PROJECT DIRECTOR
Nicholas
Upon graduating with an IT degree, I worked in the finance industry for 6 years with international banks. I’ve led teams and was mostly in customer fronting positions. I took a hard right into the world of design, starting out at Alfred Wong & Partners. I completed 2 years picking up the skills of an interior designer and dabbled with contracts in their business development unit. I’ve spent a decade in the construction and design industry, and loved every single second of it. Through this time, I also spent time as an adjunct lecturer at Nanyang Polytechnic.
What do you do to relax?
Aside from hanging out with family, I like to:
hit tennis balls 🎾 , do laps at the swimming complex 🏊, and go for runs at the reservoir 🏃♂️
do maintenance work on m hydroponic / aquaponic system in my balcony
play the guitar
have a beer (or 2)
doodle on Procreate (please download a children’s book I created on Procreate here!)
What’s top on your Bucket’s List?
I have designed and built a decent home for my family, and I bungee jumped in 2012. My life is complete - I’ve been ready to die since then.
What does work mean to you?
Work is never fun. It’ll always be hard. I tried taking passion and turning it into work. It didn’t plan the way I envisioned it. There are days where I do wonder ‘hey, I thought I’d do this because it was going to be fun’. Too many times I asked that same question.. and then I realised, ‘ah.. work is work, and fun is fun. work isn’t fun, and fun isn’t work.’
The moments where I find work most joyful is when the people in and around work are motivated, purposeful and happy. These includes clients and colleges alike!
The most important thing to me is that work is purposeful and meaningful. Time wise, work largely takes up a good half of my day, everyday. And it takes up a huge space in my mind. So work had better be purposeful and meaningful to me! As an interior designer, I am thoroughly satisfied to work daily on solutions to detangle the industry’s problems and my clients’ interior needs.
I am also thankful to be in Singapore - where I have options to choose where I want to focus my efforts to solve a certain problem and earn a living at the same time.
Why do you do what you do?
Aside from a keen interest in design, people and education - I do what I do because I have been on the other side of this.. and it isn’t pretty. I am doing this out of gratitude and thankfulness. Call me 📞, and we can have a deeper chat about this.
Picture taken at the base of my apartment. Who can I credit nature’s perfect design.. I wonder?
Where is your next travel destination?
I promised a dear friend that we’d do a boy’s trip to Nepal. It’s not a huge priority right now, but I’d love to fulfil that promise!
If you have unlimited resources, which world problem would you wrestle with?
?? Probably climate change (a better place for my children’s children to dwell in.. and I don’t find Mars very intriguing, sorry Elon). And perhaps education? (basic language and understanding on how to learn and equip oneself to get out of whatever hole they are in.. poverty, social oppression, etc). Problems around our energy, financial and media systems.
What's a good film/series/book/podcast to recommend?*
Film : Forrest Gump because I don’t think he’s really stupid and there’s so much to learn from him.
Series : HBO’s Band Of Brothers (I think I burned 120hrs watching this about 12x over)
Book : The Holy Bible (whichever version). And a secular book would be Phil Knight’s Shoedog.
Podcast : The Lex Fridman Podcast - I love how he’s trying to talk to everyone. I love how he has access.
*At the rate that we are consuming content, I might change the above next month.
Image contributed from Mcdonald’s
If you could only eat this for the rest of your life- what would it be?
Can I cheat a bit and change the question to ‘fav place to eat?’
Image contributed from the depths of hell.
Why is good design important to you ?
There’s enough bad design in this world.
K kidding. I guess seeing how good design has worked: how it simplifies, how it elevates life, how it helps, how it GIVES. I cannot un-see a problem or look away from a threat that I might know how to solve. Knowing that good design can help ease these things is important to me.
And then, there’s the aesthetic part about it. We are created to enjoy good design. It is unexplainable - when one sees good form, a (mostly positive) emotional outcome will be expected. I take pride knowing that what I can do as a designer can summon this.
Describe the best experience that comes to mind
The best and worst experiences came together - the birth of my 3 children!
It was a humbling experience. It was mind boggling.. the science involved in co-creation, the biology, physics, chemistry.. it was almost MAGIC. The psychological stresses and elevation.. the social and morality questions that came along with it.. It was a complete roller coaster ride. Not to mention the spiritual side of it all.
However, the actual birth/delivery was not a good experience.. Borrowing from a friend, he wisely said ‘watching your wife birthing your child is like watching your favorite pub burn down.’