitian explore and revitalize traditional Asian furniture design with a clever material exploration: the first is privileging mirroring stainless steel in order to embody into the furniture the surrounding environment; the second is rewriting the old style coffee shop chairs and both can be highly customized in colors.

"Wu Fu Lin Men" is a Chinese set of characters meaning "the five good fortunes have arrived at the door." The set of five pendant dining rooms lighting Fortune Five echoes the lintels that are placed out of the doors in traditional housing and also embodies the traditional Chinese philosophy of dining as the wealth of families.

Creativeans will present new pieces of the Artifeq Collection and the brand new Nuuzo.

Artifeq is a collection of lighting, furniture and tableware initiated by Creativeans on 2011 for a parent brand. Its philosophy is marked by accents on cultural relevance, materiality and detail qualities. By utilizing both craft and industrial production techniques and by adopting an unpublished combination between textile and metals carved in unusual stretched forms, the collection has been shortlisted in the year of its presentation in the final awards of Salone Satellite. The Singapore designers will introduce eight new lighting models at Singapore Lah! The Design Showcase: from ceiling to wall to desk lightings, the Artifeq collection will be also enriched by a new tableware. A set of spice boxes in glazed ceramics will catch the visitors’ attention with a brilliant color palette ranging from blue, to green, yellow and white.

Nuuzo is the new 2013 brainchild by Creativeans in world premiere: a collection of soft furnishings and accessories that explores the intertwining relationship between space and mobility in our digital workspace. Eleven new accessories – from Ipad and stationery holders, to mats, from laptop and other devices small to big bags –will be presented in smooth colors starting from white to various tones of black and also cyan, olive and pink.

Desinere, design studio focusing on design through quiet reflection of relationships between items, people and experiences; enhances the experimentation on materials, form and also combined functions in five world premiere furniture.

Itty Bitty, rocking chair with feet designed as arcs permitting a slow and gentle motion, will pair with Monolith, in which form and function start to take shape: a lounge side table created from a reflection on subdivision and folding. Rok is a paperweight available in two sizes (small, large) taking the connotations of weight and hefting the industrial and raw nature that concrete has, by presenting this unsung, dull material in a decorative, ornamental manner. Mappa is a tableware inspired by the traditional hand folding of leaves into serving plates and bowls in Asia: each plate/bowl is meticulously hand-folded and pleated introducing a fresh approach to paper tableware. A’konkret, stool and lamp, explores the synergy between the hydraulic properties of making concrete and fabric forming techniques to create a new archetype for this material. In this new archetype the user can carry the dry-concrete in a stool-shaped bag and later immerse it with water to create a functional stool. The result is a unique stool with the all the qualities of concrete but with the visual softness of fabric.

Jarrod Lim Design will introduce a new collection of furniture, Hinika that he signs as artistic director. Part of Hinika and in world premiere at Singapore Lah!: The Design Showcase, there is a complete set for interiors. The chair Torii Lounge (available in oak and white leather for interiors and in teak with quick-dry and removable cushion for dehors) is accompanied by its indoor and outdoor dining version: the furniture is inspired by the clear simplicity the Japanese and the Scandinavian lifestyle have in common. Both the chairs can be used with the Torii table, available in two models.  The Logg Cabinet, available in oak and teak with powder coated steel legs, is inspired by the log cabins found in the mountains. The simple and elegant design has hidden the handles at the bottom of each of the four drawers the cabinet is composed of. Kikari Coffee Table can be used as a single piece or in a cluster: the geometric patterns of the top allow different combinations of two or more low tables (also to be juxtaposed). Easy to set, the legs are removable with a simple screw off. Central Park Lounge Chair, Logg Dining Table, then coffee tables inspired by the mathematic Bezier curve in stainless steel and wood, will complement Hinika collection together with the Tree Ring Birdhouse, a wood decorative and also functional shelter for small birds.

