A traditional Singaporean shophouse provides a ’fun but functional’ fashion retail space that takes its name from the game of hide and seek, and plays around with the concept of dark and light.

Key facts

PROJECT: Hide & Seek, Singapore
DESIGNER: Farmwork
CLIENT: Keith Png
SIZE: 200square meter
COST: GBP18,500
COMPLETION TIME: Three months

Project description

Masked by the plain white brick facade of a post-war shophouse in Singapore’s Chinatown, Hide & Seek is a fashion boutique ‘with a split personality’, says the designer, Farmwork. Even before he bought it, fashion designer Keith Png had already chosen the name for his store and planned to use one floor to display his own tailored designs, and the other to showcase local designers. The name is both a play on play and on the contrast between the blacked-out ground floor and the lit space above.

The traditional South East Asian shophouse is terraced and shares a common frontage and arcade with its neighbors. The arcade runs parallel to the road. Behind the arcade, the ‘shop’ is an open-fronted space on the ground floor. And there is one, or more, floors of accommodation over both the shop and arcade. When the doors or shutters on the ground floor are closed, the interior is dark but the rooms above have windows.

At Hide & Seek, the lower floor, Hide, accommodates Png’s ready-to-wear Koops label. Every surface is dark: everything is painted black and given the ‘character of a shophouse typology – no windows appears along its length’, explains Farmwork associate Torrance Goh. The only light comes from a series of dimmable strip lights incorporated into aluminum clothes rails in small alcoves and a Bourgie table lamp by Ferruccio Laviani for Kartell. Near the centre of the space, dresses are hung from the lights, but it is so dim that the clothes seem to float.

Goh believes that the upper floor was once ‘the roof of the shophouse, but it must have been covered and made internal many years back, leaving a strip of windows all around.’

Seek, on the other hand, is full of light and color. Reached by a bright red staircase, dubbed the ampersand, Seek uses color to denote the collections of various designers. Each range hangs along a band of color that travels across the floor, up the walls and windows and on to the ceiling. The clothes are hung from veneered plywood ‘swings’ suspended from the ceiling with ropes.

His idea was to create a playground in the shop, with merry-go-round displays and monkey bars for hanging clothes. The scheme, intended to be ‘both functional and fun’, has proved popular with clients but Seek, in particular, has been used for fashion photo shoots.

Project suppliers

• Joinery and some furniture custom-made by local carpenters.
• Some lighting recycled from previous space.
• Recaptured – http://www.fidelityresources.com.sg
• &larry – http://www.andlarry.com