10 minutes with...Ker-Shing Ong, Lekker Architects

Michelle Bong

Describe your current projects…

They range from luxury private housing for the wealthiest of Singaporeansto a hospice to care for the least wealthy. They may seem to sit at opposite ends of the spectrum, but we see a very human commonality between them.

Why Lekker Architects' multidisciplinary approach?

A combination of being a small practice of 10 who get bored of doing the same thing over and over, and a desire to always be on a learning curve. This means we get to make idiosyncratic but highly personal project choices.

When [my husband and business partner] Josh and I first started working together in Singapore, we took on landscape projects to see how other big firms in Singapore work. As a young couple interested in the arts, we created the 2011 Singapore Arts Festival village. When we had kids, we branched into day care centres, pre-schools and such. When my father was diagnosed with dementia, we took on work related to it.

Through our projects, we learn about people by trying to experience the world in ways radically different from our own. This forces us to stay outside our comfort zone and think intensely about life experiences. Is it possible that a hospice could inspire and help us make a better home for young and healthy people? We think so.

Share your thoughts on homes in Singapore.

They are beautifully executed but often lack imagination and polished commodities, which have an experiential payoff. A home should provide some respite from everyday reality, the same way it shields you from the rain. The homes we design try to provide a heightened stage for families to find refuge from everyday reality. For example, we designed a staircase that flowed through the middle of living spaces like a slow, meandering river, complete with nooks and crannies where members of the family could hang out, to create a new type of interaction space.

Such touches do not require an “edgy” client, just one willing to be more honest about how they want to live. We hope clients will stop seeing their homes as branded goods or embodiments of their lives that convey a sense of social status.

You’re an award-winning architect, a National University of Singapore lecturer, budding author, Rocket Eyewear Company designer, sauce chef for Two Rabbits Smoky Chilli and mum of three. Are you an overachiever or just crazy?

I sometimes feel like I work at Cirque du Soleil. Creative work often benefits from multi-tasking, changes and weird juxtapositions. Often, I find the solution to one problem while thinking about another. It’s painful, but it works.

How do your creative impulses feed your work? 

I am drawn to shapes, colour, types of food, my children’s ways of thinking and our dog. This is where a designer’s practice and her life need not be opposed, but can rather feed each other. The most common trait of the great creative is curiosity. Designers who try to learn about the world are never bored and never short of ideas.