I even called upon several established furniture manufacturers, hoping in my naïveté that they would produce and market my designs! The companies were all very encouraging, advising me to visit them again in the near future. It was through this exercise that I uncovered the numerous possibilities of furniture making and its engagement with artisanship, ergonomics, and materiality.
My education at Washington and Yale universities had introduced me to many great figures of architectural history. I was particularly fascinated by the early 20th-century design schools, namely the Bauhaus, the Arts and Crafts movement, and the Vienna Secession. Architects such as Otto Wagner, Josef Hoffmann, Pierre Chareau, Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Eileen Gray, and Alvar Aalto were especially influential during my formative years at school. All of these architects designed holistically. Beyond architecture, they worked not only on interiors but also on furniture, upholstery, carpets, lighting—down to cutlery and table accessories. One had even designed a dinner robe for the house owner! It was therefore natural for me to extend my own design thinking beyond the traditional realm of architecture.
Because of the proximity of New Haven, where Yale is located, to New York, I would often take the train down to the city to visit the latest museum exhibitions. One of the shows that inspired me to design interiors and objects was dedicated to the Wiener Werkstätte, an enterprise that evolved from the Vienna Secession. Witnessing a single formal language expressed in all elements of a building's architecture, down to the slightest details of its interiors and decorative objects, fascinated me. Later, as I visited Wright's Robie House and Dana House, I was struck by the same presence of an overarching design idea that could be felt in the smallest of its constituting elements.
Fresh from graduation, I worked for Allan Greenberg, who was renowned for his orthodox classicism. True to the spirit of classical architects who would design mouldings, trims, fireplaces, and wall panelling for their commissions, Allan's studio operated in a truly holistic manner, creating custom-made furniture, park benches, and planter boxes along with all of the interior finishing of their architectural projects. Each room would be thought of in three dimensions and followed the classical orders, with columns and pilasters generating a particular module that was carried through to floor patterns and ceiling coffers.
After a couple of years working in New Haven, I was hired at a corporate design firm, KPFC—an interior subsidiary of the international architectural giant Kohn Pedersen Fox. There, I observed the organisation and management of interior design teams, as well as the running and setting up of a material library. I worked alongside a specialised team of FF&E designers who, drawing inspiration from a work of art, a found piece, or a magazine cut-out, would put together various material and colour palettes, matching the hues of the object of inspiration to that of a custom carpet, a composition of cushions, or accessories.
My interest in furniture and interiors converged with my education as an architect when I designed my first independent commission. In a historical shophouse retrofit located in Singapore's East Coast district, interior design and architecture came together seamlessly as I applied the lessons learned from my brush with orthodox classicism and my encounter with FF&E. Combining architectural rigour and material sensuousness, I was able to integrate light and shadow, space and order, texture and materiality into a well-rounded ensemble. The house's furnishings, which were made up of an eclectic mix of modern classics, reconditioned antiques, and post-war colonial pieces, harmoniously completed the interiors.
Several other house commissions followed, each with interiors as part of the scope. Striving to produce a holistic spatial experience, I spent a substantial amount of time developing a design language that could be used to handle scale through detailing wall panels, screens, and horizontal platforms, based on my interest in deploying volumes, lines, and planes as the fundamental elements in an architectural space.
Even though interior design work was naturally part of SCDA's commissions, it was not until 2006 that SCDA Interiors became a stand-alone, formal entity. Today, SCDA Interiors is a 30-person company specialising in residential and hospitality projects across several continents. Its formal language is a natural extension of the SCDA design ethos, based on the clear expression of structural and spatial components through a disciplined alignment of lines, planes, and volumes, and a material palette chosen to express the natural qualities of materials. SCDA Interiors takes a minimalist approach to distilling the different components in a room to create a comfortable and calming environment. Structural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and other technical components necessary for comfortable living are discreetly integrated within the overall design. A specialised team of FF&E designers from diverse backgrounds supports the core interior design team with material and furniture selections.
