Design

“Everything is customised, to some extent, whenever a designer works on anything,” says Bobby Cheng. “But for me, when pieces become one of a kind, and created for the context and purpose of one particular project, and when we labour through it as though it were a project in itself – at that point, I would dare say there is a bespoke nature or process.”

As far as legends go, the Pagani Huayra R is one of most disruptive hypercars in the world (so much so that it's even banned in some countries). Its performance levels, powered by an aspirated racing engine, are among the most powerful in its class. This is a supercar made for the best circuits around, one that needs a professional pilot to maneuver.

Boulevard had the honor of co-hosting an exclusive gathering with Sans Souci at the private residence of Christopher Guy CEO Kisa Harrison. Founders of Singapore's leading luxury interior designers and architecture firms were treated to an elegant dinner celebration, as well as a an intimate look at some iconic pieces inside the abode.

Boulevard had the pleasure of co-hosting an exclusive celebration for the Aqualand Group with some of Singapore's leading real estate agents and stakeholders at the Space Furniture boutique.

Sentosa Cove in Singapore has the distinction of being one of the world's most famous exclusive oceanfront communities. It's an enclave that is equal parts integrated water resort concept and elevated garden sanctuary. And amidst thousands of hillside mansions, bungalows and apartments, Paradise Island stands tall as a development that especially embodies the luxury tropical qualities of the cove.

Rare are the pairings as inseparable as Custom Line and Ferretti. With a standing fleet of more than 300 yachts sailing in the world, the collaboration has produced some of the most coveted bespoke yachts. Each of these vessels are known to exhibit a sense of classic luxury with distinctive Italian styling.

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Set amidst the Kevin Roche-designed Millenia Walk mall, the lately opened Focal / Naim showroom represents the celebrated hifi brand’s first dedicated space in Singapore. Audiophiles are invited to immerse themselves in unbelievably crisp, rich and high-fidelity sound that blends superb acoustics with some of the most sophisticated audio systems around.

“The words ‘calming’ and ‘Mediterranean fresh’ cropped up a lot in our discussions and I think you can see that in the natural colour palette, fabric-lined walls, and contrasting light and dark veneers in Alpi wood composite," Nauta Design Co-Founder Massimo Gino says of the first SW108 Gelliceaux. "Everything is very easy on the eye and the overall ambiance is classy but cool, understated but sophisticated, stylish but warm.”

Aesthete and cultural connoisseur Amanda Love possesses a passion, vision and an inner circle that elevate her long-standing independent art advisory business, LoveArt, from expertise to art-world icon. Over 20 years of sourcing exceptional contemporary art across the globe and advising the sharpest private collectors and corporations, LoveArt has developed some of the most covetable collections in the world. You can only imagine what her personal collection and private haven are like. Until now.

The self-described 'creators of the world’s most fabulous lifestyles', Christopher Guy has launched its flagship showroom in Singapore – and, true to form, gone big on the glamour. Occupying a full floor of the Citibank building on Orchard Road, the showroom is all lacquered hardwoods, sumptuous chaises and the brand’s signature, voluptuous curves.

Franck Muller's first foray into real estate is shaping up to be its most ambitious 'complication' yet. Boasting a height of 450 metres across more than 100 floors, the Franck Muller Aeternitas Tower is set to become the tallest branded residential clock tower in the world, one that reflects the dynamism and opulence of the Dubai Marina.

As the Phuket property market transforms into one of the most robust in the region, it welcomes its latest luxury wellness residential and hospitality community along beautiful Bang Tao Beach. Gardens of Eden reflects Thailand's tropical splendor in many ways. With it comes a breezy arcadia of grand proportions.

Collaborations between the sailing and luxury automotive industries are mostly perfect marriages. The FA Porsche-designed Elan GT6, for instance, delivered a handsome sporty vessel worthy of the Porsche name. Another was the Technomar for Lamborghini 63 motoryacht, which led to a boat that reflected the automobile giant's performance and ingenuity.

Charles Wilson’s claim to fame is perhaps the iconic CW1 Swivel Chair with Woodmark, which he created back in 1995. It was a piece that would serve as the introduction to a prolific design practice. Since then, Wilson has developed a signature style combining clean lines and experiments with almost accidental shapes and ideas.

The newly launched Whitestone Gallery in Singapore’s Tanjong Pagar Distripark is immediately striking in its polished concrete floors, bare white walls, raw ceilings and sculptural lobby designed by renowned architect Kengo Kuma.

Since its creation in 1983 by architect Antonio Citterio, the ‘Max’ sofa has become a staple of chic anterooms, boutiques and the more poised corporate lounges. The design icon marries the linear rigour of its tubular metal structure with the kidney-bean-shaped sprawl of the seat, set off by candy-cane striping for added panache.

