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Issue 62 - Living in the Environment Issue

Issue 62

Living in the Environment Issue

Issue 62 is the first issue of the year and always a great time to put our best foot forward. With Adam Goodrum, the loveliest man in design, as Guest Editor, we draw on his insights as a furniture designer, artist and educator to look at the makers shaping our design world. Sustainability has never been more important, and increasingly this is a consideration from the start with projects designed to address their immediate environment as well as the longevity of the planet. From the coldest winters to the most tropical of summers, addressing how we live in the environment is crucial to creating the perfect home.

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This Composed Apartment Is The Debut Project Of TE-EL
ApartmentsYvonne Xu

This Composed Apartment Is The Debut Project Of TE-EL

Singapore

Designer, founder and principal of TE-EL Ethan Lim makes an apartment a retreat from the helter-skelter of Singaporean life.


Visiting this home in Singapore’s Ang Mo Kio suburb with its designer is a lesson in craft and in crafting a mood. Ethan Lin, principal of TE-EL, has put textures and patterns, both natural and designed, to work with controlled proportions, achieving composed, tactile and intimate mise en scènes throughout the 1576-square-foot apartment.

The apartment is in a low-rise condominium block and belongs to two working professionals who have just become first-time parents. Ethan worked to make the apartment an antidote to the helter-skelter of the young family’s life. “When you come home you should feel comfortable – this is the most important. There should be subtlety, a muted palette… very easy on the eye,” says the designer.

 

A trio of Lenticchia from Viabizzuno suspend as luminous discs over the grain of the dining table, which is framed by six Ton 30 chairs.

 

The strategy sounds simple enough, but at work behind this relaxed, comfortable atmosphere is a set of precise specifications – an optimal 30-centimetre rise of the coffee table top measured from the seat on the floor, a 35-centimetre profile in the door frames, a 90-centimetre distance for people sitting across at dinner. Ethan even noted how the houseplants on the terrace were picked to match the foliage of the treescape outside.

Every inch of the home has its raison d’être. Of the Grandemare sofa from Flexform, Ethan says, “The sofa is 1.1-metres-deep and it is quite unusual, but it aligns with the idea of the house the clients want. This is not a big landed house where you have guest areas and a home theatre room so we want this space to have quite a strong loungey feel to it. That’s why I chose a deep sofa.

 

Behind this relaxed, comfortable atmosphere is a set of precise specifications.

 

“Friends can sit around, have a potluck here, or a child can do homework,” he adds. The low coffee table, made out of solid ash by local artisan Maker and Wolves, was sanded and torched in traditional Yakisugi technique. Grains appear and are carbonised to deep black, with the most wonderful blue-purple undertones that contrast the paler shades in immediate neighbours of sofa and braided rug.

Ethan also selected design classics, masterpieces by Philipp Mainzer, Isamu Noguchi, Charlotte Perriand, and Peter Zumthor that each offer themselves quietly around the house. A trio of Lenticchia from light maker Viabizzuno suspend as luminous discs over the grain of the dining table, which is framed by six Ton no 30 Armchairs. The entire composition, back dropped by the monolithic stone island of the kitchen, is set at an angle, following the slant of the wall.

 

TE-EL has put textures and patterns, both natural and designed, to work with controlled proportions, achieving composed, tactile and intimate mise en scenes.

 

Ethan has a keen understanding of every weave, grain, and striation in the home. Of the light-diffusing glass pendants created by Zumthor, he tells me, “He frosted it both inside and outside so they have quite a soft glow.” Such insights make the fact that this is the debut project of a studio with a young designer at helm all the more impressive.

TE-EL
te-el.org

Photography by Studio Periphery

We think you might also like this Design Hunter profile on Ethan Lin of TE-EL


About the Author

Yvonne Xu

Tags

Charlotte Perriandcondominium apartmentdesignerEthan LimflexformGrandemare sofaInterior DesignIsamu NoguchiLenticchiaMaker and Wolves


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Issue 62 - Living in the Environment Issue

Issue 62

Living in the Environment Issue

Issue 62 is the first issue of the year and always a great time to put our best foot forward. With Adam Goodrum, the loveliest man in design, as Guest Editor, we draw on his insights as a furniture designer, artist and educator to look at the makers shaping our design world. Sustainability has never been more important, and increasingly this is a consideration from the start with projects designed to address their immediate environment as well as the longevity of the planet. From the coldest winters to the most tropical of summers, addressing how we live in the environment is crucial to creating the perfect home.

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