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The bottom of the geometric cloth ceiling at Pangium ends at the top of the windows to focus the views on the lush greenery outside.
“Pangium was a compelling problem, given that Candlenut is already a famous and beloved restaurant, with a very clear design language of its own, which draws on the vibrancy and colors of Peranakan patterns and fabrics. It was important for Pangium to have its own identity, but not be something alien either,” says Ong. The design centers on geometry drawn from Peranakan historic aesthetic found in architecture or clothing, such as the kebaya. The highlight is a geometric cloth ceiling inspired by the construction of rudimentary box kites made by children. It floats above a “zen-like” palette of tiles, micro-cement flooring, and wooden elements, whose neutrality was deliberate to let the greenery outside the window become the focus.
Pangium’s design represents the practice’s current direction, which has evolved from a more traditional architectural approach of a preoccupation with volumes, structural language, and materiality into one that is people-centric. This shift was guided by the practice’s increasingly inter-disciplinary aspect, as well as new insights gleaned from Comaroff’s pursuit of a PhD in social science. “We became much less interested in the building, and more in what happens in there, in human terms. What kinds of interactions and experiences were we enabling, or working against? How could we do more of the former and less of the latter,” the team questioned.
The geometric design of Pangium's textile ceiling was inspired by Peranakan historical aesthetic, such as ornaments in Straits architecture or in a kebaya.
The 240-page Hack Care guide is playfully styled like an IKEA catalogue with an easy-to-understand format of showcasing how to care better for persons with dementia.
The womb-like Quiet Room in the National Museum of Singapore, which is dampened from vibrations and most ambient noise, represents a new direction in inclusiveness for public museums.
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