User of a Space

User of a Space

/Industrial Style Interior Design/

I personally like the style of modern industrial interior design. Baring it all takes courage, and modern industrial interior design is about exposing all that lies beneath to achieve raw, edgy style. What other styles are at pains to hide, industrial design boldly puts on display.

Location would be at: Bean Brothers, Sunway Damansara.

User in the space: If I were to describe the user of the space, it would be a lady alone in her 20s. This lady has a jet black hair, giving off a slight stern look. Embracing her raw and edgy with a tinge of lady like fashion, she would be sitting alone complementing the structural look of Bean Brothers. Not being able to socialize well and fit in as she was dressed differently, she would be spending most of her time alone. That's her eccentricity. However in terms of fashion, she is not afraid to hide and has the courage to pull it off. I would say the owner of this space has her own unique character and does not take people criticism's into destroying her own self esteem. 

Street Photo Exercise

Street Photo Exercise

Location: Taylor's University 

Industrial Style Make Up/ Fashion Look

Industrial Style Make Up/ Fashion Look

Industrial Make Up Look

Though there are no specific definition for an industrial makeup look, I think raw make up look is something pretty much relatable to the industrial interior design. As industrial style exhibits the rawness/originality/naturality of the material, makeup can also exhibit such rawness. Youngsters these days like to achieve the "raw" makeup look, as in "the no makeup makeup face". With minimal amount of makeup but a full makeup face, even features such as 'freckles' are being exposed.

  

Industrial Fashion Look

The "rivethead" fashion is the closest to the industrial style as they sometimes acknowledge themselves as "industrilits". They have goth fashion as their subculture and is inspired my military aesthetics. 

However I find this not relatable to the industrial style for interior designing. Instead, fashion that managed to show structural frames, lines which has an integration of fashion and architecture. As industrial style  emphasizes of materiality as well, the fashion has to include the usage of synthetic material, metal strips to create interlacing architectural structure. This is to recreate the "exposed structure" of industrial interior design. 

Industrial Interior Design in Malaysia

Industrial Interior Design in Malaysia

Ng Sek San is a Malayasian landscape architect, his collective works straddle the hard, tactile world of architecture and the soft pliable world of landscape architecture seamlessly. He trained in civil engineering before studying landscape architecture in New Zealand, and has practiced solely as the latter for the past 21 years, of which the last 13 years have been on his own in partnership with Caroline Lau. 

Under "Seksan Design", most of their famous projects had featured modernity and industrial design with a tinge of the environment. Ng Sek San likes to leave some of his structure at its original raw state believing it has its own beauty within. He also considers the harmonious relationship between man and environment.

In terms of personality, Ng Sek San does not like being photographed even during interviews. In terms of materiality, he incorporated the interplay of grainy, earthy wood furniture and metal finishings in the space to create the raw and industrial look. His designs are surrounded by the rustic setting of brick and concrete walls, and pretty plants, or even eccentric looking furnitures.

Some of his projects featuring industrial designs are:

Sekeping Victoria, Georgetown, Penang. 

Sekeping Victoria Penang is famous for its cafe and accommodation is provided as well. While maintaining the heritage feel in its design, Sek San has managed to give off industrial look (the cement floor is left as it is) with a mixture of modernity. (modern materials used: the wired chairs)

Sekeping Hong Keng, Ipoh.

 Sekeping Kong Heng, in the charming old town of Ipoh, is the latest addition to the Sekeping family of retreats. It is located in a 3 storey neo-classical building which also houses a famous coffee shop of the same name on the ground floor that serves great coffee and the best local dishes in town. All effort has been made to preserve as much of the character of the existing building as possible in contrast to the surrounding new architectural interventions. New architectural inventions as in appreciating the rawness of the existing structure of the building and used it to its best advantage.

Sekeping Tenggiri, Bangsar, KL.

Sekeping Tenggiri in Bangsar looks like a house that’s stagnated at the final stage of its construction – unpainted concrete and brick walls. The paintings furnishing the untreated walls and the mirror hung over the bare bathroom wall betray the illusion however; it’s not an unfinished building, it is, rather, a bold proponent of an unabashedly austere simplicity. Making all the more coherent the honest, rustic charm that Sekeping Tenggiri strives for are the timber accents and the liberal use of glass to allow an abundant amount of natural light to flood in. Even the exposed roof structure (as shown in the second  picture) is used to enhance the industrial look. 

Sekeping Serendah Warehouse, Rawang, Selangor. 

