MAISON&OBJET (M&O) Asia returns to Singapore for its second edition from March 10 to 13, and will feature an expanded selection of the best of high-end decoration and home fashion by prestigious brands and designers in interior design and home decoration. As a springboard to publics and further collaborations, M&O Asia, like its Parisian counterpart, presents the Designer of the Year, Rising Asian Talents, and the Interior Design & Lifestyle Summit.
The Designer of the Year for M&O Asia 2015 is Neri&Hu, a design concern founded in 2004 by Lyndon Neri, who hails from the Philippines, and Rossana Hu. But who are they and what have they accomplished?
Neri&Hu Design and Research Office is an interdisciplinary international architectural design practice based in Shanghai, China, which provides architectural, interior, master planning, graphic and product-design services.
Their projects include the London Bow Street Hotel, Caylabene Bay Resort in the Philippines, and the Waterhouse Boutique Hotel in South Bund in Shanghai, as well as interiors for restaurants, retail spaces and private homes, extending to the realm of product design of tableware, furniture and décor objects for brands, including BD Barcelona Design, Classicon, Gandia Blasco, JIA, LEMA, Meritalia, MOOOI, Parachilna, Stellar Works, and Neri&Hu, elevating all these to the dignity of art.
Lyndon Neri has a master of architecture degree from Harvard University and a bachelor of architecture degree from the University of California at Berkeley. Neri was an associate for Michael Graves & Associates in Princeton for over 10 years, the director for its projects in Asia, and an architect who has worked in various New York firms. Who is Michael Graves? Perhaps a study on postmodern architecture should be forthcoming.
Meanwhile, Rossana Hu has a master of architecture and urban planning from Princeton University, and a bachelor of arts in architecture and music from the University of California at Berkeley. Hu also worked for Michael Graves & Associates but also includes Ralph Lerner in Princeton; Skidmore, Owings and Merrill in New York; and The Architects Collaborative in San Francisco. Who is Skidmore, Owings and Merrill? Perhaps a study on the modern international style will inform us.
The announcement of Neri&Hu as Designer of the Year for M&O Asia 2015 will come as no surprise following the firm’s recent plums which include Wallpaper Designer of the Year 2014, and its induction into the US Interior Design Hall of Fame in 2013. The practice was the 2011 INSIDE Festival Overall Winner, won the AR Award for Emerging Architecture in 2010 by Architectural Review, and was selected as one of the Design Vanguards in 2009 by Architectural Record.
This year the Interior Design & Lifestyle Summit, a series of conferences within M&O Asia that analyzes market trends, will have the great pleasure to welcome Neri and Hu as a keynote speakers. Their conference will take place on Tuesday.
The Interior Design & Lifestyle Summit will analyze key market trends and discover the most innovative projects through lectures and workshops led by major personalities in their fields. From interior design to retail, the conference is a unique opportunity to understand and decipher home-related trends and topics that include the best of interior design, reviews of the industry’s newest developments and orientations by forecasting agencies, innovative concept stores, panel discussions and dialogues between manufacturers and designers, and—of course—the keynote speech, where Neri&Hu will share their vision, speak about their inspirations and expound on latest projects.
Also highlighting M&O Asia 2015 will be the section Rising Asian Talents, where a segment of the floor will feature six very promising young designers who have been selected and given the opportunity to present their works. Rising Asian Talents will exhibit the constructs of Abie Abdillah of Indonesia, Monica Tsang of Hong Kong, Outofstock of Singapore, Poetic Lab of Taiwan, Wonmin Park of South Korea, and Zhang Zhoujie of China. Said Philippe Brocart, managing director of Maison&Objet: “We are committed to being a unique platform that brings together a wide offering of brands together with a large diversity of visitors. These visitors range from retailers to buyers, from interior designers to architects, and from property developers to hotel and restaurant owners.
In 2014 we had more than 13,700 visitors, with Asian visitors making up 51 percent. As for the total number of brands in 2014, we had 272 altogether, with 30 percent of them from Asia. We are working toward increasing both the number of exhibiting brands, as well as visitors to the show.”
M&O Asia 2015 will be held from March 10 to 13 at the Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Center. The trade show is organized by Safi, an organization that also manages M&O Paris, M&O Americas, Paris Design Week, and M&O Mag, a decoration and design news magazine. Safi is a subsidiary of Ateliers d’Art de France and Reed Expositions France.
M&O Asia is part of Singapore Design Week, a festival that celebrates the very best in design.
For more information on M&O Asia, visit www.maison-objet.com/en/asia.
Image credits: Shen Zhonghai and Pedro Pegenaute, Andrew Rowat
