Sommaire pour #12 de Design Anthology, Asia Pacific Edition

This issue of Design Anthology officially marks our three-year anniversary, and what better way to mark the occasion than by celebrating — with food! There’s no doubt that in recent years food has been elevated far beyond mere sustenance, and chefs have become the new rock stars. In this issue, we celebrate food in all its glory, from the spaces where we cook and eat to food’s crossover with art and design. Kitchens have changed dramatically over the last decades, and we’re seeing no signs of a slowdown. Regular contributor Michele Koh Morollo reports for us on what the future is looking like for everyone’s favourite room in the home. We shine a spotlight on Japanese designer and hospitality entrepreneur Shinichiro Ogata of SIMPLICITY and how his holistic approach to…

Bowl Stories by Benjamin Donath and Viola Molzen (teNeues) Berlin-based chefs and food writers Benjamin Donath and Viola Molzen have teamed up to bring readers and home cooks a cookbook entirely devoted to recipes that can be eaten from a bowl. The authors reason that anything eaten from a bowl, or even directly from the pot, represents the ultimate comfort food, easily cradled in one hand while allowing utmost mobility. Freed from having to sit at the table, you can eat from the sofa, savour breakfast in bed or eat standing next to the windowsill, allowing your thoughts to drift as you gaze into the distance. Eating from a bowl, they say, is practical and sensual at the same time, with all the ingredients melding together into perfect spoonfuls. Donath…

Changing socioeconomics mean that many of us now use our kitchens differently than we did in the past: we eat out more, entertain at home on a regular basis, and expect convenience, efficiency and style from our kitchens. In the better examples of modern kitchen design, this has translated into improved space utilisation, smart tech, and a more holistic and human-centric approach. According to Marc O Eckert, CEO of bulthaup, kitchens were once predominantly places for storing, preparing and cooking our daily food — a place for the workflow of ‘cooking’, that is. But today they have evolved into social spaces. ‘Most of us spend only about forty per cent of our time actually cooking; the other sixty per cent of the time, we use our kitchens as places where…

German design has a reputation for high-tech precision — and kitchen specialist bulthaup is no exception. Since it was founded in 1949, the Bavarian company has developed a reputation for sleek surfaces and a minimalist aesthetic that hasn’t changed much through the decades. In fact, it seems to resist trends; even in the woody 1970s, its kitchens were as airy and streamlined as they are today. It might come as a surprise, then, that bulthaup relies on the sort of skilled craft that you might normally associate with something more rustic.‘We always say that bulthaup passion comes alive when machines have reached their limits and a keen human eye and skilled hands are needed,’ says Friedrich Kleyboldt, the company’s product manager. Even with all of the technological innovations in design…

All too often, a finished architectural project is the result of innumerable compromises between client and architect. For that reason alone, Soori Bali is a rare creature indeed. The 48-villa resort was first launched in 2010 under the management of the Alila group. ‘It came about completely by chance,’ says its Singaporean owner and architect, Chan Soo Khian. ‘I was visiting another part of the island and the waiter at a local coffee shop had an uncle with land to sell. He mentioned a spot that was near the Tanah Lot Temple. We walked on the beach, crossing a few streams, and came to this amazingly spiritual site overlooking the Indian Ocean and adjacent to a Balinese village,’ recalls Chan. ‘I felt that this was Bali the way it should…

Beijing’s hutongs, the alleys of traditional courtyard residences called siheyuan, contain and protect the capital’s ages-long history — and today, they still carry the soul and represent the culture of grassroots Beijingers. Since the mid-20th century, however, many hutongs have been bulldozed to make way for the creation of the second-biggest economy in the world and, not least, their central location makes the land much sought after by revenue-driven developers.The demolitions peaked in the lead-up to the 2008 Olympic Games — a period when many people became increasingly concerned about the deracination of the ancient city’s heritage. Over the last decade, a combination of tighter legislation and greater public awareness has slowed the clearance of hutongs, yet ‘preservation’ is still a relatively new concept to the city and authorities. Qianmen…

On the harbourfront promenade in Hong Kong’s Sai Wan Ho neighbourhood, al fresco bars and restaurants evoke the dynamism suggested in the area’s name — Soho East. For the curious who wander just beyond the bustle, a much calmer enclave exists in the ceramics studio, gallery and private kitchen of Gitone. Hong Kong painter and ceramicist Terence Lee founded Gitone in 1995, which he describes as a place where ‘art and the culture of food come together, where art can be made a part of life’. Lee draws inspiration from the origins story of ceramics: ‘In their earliest forms, ceramics were nothing more than clay dug from the ground, formed and fired. Before ceramics, people had only leaves, coconut shells and sculpted stone to carry water, so their reach was…