Sekeping Serendah is a private retreat attempting to tread lightly on the land. The very transparent and open sheds celebrate the beauty of the natural environment surrounding them. The sheds are intentionally kept basic and free from lavishness. Its simplicity can also be seen through the usage of minimal industrial look materials: unpolished cement floors and the mixture of black structural steel and dark brown timber.

Other than that, there are two more famous cafes in Kuala Lumpur that has strongly projected industrial style interior design in my opinion:

Bean Brothers, Sunway Damansara

Obvious usage of cement floors, unconcealed ceiling, unpainted brick walls and many steel structural frames. 

Acme Bar and Coffee, Troika, KL

Obvious usage of steel structural frames (even for the chairs) and the toilet is also purpotedly made to look rustic, white brick walls. 

Photography: Acitvity One

Photography: Acitvity One

Why Interior Architcture?

Why Interior Architcture?

These are the five pictures to describe why I chose Interior Architecture. I don't think these few pictures could fully show the reason why but probably part of the reason why. I didn't have the time to stroll around to capture some pictures so I ended up browsing through my old folders. I often get inspired when I travel so I like to snap some pictures along the way. They always ended up to be pictures of buildings, lighting or of materiality.

Picture taken from Hong Kong.
I like how lighting plays an important role in every part of an interior, even in retail stores. 

Picture taken from Italy.
It is important to know the product sold in an interior space, and especially for this store, they used bright (almost happy) lighting effects to complement the (happiness of) the ice cream.

Picture taken from Hong Kong.

Bank of China Tower (on the left) is one of my favourite post  modernism architecture. This building can always be seen in HK movies and looks even greater in real life in terms of its lighting and materiality. 

Picture taken from Italy.
I like how the texture of every material makes a major difference in interior spaces. I have always wanted to recreate different looks with different materials. As for this picture, the texture of the wall totally gave off a different feel from the stores we usually see today.

Picture taken from Italy.

It is a picture of my hand and the Colosseum.

My biggest appreciation would be ancient architecture. The history or even stories of ancient architecture always spark my curiosity and eventually became my inspiration in a lot of ways too. 

Why Interior Architecture?

Why Interior Architecture?

As to why I chose Interior Architecture, I think it is strongly relatable to all of us students, we feel the need to design something aesthetically pleasing in a space and be proud of it and to be able to show it to the world. I was also known as the 'artsy kid' in my family as all of my family members even extended ones are not that appreciative of art. Flipping through interior designs and architecture magazines have always been my thing when I was young. But as to how it eventually became what I chose as a career path, here it goes.

Just like the most of the people around me, Interior Architecture was not exactly what I had in mind for a long time. Having decent SPM results and Science in A-Levels background, I was kind of being assumed of studying something 'convincing' enough to get a 'higher paid' job as per usual. I won't deny that I went through what I had to go through around the age of 19 approaching 20, existential crisis. I was clueless, directionless and stressed out so I took a gap year. My gap year was really interesting as I worked in a retail store. It opened my eyes to a different side of the world; communicating with different kinds of people and eventually being exposed to different experiences that those studying years could never give. Then I started to see everything as 'less existential'.

Being 'exposed' as in I could finally relate to the people outside the working world, knowing that there are people who loves their job and there are people who don't and constantly feel sorry for themselves. I decided that I do not want to end up being like some of them. Therefore I felt that if I have a passion in doing what I really want since young, I just need to go for it. As simple as that. There's no point in doing what I have been expected to do, civil engineer or even a fund manager. I also think that there is no point in hesitating further to choose a 'convincing career path' or 'not-so-convincing' career path. Like seriously, just go for it.

Hence I chose Interior Architecture.

I personally like the style of modern industrial interior design. Baring it all takes courage, and modern industrial interior design is about exposing all that lies beneath to achieve raw, edgy style. What other styles are at pains to hide, industrial design boldly puts on display. Structural elements are turned into showpieces, achieving a look that seems unfinished, yet cohesive and chic. Structural elements as in bare beams, visible duct work and pipes which add interest and visual dimension against a surface that is as good as invisible in other design styles. I admire how exposed these designs can be and yet managed to give a sleek look overall and I wish to recreate these looks in my designs.

Common materials in modern industrial design would be wood, steel and cement. Wood and steel interlay can be seen here. 

A typical colour palette of this design would be shades of grey and brown and touch of white, in general, neutral warm colours.

This shows the exposed structural elements, it's so interesting as it looks good even without any proper concealment. 

The floor is purposely made to look 'unfinished' or somehow what we see in the factories. 

The two walls has the function to make it look 'worn out', to create more drama for modern industrial design.