Fernando Botero's horse stands guard over the entrance to Cuscaden Reserve – having relocated after its years of sentry duty at The Marq on Paterson Hill. While the newly completed condo features smaller-format residences in contrast with The Marq’s eminently lavish proportions, there is noticeably no deficit of design, detail, architecture, and indeed, art. And this is the unique appeal of Cuscaden Reserve: a luxury pied-à-terre that genuinely delivers on its positioning.

The fusion of fashion and furniture demands the highest order of provenance and execution. One name that is capable of such a rare feat is Trussardi Casa - the furniture line born from the iconic Italian luxury fashion house bearing a reputation for fine leather goods, ready-to-wear pieces and perfumes. 

One of the longest-standing incubator gallery and studio programmes in the Australian contemporary art sphere, Melbourne’s Gertrude has shaped and reshaped the currents and trends of the cutting edge of artistic practice for more than 30 years. As a non-commercial, not-for-profit, independent space comprising two gallery venues and a large in-house studio programme, Gertrude seethes with an unapologetic creative energy that places artists at the centre of its ethos and encourages risk-taking, innovation and ambition.

First presented in 1970, B&B Italia's iconic 'Camaleonda' sofa by architect and designer Mario Bellini was "created to fill a void". At the time, it launched a middle ground between traditional and avant-garde furniture that offered a design-forward yet thoroughly liveable piece that uniquely continues to adapt to its owners’ changing requirements. Through its system of cables, hooks and rings, the endless modularity also serves as a design signature.

A simple glance at the astounding figures will reveal the type of prized home that One Circular Quay is set to become. A cool AU$1 billion in sales was achieved with more than 50 percent of the residences pre-sold since the off-market launch in late 2022 - and that’s before the residences’ internationally acclaimed interior designer was announced. 

James Tylor's current touring exhibition, ‘Turrangka... In the Shadows’ presents a survey of the past decade of his practice exploring his Nunga (Kaurna Miyurna), Maori (Te Arawa) and European heritage. Featuring five exhibition rooms, the survey opens with a body of expanded photographic work, sculptural and culturally significant objects, and designs Tylor developed over a two-year journey along the 300km Hans Heyson trail through the Lofty Mountains and Flinders Rangers.

In his hometown of Singapore, Sacha Leong is best known for his design work on two of this city’s most acclaimed restaurants: chef Julien Royer’s Odette and Claudine. That’s perfectly fine with Leong. While Nice Projects, the London-based studio he operates in partnership with Australian Simone McEwan, has worked on a wide variety of projects, including coworking and coliving spaces, luxury residential and retail, “Hospitality is our passion,” Leong says.

When we think cutting-edge (and fabulously good-looking) home-tech, it's usually hardware. Things with elegant dials, things that bathe us in the glow of their lights or answer us when we have questions or clean up after us after we've left the room.

With a seventy-year history catering to luxury life on the high seas, furniture maison Cassina has released a 'YachtingTales' lookbook showcasing something of a cruise collection of designer decor. Back in the 1950s, Cassina pioneered the transition from artisanal to larger-scale industrial production that maintained the highest standard of quality, and so was in a unique position to fulfil large orders from prestige clients. In 1952, Cassina was appointed by the luxurious Italian transatlantic liner, SS Andrea Doria, to fit out the vessel, and would inadvertently become the first design house to export Italian furniture chic to the United States.

Polish-born Australian artist Izabela Pluta works within the expanded field of photography to enact processes of record-making and translating that re-imagine the role performed by images in a broader social context. Her next solo exhibition, 'Image after Image', opens in May at Gallery Sally Dan-Cuthbert in Paddington, Sydney.

The sleek, floating lights by German brand Occhio present a sublime contradiction of statement minimalism – both in the large-scale, room-defining floor lamps as well as the small-scale, room-defining wall-lights whose projected glow reshapes the space.

Superior interior design has no bounds. Poliform is a name that proudly showcases this through its range of exceptional luxury kitchens, wardrobes and furniture with every piece priding itself on being Italian made to the highest order.

Cinematic, seductive and quasi-surreal, Firangi Superstar announces itself as a “foreigner’s love letter to India.” Aesthetes with an eye for eccentricity might wonder if that foreigner is American francophile filmmaker Wes Anderson, the great creator of dreamlike worlds. But the applause here goes to restaurateurs Rohit Roopchand and Michael Goodman of the Dandy Collection, with creative director and principal of EDG, Piya Thamchariyawat, mastering the mise-en-scène.

The richness of oak panelling and painstakingly book-matched noce travertine floors sets off frameless floor-to-ceiling glass and endless green views. In the formal lounge, two JBL Everest speakers share the stage with a Balinese oil painting, The Monkey God Fire Dance. The statement dining suite features Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s classic ‘Hill House’ chairs by Cassina and a local adaptation of the accompanying table, with an artwork by French-born impressionist painter Viviane Cisinski.