It may be Australia’s most remote city, but Perth is intent on transforming itself into a must-visit travel destination through a series of ambitious plans including the revitalisation of the city’s historic CBD with an innovative new cultural precinct. Here, one of the key projects is COMO The Treasury, a six-star, 48-room luxury hotel owned by Singaporean businesswoman Christina Ong. Ong partnered with local Australian property developer Adrian Fini to lead a three-year renovation of three iconic, late 19th-century red-brick and stone civic buildings that once housed Perth’s Treasury, Lands and Titles offices, and General Post Office. Although a prime site in the heart of the city, the buildings had been vacant for some 20 years. The meticulous restoration of the ornate facade included replacing slate roof tiles from the…

CITY With its neoclassical, colonial-style architecture, restrained Laotian accents and modern amenities, The President by AKARYN perfectly balances old-world charm with new-world comforts. On the banks of the Mekong River in charming Vientiane, the location alone will impress even the most jaded of travellers. Surrounded by glistening stupas and immediately neighbouring the Presidential Palace, the property offers a cultural immersion in addition to luxurious indulgence in any of its Executive, Deluxe or Garden Suites — or opt for the singular 126-square-metre Presidential Suite. With a name derived from the Hindi word for ‘personal style’, it’s about time that India gets its first Andaz hotel. The Andaz Delhi has opened in Aerocity, directly adjacent to Indira Gandhi International Airport, with architecture by Chicago-based Bauer Latoza Studio and interior design by Virgile…

Saerom Yoon The Crystal series is the latest work from Korean designer Saerom Yoon, a graduate of Seoul’s Hongik University woodworking department. Each piece is produced from slabs of transparent acrylic resin, the surface of which the designer hand-dyes. ‘I directly dyed the surface of it while maintaining the transparent state of acrylic resin like crystal, and tried to express the specific natural feeling of it, which is different from an artificially printed one designed by a computer,’ explains Yoon. Individual pieces are glued and fused together, creating blended colours, the appearance of overlapped surfaces and an optical illusion-like effect. saeromyoon.com Trueing Brooklyn-based Josh Metersky and Aiden Bowman have combined their backgrounds in art history, design and engineering to establish product design studio Trueing. Their first product, a lamp called…

Vicky Lau is a firm believer in yuanfun, the Chinese concept of ‘fateful coincidence’ or serendipity. And for good reason — the award-winning chef owes the success of her restaurant and catering company to a daring career pivot. Lau, who studied graphic design in university before working in a New York creative agency, began to crave a less commercial outlet for her skills. On a whim, she decided to take a course at Le Cordon Bleu, Bangkok, where she was taken with the combined components of craft, technique and nourishment. Returning to Hong Kong, Lau took up the vocation full-time at Michelin-starred Cépage, where she began to explore the inner workings of a fine-dining kitchen. Then, in 2012, armed with additional experience and confidence, Lau set out on her own…

A cutting-edge biodynamic vineyard, contemporary art and a sculpture park are some of the last things you’d expect to find in a sleepy agricultural valley just north of Aixen-Provence, but Irish property developer Paddy McKillen’s Château La Coste is fast becoming the destination of choice for art lovers, design aficionados and — thanks to a newly opened hotel complete with a fine dining restaurant with Michelin-starred chef Gérald Passédat at the helm — food and travel connoisseurs. Since buying the 240-hectare property in 2002, McKillen, who is no stranger to building and managing luxury properties, has embarked on a painstaking organic design process of inviting artists and architects he knows and admires to spend time at the domaine before proposing their own ideas inspired by the Provençal countryside setting.The project…

Sitting down to a meal hosted by Amsterdam-based design duo Steinbeisser is like being invited to tea with the Mad Hatter. You enter a fantastical world where anything can happen. ‘There’s curious cutlery, curious objects, curious tableware,’ says Martin Kullik, co-founder of Steinbeisser, with a Cheshire Cat grin. ‘It takes you out of your daily life.’ A former fashion designer, Kullik is part of a new wave of creatives who are challenging conventional eating rituals and venturing into quirky, experimental terrain. Kullik and his partner Jouw Wijnsma initially planned to run a concept shop in Amsterdam selling clothing and cutting-edge jewellery, but when sales plummeted and they found themselves bankrupt, they were forced to reconsider their careers. Kullik switched to curating exhibitions instead, and during that period he also became…

Chiang Mai is a city that doesn’t feel much like a city.It is a threadbare drape of concrete across the soft soil of the Ping River Valley, roads and wires and boxy buildings occasionally interrupted by the gold Buddhas of a temple or an unexpected pasture. Like most Thai cities, it’s a jumble, a city that quickly ate into the fields that once nourished it, the line between rural and urban never quite fixed. You can still find old teak houses a few blocks from luxury hotels, and not far from the heart of the city on Huay Kaew Road horses , graze in a field surrounded by apartment towers. There are only a few places to walk comfortably in Chiang Mai. Every Sunday, a few streets in the ancient…