DesignLuo JingmeiNovember 05, 2020Singapore

Topical, Tropical Design: Getting to Know Industry+

DesignLuo JingmeiNovember 05, 2020Singapore

What is Southeast Asian design? Each collection by experimental Singapore-based design brand Industry+ is a thesis on the multifaceted topic as explored by the region’s creative minds

Pet Porcelain by Hans Tan. Image copyright Hans Tan

Mike Lim’s Tingkat stool-table unit draws inspiration from traditional woven bamboo baskets; Soft is a series of marble seats by Nathan Yong that meld old-world tactility with idiosyncratic tectonics; Hans Tan’s ceramics riff on the traditional to create new narratives about culture and art.

These intriguing, inventive and intellectual discourses on contemporary Southeast Asian design and manufacturing are part of the new Eclecticism collection by Industry+, conceived as a showcase and celebration of Singapore’s diversity. ‘Some of these pieces seem to straddle art and design due to their methods of production,’ says P.C. Ee, who founded the brand with Yoichi Nakamuta in 2012. Indeed, the pieces offer fresh takes on old techniques and propose new ideas about various materials.

Ee and Nakamuta’s partnership was born from their shared passion for art and design. Ee was running interior design consultancy Exit Studio, while Nakamuta was at the helm of design production company E&Y. ‘The name IndustryPlus refers to the collaborative nature of the brand and our activities,’ Ee explains.

Industry+ pieces are stocked in galleries across Asia — and are available on Design Anthology’s online store. The brand’s bestselling pieces, like the Gabbia lamp by Ryosuke Fukusada and Rui Pereira, which is produced in a bamboo basket-weaving village, and nendo’s Tokyo Tribal collection of wood and woven rattan pieces, support dying craft industries.

The briefs that designers work from are thoughtful and relevant. ‘The brief could refer to a particular material, a typology of furniture, a use scenario or a theme, depending on how we want grow the collection that year,’ Ee says. For example, the Made-in exhibition series focuses on design and processes from a single country, with the inaugural edition in 2019 highlighting Indonesia’s design community.

‘Briefs could result in reimagining objects as small as a vase to pieces as large as a person. Designers and architects are constantly pushed out of their comfort zones by incorporating surprise elements, novel details or innovative materials in designs that are then edited and produced for either the commercial or collectible range,’ Ee says of the experimental outcomes. In Eclecticism, for example, Singaporean designer Voon Wong of London- and Singapore-based Viewport Studio addresses sustainable design chains with Essential, a furniture collection that’s sourced, developed and manufactured within a 15-kilometre radius of its production location. Made with marble-bending engineering techniques, Nathan Yong’s Soft seats challenge our perception of the material and processes.

Since its first showcase in 2014, Industry+ has garnered plenty of attention, and with good reason — the brand’s ambitions are a necessity in an overly consumerist world.

Text / Luo Jingmei