“The last thing I turn to for inspiration is architecture,” says Rene Tan. “I turn to music, or to football. If I hadn’t been an architect, I’d be a football historian. Football has taught me a lot of things – organising a team, organising space. There is an approach to football that emphasises what you do when you don’t have the ball – rather than what you do when you do have the ball. To mark space, to occupy and manage the space.”

There’s an unspoken art to exceptional interior finish and no name knows that secret formula better than Italy’s Loro Piana, the purveyors of the world’s finest textiles since 1924.

In a design world teeming with Scandi-contemporary minimal-leaning maisons and collections of neutrals, naturals and tints, the runaway sumptuousness of Visionnaire is, if anything, gathering pace. The iconic Italian atelier is leaning in to a ‘high décor’ of eye-popping mosaic art, statement stone-slab tables, lavish shagreen-clad sofas and irresistibly textural wall coverings.

As Singapore emerged from the privations of World War II and transitioned into independence, it was said that the arts were a luxury the new republic could scarcely afford. Of course, it’s never been easy to make a living as an artist. But in the all-business environment of mid-century Singapore, earning a living daubing oil on canvas was especially challenging.

Picasso once pronounced that art washes the dust of everyday life off the soul. It also effortlessly sweeps the bland off our walls.

Singapore-based interior designer Elliot James Barratt gives Boulevard the inside story on a sophisticated sanctuary in South Beach Residences, complete with whiskey library and covetable walk-in wardrobe for two serious collectors.

Some of the world's top architecture firms have built piles in Singapore – and many of them are homegrown. These are the names behind brutalist icons and light-filled mansions, game-changing design projects, conservation heroes, and the occasional neoclassical masterpiece.

Like most, if not all of life's great pleasures, the Mobilia showroom is not without its risks. Principally, the prospect of falling in love with a whole new lounge suite and having to update one’s salon every other season.

It’s not every day that something exceptional, head-turning – that honours the lost arts – arrives in our orbit. Courtesy of fine furnishing curators Lux & Beyond come two interior concepts that celebrate the artistry of woodworking: Javier, which specialises in feature walls and bespoke furniture, and Foglie d’Oro, experts in luxury European flooring.

During periods of economic instability such as these, many investors view art — like property — as a safe play. “In times of high inflation, blue chip, modern and contemporary art can often be regarded as a decent hedge. It holds value. We’ve seen that in many of the past cycles.” 

“I love the way the English decorate their homes. They’ll pick out some fabric swatches and come back and pin them on the sofa, and then live with them for two weeks. And they drink their tea and look out at the garden, and finally when they feel a connection they’ll choose the fabric that is dear to them, and then they move on to the next thing, and the whole process takes two years,” shares Roy Teo, co-founder of design firm Evocateurs. “Whereas Singapore is very fast paced, so we need to replicate that entire process, but we need to get it done by yesterday.”

Where better to launch Boulevard's private viewing events in Sydney than the stunning, harbourfront Norfolk Penthouses.

Prolific interior designer Bill Bensley has worked his aesthetic magic on more than 200 hotels, but just a small number of private homes. Why does the Bangkok-based American, known for his environmentally sensitive approach, prefer collaborating with hoteliers rather than home-owners? Primarily, it’s because the former can be relied upon to maintain the integrity of his design.

“Of course, we love it when a customer places an order for 200 pieces,” says Pamela Kugel, the cofounder of luxury coat hanger company Lou Hansell — whose top-tier leather embellished hangers are priced upwards of US$250 each.

A first, breathtaking look at the newly completed MeyerHouse, styled down to the last detail by the design triumvirate of Woha, Yabu Pushelberg and Ramboll Studio Dreiseitl – with a sublime show suite staged by Massone Ong.

Artist Annalisa Ferraris says growing up in the historically significant Sydney suburb of Castlecrag, her interest in architecture was piqued early. “My grandparents lived nearby — typical Italian family — and when I would walk through the streets with my Nonna when I was little, I just loved all of those signature Walter Burley Griffin flat-roofed houses,” she recalls. 

“Try it. Take a work of art off the wall, out of your room. You’ll feel the hole, that something is missing, an emptiness, and it’s unsettling,” say Valter Spano, director at Partners & Mucciaccia Gallery. “Art becomes a part of you. Sometimes you only really feel that when it’s not there, when there’s a hole, like when you move house and it feels empty until the art goes up.”

Boulevard’s maiden staging takeover brought together gorgeous decor by Roche Bobois and a virtual renovation by Elliot James Interiors, revealing the full potential of this grand old Orchard home.

