d+a | Issue 128 • 2023

76 design and architecture #128 design social spaces inspired by her childhood Ho Douven fell in love with the ’80s vibe of the Upper Circular Road warehouse. Having grown up during that decade, she says that the space transported her back to her days growing up in Malaysia and Singapore. “I wanted to recreate some of my most cherished childhood memories here,” she shares. “Take, for instance, the bespoke terrazzo flooring in the studio’s lobby. The flooring of my family home in Malaysia is made up of white and green terrazzo tiles. As a child, I spent many hours looking for fun shapes and patterns on the floor and doodling on the tiles to try to create my own masterpiece,” she recalls. When designing the lobby, she drew inspiration from the tiles in her childhood home. “The bespoke flooring, which took more than a month to create, incorporates leftover stone samples from our White Jacket library and donations from our company’s stone supplier,” she adds. The White Jacket retail space was inspired by HDB (Housing Development Board) void decks. Ho Douven Patricia Ho Douven Interior Designer, White Jacket (Above) The studio is full of unique artworks and furniture, designed specially for White Jacket. (Facing page) The bespoke flooring in the lobby incorporates leftover stone samples from the White Jacket library and donations from the company’s stone supplier. has fond childhood memories of playing with her cousins in the void deck of her grandparents’ HDB block every Chinese New Year. As an homage to the HDB void deck, she turned one of its ubiquitous fixtures – the tiled round table with stools – into the main feature of the White Jacket retail gallery. This space has become a place for Ho Douven and her team to hang out and connect with one another. “It’s a celebration of lepak (chill-out) culture,” she says, adding that it’s something that is typically associated with HDB void decks. “I wanted to inject life into the space by offering a modern take on local lifestyles and elements.” The library lounge and meeting room are the heart of the White Jacket office, yet they have been cleverly tucked away for privacy. These areas are furnished with the studio’s very own designs: a meeting room table made up of two round modules arranged in a figure of “8”, and a pendant lamp inspired by the suspended mobiles that, as a child, Ho Douven used to enjoy making out of paper and rattan.