KERNEL+ — A Line Of Minimal Meets Made-For-Real-Living Furniture

KERNEL+ — a line of minimal meets made-for-real-living furniture — takes a realistic approach to furnishing according to founder Jason Song, who values flexibility and function.

- Bryan Goh

In 2021, the brunt of owning property turned bullish simply because of what economists termed the supply and demand factor. On the supply side, it meant that Singapore saw labor shortages and on the demand side, low-interest rates meant a cheaper price of borrowing which will, in turn, lead to more inflation. In Reddit speak, it meant that “HDB prices in Singapore are like stonks in the US. It only goes up.” More importantly, what does one make of shrinking HDB sizes: a paltry 110 square meters as opposed to 120 in the nineties and 123 in the eighties.

The three men behind KERNEL+ — a sub-line of KERNEL helmed by Jason, T Y Zheng of ACRE design consultancy and Melvin Keng, principal architect of Kaizen Architecture — however, believes that there is still room for good design in smaller ones: “design that is problem-solving, thoughtful, detailed and most importantly, possesses high aesthetic qualities.”

KERNEL+ strikingly stands out against the sometimes tepid waters of the sea of furniture. It looks closely at the lifestyles of the local community. “When Covid hit, this made our resolve stronger to create a collection that helps transform any home into an office and back again”, says Jason. It addresses that a piece of furniture should not just exist as a piece of bric-and-brac in one’s home (“Furniture stops being human-centric when it becomes entirely about form-making; when the end-user is not part of the thought process.”). Most importantly, however, it addresses the scale and size of the abodes we have to abide by now (“For Kernel+, it was important the components within the flat pack configuration were slender, conveying a slim and elegant aesthetic; whilst still maintaining reasonable structural integrity.).