Young and awarded designer Kelvin Teo will show in world premiere his brand new collection Kapsule whose philosophy is to start a new family of strikingly iconic and touching furniture. On show at Singapore Lah!: The Design Showcase, five new pieces: from the SuperKross bookshelve in wild wood ash complemented by the Superkross table in red passion or black finishing, to the Paperfold chair that rocks; from the Doggy Heart (fiberglass magazine racks in form of dog made in bright color palettes), to the Directional Sign Coat Rack.

NextOfkin Creatives, will present in world premiere seven new lifestyle pieces under the motto “habits x forms”. Their habitual way of sketching and thinking when they design electronics devices can be translated in forms and ideas for lifestyle objects: chairs, tables and toys. They worked on observing how daily habits influence the shape and details of the furniture. The Wing Chair uses simple sheet metal bending techniques to create a modern “home industrial” look. Stub is either a side small table or a stool.  Stub uses simple sheet metal technique and modern industrial details to bring out the usability at the home environment; slots could be used as magazine rack and newspaper holder. With Loveseat, a double bench, they are finding location to place important things - a habit for many. The loveseat shares the idea of placing your reading glasses (with a special glass holder embodied in the wooden seat) and your love ones on the same spot. Landscape is a table treating the top like a vast plain, whilst fitting into the habits of user during the course of usage for smoker. The table contains a designated spot for the fire.

Among the toys  – designed to be collected by young and old customers – there is the Play series, comprising a rocking horse and a rocking moto, designed to bring back childhood memories.

W.words is a special bluetooth speaker and book holder helping to provide a place to hold the readings of the day. A stepped up version includes a stereo sound bass with a clock widget.

Studiorigins releases a new sitting philosophy through a wide range of chairs and benches creating also new concepts of “environmental furniture” to be endless personalized according to the changing and challenging spatial configurations the areas in which they are destined will assume time by time.

BEN is a fiberglass modular seating system for communities and perfect to wait, relax or interact: legs are standard of with planters. Same Same is a double chair, conversational piece with planters to enjoy a green spot at the end as back layers or in the between of the users. Nong is a low seat to change the shoes or to change the height at which sit. Linex is a wood sit for dining. Lullaby is an innovative rocking chair in rattan and stainless steel: it rocks gently left/right if sit on the side or forwards/backwards if you straddle it. Bro Stool works on the form and the function to provide a multipurpose function: it can be placed anywhere in domestic spaces or used as side storage beside the desk in the offices. When the stool has stacked it become a capable and stable shelving space or storage: it is able to stack up to 4. Bro Chair is a dining chair which applied a stripe of contrasting color to give it a graphical effect on the chair. Rebro Chair emphasized the wood grain and quotes a retro style with its lacquered structure: it is created in the between of the size of easy chair and dining chair. Pebble Tea Table and the lighting set Blomst’, inspired from the bell flower in the morning, complete the Studiorigins proposals. Two are the different types of lamp they produced: a pendant type called ‘Blomst Air’, a floor lamp type called ‘Blomst ground’.

Information

Show title: Singapore Lah! – The Design Showcase

Where: Carrozzeria Via Tortona 32 (inner court), Milan IT

Transports: Metro/Subway Line 2/Green stop Porta Genova, tram 14

When: 9-14 April 2013, from 10 am to 8 pm

Curator/Organizer: Singapore Furniture Industries Council (SFIC)

Media Partner: Nykyinen

Note to the editors:

 
To download the full press release containing all the bios of the invited studios plus the images of the products on show besided by short captions, please check:

https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B25Igevrj46VWWFwOFdkTDNZVWM/edit?usp=sharing

Next press pack will be distributed at the opening day of the show and will include further images, all the market options and those pricings that are not yet included in this press pack.

SFIC Video library will be released on March 2013 free of rights and authorised to be republished by tv and websites. We kindly ask interested editors to book since now a copy of the videos (available on HD or in web resolution).

Print and web resolution full image bank is already available upon request free of rights and for immediate publication.