Lip Chiong - Studio Twist

LEGENDARY INTERVIEW

Design Legends ("DL") had the distinct honour to interview legendary designer Lip Chiong - Studio Twist ("LC-ST") for their original perspective and innovative approach to design as well as their creative lifestyle, we are very pleased to share our interview with our distinguished readers.

DL: Could you please tell us a bit about your design background and education?

LC-ST : When I was still in school, I wanted to be an artist. I always had many ideas of things I want to build, or visions that I want to draw, or thoughts and feelings I want to express. Then I went to architecture school, simply thinking that architecture as the “mother of all arts” will satisfy my urges. It did, and more, steered me into the realm of design. To me, one fundamental difference is that most Art has an elevated sense of purpose dealing with questions about humanity but is actually low on functionality and usefulness, whilst vice versa, most architecture uses its functionality to justify its reason for being, but rarely addresses deeper questions about what humanity can be. I hope we will be able to create designs that are high on both aspects.

DL: What motivates you to design in general, why did you become a designer?

LC-ST : When I have new ideas and see ways to improve or doing things differently, I am motivated to design.

DL: What do you design, what type of designs do you wish to design more of?

LC-ST : My team Studio Twist is an integrated architecture and interior design firm focused on the creation of one-of-a-kind buildings and spatial environments that enhance the character and identity of place for our design-minded clients.

DL: What makes a good design a really good design, how do you evaluate good design?

LC-ST : Design cannot do everything or solve every problem, so when debating what is good design and what is not as good, it is important to evaluate the results in terms of the starting ambitions of the project, whether the ambition is appropriately set, and whether the results fulfil those objectives. Great design, however, transcends its functional objectives, and starts to breathe of new possibilities never seen or experienced before.

DL: What is the value of good design? Why should everyone invest in good design?

LC-ST : Good design are solutions to problems that may not even be explicit or noticed, or that become a thing of the past because of their existence. Good design is a sign of progress of mankind, and investing in good design is the equivalent to contributing to the evolution of civilization.

DL: Who are some other design masters and legends you get inspired from?

LC-ST : Japanese architects are at the forefront of experimentation, building new and surprising scenarios about how people can live together. I am always inspired by the freedom of thought behind their works, and the questions that come to mind when I see these projects.

DL: If you hadn’t become a designer, what would you have done?

LC-ST : I would have become an artist.

DL: How do you define design, what is design for you?

LC-ST : Design is creation of future scenarios that address specific issues.

DL: What’s your ultimate goal as a designer?

LC-ST : Through creative yet pragmatic design solutions that are specific to context, ambitions and constraints of each project, we facilitate effective ways for how we live, work and play in our ever-changing world today.

DL: How does design help create a better society?

LC-ST : Designers are equipped to be motivators of change, and it is important that we push this change for the better rather than the worst. The difficulty is, we are all part of the pervasive capitalist economy, and a lot of design is often the creation of unnecessary luxuries, rather than essential improvements. Perhaps it is important for us as designers to set our own design problems not based on what the market may want, but based on what the future of mankind may need.

DL: Which design projects gave you the most satisfaction, why?

LC-ST : Projects that ask for new inventive solutions that address problems in special ways.

DL: Where do you think the design field is headed next?

LC-ST : More and more people are engaging in design, or so it seems, through new forms of digital social networks where increasingly more people are expressing their ideas about design. When so many people are voicing their opinions and creating at the same time, it is even more important to make sense of all this excessive production and chatter. Can good design be democratically determined? I don’t think so, although enduring design without designers has historically evolved through iterations by different authors over generations. Will the role of designers be diminished and replaced by algorithms or networks of contributors? I think designs that don’t question the status quo and don’t invent or tweak out something new will be the first kinds that become automatically generated. The most pressing issue in the future of design that serves humankind is about asking what should design do for us?

DL: How long does it take you to finalize a design project?

LC-ST : Depends on the scale of the project, the conceptualization may take anything between a week to a few months.

DL: When you have a new design project, where do you start?

LC-ST : Our design process identifies the ultimate design objective and builds up an in-depth understanding of the essence of each project by revealing the most positively productive relationships between key issues. WHY? In order to gain insights into the brief at the outset, we come up with the right questions to ask, questions that will reveal the crux of the problem, questions that may put the motives in different perspectives, questions that bring out the true raison d'etre of the project. WHAT IF? Based on these insights, which may be contextual, programmatic, and cultural and so on, we generate ideas and proposals that postulate extraordinary scenarios.

DL: Do you think design sets the trends or trends set the designs?

LC-ST : This is a chicken and egg scenario, I think it goes both ways, no one can create new works in isolation without the influence of precedents, but sometimes a new thing emerges that departs from the past, even if it is a modification or improvement of it. If this new thing is accepted by the arbiters of taste and by the public in terms of the commercial success, it goes about setting a new trend of following.

DL: What is the role of the color, materials and ambient in design?

LC-ST : We always want to create materiality whose own integrity is self-evident or expressed. Colour on the other hand, is simultaneously the illusion of space and the expression of emotion. We use colour to evoke a mood through its ambience.

DL: Which books you read had the most effect on your design?

LC-ST : The essay by Robin Evans titled “Mies Van Der Rohe’s Paradoxical Symmetries” left a lasting impression since I read it in University and kept coming back to it. It is an excellent example of the myriad of ways that architecture can be read, sometimes requiring the detective-like interrogation of phenomenon which is felt but not explicitly understood, with revelations that can change preconceived notions. The richness and subtlety in such seminal buildings is the hallmark of great architecture.