Salone del Mobile’s long-awaited return seemed all the more emboldened by its absence over the last two years – to hold no punches and take all of us (willing) prisoners. 

The challenge posed by the hotbed of design talent in Asia is that it's hard to remain faithful. No sooner do we embark on a new home tour shoot than we fall in love all over again – with the bespoke materiality of Brewin Design Office, the runaway maximalism of Isabelle Miaja, the devastating sophistication of Evocateurs, the warm elegance of Elliot James Interiors, above, and on it goes...

"The house is a retreat," says owner Samiksha Oswal, Bollywood actress turned Singapore-based director and producer. "But for us that means entertaining – we’ve thrown some fantastic parties here."

Marano Furniture's latest collection, ‘Evolution of Time,’ offers just seven luxurious furniture pieces inspired by natural processes and the effects of the passage of time on raw materials.

“My style is eclectic. I’m an avid collector, and I’m always adding coups de coeur from my travels, as I encounter beautiful pieces. Designing a home is about creating and revisiting your own memories... I love setting eyes on these pieces and recollecting a person or a place. And then I can’t help but collect the artists I represent – such as Isabelle Van Zeijl.”

Among the many treasures in the venerable Tan Boon Liat building, Gallery 1819’s artworks stand out with their vibrancy, youthfulness and decidedly Singaporean flavour. Alongside an emphasis on local, rising talent, gallery director Zak Lo shares his view that, “Good art catches your attention from afar.”

Singapore’s sublime new members’ club began in London, when founder and former banker Grant Ashton found himself with a wine problem. The dilemma was an overabundance of fine wines in his collection – and a desire to share it.

Where can the art-curious come together with connoisseurs, artists and experts – without a commercial agenda? Ning Chong and her collector-father Huai Seng created just the thing, in contemporary art salon The Culture Story.

The owners gave Tan free reign, including the choice of materials, finishes and colour palette. And the layers of granite, light grey and ash warrant a closer look: starting with the natural veins in the stone and sensory finishes. “The use of tactile materials was intentional,” he says. “We explored sandblasted oak doors, serrated and chiselled marble in the kitchen, and blackened stainless steel trims in a hairline brushed finish.”

There are doubtless innumerable ways to define life phases; before and after your first paycheck; before and after children. Our latest, and most exigent distinction: before and after bespoke carpets. After an hour spent talking with Gurcharan Singh, director of Tai Ping’s exclusive Singapore distributor Etesse, it’s hard to fathom how we’ve survived thus far without one of his sublime silk creations under our feet.

Don't we all dream of NYC? This new arrival to the New York skyline will stir temptations to soak up life, stateside. 200 East 59th Street is a 35-storey condo of only 67 residences that pay tribute to the power of natural light. With a design devoted to privacy, flexibility and wellbeing, it rethinks the luxuries of urban living.

“I’m not into minimalism,” says Anna Layard. As an art historian, consultant and founder of Layard Interiors, it would be almost criminal if she were to pare back the artefacts, paintings and sculptures in her home.

A sense of serenity descends on entering Ode to Art gallery – a stark difference from the action of Raffles City. The canvases and eclectic mixed media are in sharp relief against the neutral walls, and showcase a largely Asian collection by the likes of Lim Tze Peng and Hong Zhu An. “I always feel great pride in our local art scene,” says owner / founder Jazz Chong, “and take great pleasure in seeing more local artists being collected.”

It starts with vintage. The head-turning, top-heavy jut of an art deco cabinet, perhaps, or the slash of colour on a re-upholstered, low-slung 1950s sofa suite. (So many treasures, so little space.) But the Journey East journey evolves from these mid-century delectables to a sort of eco-industrial chic, where your show-stopping vintage sideboard sits comfortably alongside a charred oakwood and cast-concrete dining table.

Singapore’s Good Class Bungalows are iconic not just for their impressive size and exclusive locations within prime residential pockets around the island. Breathtaking architecture and interiors bring these homes to the peak of the luxury property market in Singapore.

We write about what we love – and we’ve been crushing on Eightytwo’s character-filled homes for a while now. A Singaporean full-service interior design firm, Eightytwo was founded in 2012 by Terence Neo. One look at their projects and a commonality presents itself; there's a distinct sense of timelessness that strings them together.

Han Loke Kwang’s homes are poetic structures. Each dwelling is distinct, jaw-droppingly beautiful and contextually designed. Yet there’s a subtle and undeniable Hyla Architects impression that ties them all together.

No discussion about Singapore's residential architecture is complete without a mention of Robin Tan and Cecil Chee. Twenty good years since its founding, Wallflower Architecture + Design continues to make waves with clever homes that marry innovation, lifestyle solutions and beauty.