Olivia Lee

Underneath the steely demeanour of this industrial designer is a scientist, dreamer and engineer who melds form, fun and functionality into her aesthetics a poetic designer for our times.

- Hoe I Yune

On some weekends, Olivia Lee, 33, takes a virtual trip to Cities: Skylines, a computer game in which she builds cities, constructs roads and maps train lines for two to three hours. It’s a design getaway that feels as if it might combine the missions of the Land Transport Authority, Urban Redevelopment Authority, and the Economic Development Board. When she does return to the real world, she’s tired but radiant – to the bemusement of her fiance Hunn Wai, himself an award-winning industrial designer. As it turns out, the virtual world is just another element of design that inspires her work and life, and she loves it.

This self-confessed sci-fi nerd loves the dystopian prose of Margaret Atwood, Aldous Huxley, JeffVanderMeer, Carl Sagan and Neil Gaiman, and she’s a fan of the zeitgeist-baiting Black Mirror Netflix series as well. Not unlike these visionaries, Olivia is always thinking about how our behaviours are affected by real events.

This fascination with digital habits in our everyday lives inspired her Olivia Lee studio debut, The Athena Collection, which launched at Salone del Mobile.Milano, a furniture fair in Italy known for kick-starting the careers of young designers. The collection includes a dressing table with built-in flattering lighting for selfies, and a carpet with tactile details and borders to distinguish virtual and physical space. “It represents design and technology for the contemporary woman. It shows how a woman can be ambitious, savvy and have a lot of technological know-how, but also be warm, tactile, rich and beautiful,” explains Her World ’s Young Woman Achiever 2018.

The Athena Collection propelled Olivia from an up-and-coming designer in Singapore to an international rising star featured in design journals like Britain’s Wallpaper and Icon, and online interior and design magazine Dezeen – the latter named her as a promising talent to watch.