Meet the Singaporean designer behind the world’s first commercial spaceport
Advert
People
Meet the Singaporean designer backside the world's first commercial spaceport
To create the interiors of Virgin Galactic's Gateway To Space, they first hiked beyond the New Mexico desert, revealed Viewport Studio'southward Voon Wong.
Voon Wong, creative director of design outfit Viewport Studio. (Photo: Voon Wong)
16 October 2022 06:15AM (Updated: 10 Jul 2022 04:26PM)
If yous were tasked to outfit the interiors of the earth's starting time commercial spaceport, at that place's probably only ane reaction that'south truly appropriate.
"We were over the moon," quipped Voon Wong, the artistic director of multidisciplinary blueprint outfit Viewport Studio, which was asked by Virgin Galactic to work on its Gateway To Infinite projection.
The brief? To create a infinite that underscores the journey from earth to space, and the transition from the ground up to the sky. It as well had to allow for chance encounters between passengers, Virgin Galactic engineers, staff and astronaut pilots, and their families, friends and visitors.
Viewport Studio, which has offices in London and Singapore, took a decidedly grounded approach "exactly the aforementioned manner nosotros do with every project, by immersing ourselves into the make values and ambitions of the customer alongside understanding the local site weather condition," explained the 56-year-quondam Singaporean architect, who specialises in product and industrial design, as well as interior design.
READ> To infinity and beyond: An inside look at the world'due south outset commercial spaceport
HIKING IN NEW MEXICO
It as well helped that Wong's working relationship with the Virgin group goes back 20 years. "We worked with them on their cabin interiors for the A330 and 787 Dreamliner. Information technology has always been a potent collaborative process and their teams are professional and engaged," Wong said, calculation that 2 of Viewport's existing team members were former longtime employees at Virgin Atlantic.
Wong, who had worked with Zaha Hadid Architects in the 90s, has chalked up an impressive list of accolades over the course of his career, including the Oxo Peugeot Pattern Award for lighting, for a series of lamps fitted with electro-luminescent wire he co-designed with Malaysian designer Benson Saw; the Loop lamp that they designed for Fontana Arte in 2002 that was nominated for the prestigious Compasso D'Oro awards; and the Designer of the Year Award at the President's Design Awards Singapore 2012.
Taking into consideration Gateway To Space's New Mexico location, and some of Virgin Galactic's brand values – togetherness, family, innovation, humour – the team started out by hiking into the local desert and sketching the landscape and the vegetation. Those sketches became central elements in the ensuing pattern procedure.
The team likewise watched 2 seminal movies about the journeying into infinite: The Right Stuff, which chronicled the beginning 15 years of America'southward space program through the stories of pioneer astronauts John Glenn and Alan Shepard; and Overview, a brusque documentary featuring astronauts and philosophers discussing the life-changing experience of viewing World from space.
The project took two years from start to launch (information technology was unveiled to the public in August 2019), and saw the squad making regular visits to the New Mexico desert, and working in tandem with the Virgin Galactic squad and a local compages do.
"Everything is designed to await outwards in the same direction through the floor to ceiling windows onto the rails and the desert mountains beyond," Wong explained. "There are a variety of spaces each with its own specifically seating formats to allow for dissimilar interactions, but at the aforementioned time designed to emphasise the space as a means of bringing people together."
The area is also landscaped with different heights in club to create the best possible views for everybody: A rear platform encircles the area for viewing over the tables and sofas and a "mesa" in the corner features a raised surface area with window seating.
NO SPACE AGE CLICHES
Viewport Studio besides custom-designed all the furniture, which includes an enormous fundamental barista island, a 12m-long banquette seat with deep crisscross patterns in the upholstery.
"The furniture is designed specifically for comfort just at the same time, the striking manner the large plywood banquettes appear to hover in the space creates a lightness of touch as well as portraying elements of flight. The low cradle sofas in the window areas reverberate the contours of the sand dunes. The barista island is the heart of the infinite and is designed to reverberate the desert strata of the eroded sandstone monuments with a large translucent onyx top that echoes the idea of a water oasis in the desert," Wong said.
The material choices are all natural in color – terracotta and greens, and the rich rusted corten style finish to the table tops – and are intended to reflect the warm desert environment surrounding the Spaceport.
The slatted elements of the rear walls work as a soundproofing element in the large open infinite area – which accommodates the eating house area and the functioning rooms on the open floors above – and are in natural woods, which benumb as they ascension upwards though the building to a thinner white painted end.
"The space has almost deliberately avoided the cliches of the space historic period. Notwithstanding, nosotros were able to introduce into the astronaut walkway an element of technology, with its mirrored ceiling, it is entirely made of interactive LED screens which will piece of work as an animated lighting introduction for the astronauts and pilots as they walk downward towards the spacecraft," Wong adds.
During the flying itself the screens volition work as data displays for the attending family, friends, staff and journalists.
Wong'south final verdict? "It was such a satisfying project as it involved different aspects of the whole squad – architecture, feel blueprint, product design, and digital design. It would exist great to piece of work on some other project that involves the whole team again, such every bit more hospitality projects similar hotels and restaurants. Information technology is ever dandy to design something nosotros have never done before such equally when we start designed a restaurant – Mutual Human Java Roaster in KL – or the Kids 21 retail stores."
SOUTHEAST ASIAN IDENTITY
Viewport Studio's other clients include Walter Knoll, Como Holdings, Royal Selangor, Delta Air Lines and EasyJet. Information technology also undertakes hotel projects and private architectural work.
Now, the squad is working on a multifariousness of projects, ranging from a stacking chair with an Italian piece of furniture maker, a villa for a client in Spain, a digital project with a new company Hyper CRC, and redesigning the interiors for arts venue Wales Millennium Centre.
Defining good design as something that "mixes innovation and rigorous attending to detail simply also should answer the client'due south brief, and at best exceed their expectations", Wong, who divides his time between London and Singapore, noted that "the standing of Singaporean design is getting stronger and the global international design world is taking annotation."
He added: "Importantly, Singaporean designers are now a feature of the global design chat. Singapore is also using design to define itself and its specific grapheme as a global city aslope its unique Southeast Asian identity."
Recent Searches
Trending Topics
Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/people/virgin-galactic-spaceport-viewport-studio-voon-wong-256726
0 Response to "Meet the Singaporean designer behind the world’s first commercial spaceport"
Post a Comment