Indie Chic

Interior designer Kelvin Teo redefines the industrial look with warm wood accents and a contemporary style in this spacious apartment home.

 When Norica Ng and Jaret Sim received the keys to their flat, they were faced with a myriad of ways to design their dream home. The young couple were open to radical concepts and wanted to do away with conventional furnishings, such as a sofa and dining table.

While they didn’t have a specific look in mind, they knew that it had to be easy to maintain and complement their modern lifestyle. In addition, the forward-looking homeowners required plenty of storage space to keep their home clutter-free.

Leaning towards an industrial style for their abode, they consulted a few interior designers before deciding on the ideas proposed by Kelvin Teo of Space Sense Studio. The homeowners were inspired by Kelvin’s vision of adding a twist to the industrial look with unique accents, door and ceiling treatments.

Ceiling masterpiece

Stepping into the home, the masculine interiors of black, grey and silver, with eye-catching red accents, make for a visually arresting sight.

The first thing that catches the eye is the impressive ceiling – LED tube lights criss-cross the wood panel-design wallpaper, with black steel beams that intersect it along its width. One of Kelvin’s masterpieces, he explains that the design was inspired by the look of loft spaces overseas. “I wanted to make the home look like an apartment in New York, and not a normal unit. The ceiling is critical when one wants to really transform a space,” he says.

He shares how the ceilings of traditional cottage houses in the West are rarely bare, with exposed structural beams and panelled ceilings, and his design is a modern reinterpretation of that look.