[Key Programmes] New Orchard

Project Title: Mallo Seats

Mallo Seats is a series of stools designed for the Orchard-Somerset belt, imagining how a public feature could speak more closely to the life and energy of the area.

The stools gently wobble when sat on, introducing a light sense of play that welcomes both rest and a joyful exchange. In a precinct shaped by pace and commerce, they offer a softer, more open way to experience the street, reflecting the area’s youthful character through form and movement.

Soft in shape and light in spirit, the collection brings warmth, rhythm, and a playful presence to this part of town.

Name of Designer(s): Emeline Ong

Emeline Ong’s work is shaped by a playful imagination and a fondness for the sweet and familiar. Drawing from childhood memories, from toys to candies, her works carry a softness and warmth, offering a lighthearted perspective on the everyday. Her creations have been exhibited and featured internationally, spanning from Singapore to Milan.

Website: www.emeline.ong

Project Title: Natural Agencies: The Nature of Use

In the heart of Singapore’s most iconic shopping belt—Orchard Road—spaces are precisely planned, meticulously curated, and heavily programmed. From smoking confined to yellow boxes to landscaped pockets of greenery set against polished façades, the environment speaks of control and intention. Yet, beneath this choreography lies a quieter, informal layer—unofficial thoroughfares, back alleys used as impromptu resting zones, smokers congregating in the shade of an unmarked corner. These are the undesignated zones, governed not by signage but by habit, by intuition, by the emergent behavior of people navigating urban life.

Our installation seeks to explore this curious dichotomy observed in Orchard Road: between the sanctioned and the spontaneous, the manicured and the wild, the planned and the appropriated. It draws from the metaphor of “nature” not merely as flora but as a mode of being —uncontrollable, adaptive, persistent. In the back lanes of Orchard, nature reclaims ground with untamed vines. Likewise, the “nature” of space reveals itself in how people inevitably rewrite a space’s intended use through small acts of redefinition.

“Natural Agencies” presents an imagined parallel to a familiar space. Just as nature finds cracks to grow through concrete, visitors are encouraged to find their own logic, movement, or stillness within the installation. This is a space shaped not by imposition, but by participation—its meaning revealed through use rather than prescription.

By holding a mirror to these parallel layers of city life, the installation asks: What is the true nature of space? And who decides how it should be used?

Name of Designer(s): Genevieve Ang and Georgina Foo

Established by architecturally trained partners and co-founders, Georgina Foo and Genevieve Ang in 2019, STUDIO GIN&G is a multi-disciplinary spatial design practice. Vested in the fields of product design, residential dwelling and commercial interiors, the studio seeks to imbue beauty and meaning to the spaces we dwell and inhabit by the art of storytelling through space.

Beyond crafting bespoke spatial interiors that nurtures its inhabitants’ unique lifestyle aspirations and desires, the studio is intentional in celebrating the uniqueness of each and every project through its multi-faceted design approach, such as the exploration of unconventional materials and the artisanal creation of experimental artworks and design objects.

By interweaving different disciplines such as product, craft and spatial design, the studio examines Design through different scales and lens with a deep understanding and
appreciation of how things are made.

Website: https://www.gin-g.com/

Project Title: Spicy Chicken Corridor

Once lined with fruit trees and spice plantations, Orchard Road’s name is a vestige of a forgotten agricultural past. Today, the stretch is a symbol of hyper-urbanisation, consumer culture, and concrete. Through this living installation, Habitat Collective reimagines Orchard Road’s landscape as a productive, regenerative corridor that honours the legacy of its name.

The installation imagines the landscape of Orchard Road lined with its heritage spices of nutmeg, clove, cinnamon, and a variety of other spice and herb vegetation. These plants once defined the region’s cultural and economic fabric, and can now inspire the bustling F&B scene in Singapore that is looking to find its own identify grounded in the nation’s heritage.

Running alongside and under the shade of the multi-layered “Orchard” lies a continuous chicken tunnel: a living composting system where chickens range, forage, and spread nutrients through their natural scratching behaviours. Coops are placed along the length of tunnel, adopted and managed by F&B businesses of the district to cycle their waste, and also harvest valuable spices from the spice corridor.

The chickens housed here are not just functional but also symbolic. All domestic chickens trace their lineage back to the red junglefowl, a bird still found in the forests of Southeast Asia, including Singapore’s own nature reserves. With the destruction of their native habitats, junglefowl have become highly adapted to urban environments – appearing in our parks, void decks and roadside verges. The presence of chickens in this installation is both symbolic and practical: a return to the jungle, and a reimagining of how animals and humans might co-exist in urban ecosystems.

Name of Designer(s): Marcus Koe & Alexys Tjhia

Marcus and Alexys are co-founders of Habitat Collective, a permaculture design studio reimagining the relationship between people and their land. They create regenerative spaces that integrate productive food forests, ecological learning gardens, and resource circularity systems. Therse projects are designed for people and communities to revive a relationship with nature, through demonstrating how ecological systems can be productive, elegant, regenerative; and most importantly, wiser solutions for our future.

Website: www.habitatcollective.sg

Project Title: PAUSE. HERE.

Amid the dense layers of Orchard Road, second noisiest zone in Singapore, Pause. Here. offers a counterpoint. Conceptualised by sound artist Syafiq Halid and his collaborator, spatial designer Terence Thong (The Assembly Design), this installation is a speculative rest stop: a sonic and architectural response to the relentless overstimulation of public life.

Loud media screens blaring, overlapping soundtrack of retail wonderland, the barrage of constant traffic – a wall of noise on loop. In Orchard Road, quiet becomes radical. Why is it so hard to find stillness in the design of public spaces? When will rest – mental, sensory, spatial – become part of urban planning vocabulary?

Constructed from both industrial and traditional sound-absorbing materials such as eco-insulation wool, tikar mengkuang, red clay bricks, and fabric, Pause. Here. explores how form, texture, and acoustics can shape a softer public environment. The materials are assembled not just for function, but to question the aesthetic possibilities of quietude.

The seating, intentionally close and almost primitive in form, encourages a forward-leaning, knee-to-knee posture. This deliberate proximity fosters deeper connection, placing emphasis back on presence, tone, and the sound of conversation — away from screens and distractions.

At its core, the installation is an invitation—not to consume, but to slow down, to listen, to recover and reset.

To Pause. Here.

Name of Designer(s): Syafiq Halid

Syafiq Halid is a manipulator of sound and an electronic artist. Summoning sounds, aesthetics, metaphors, and experiences of the Malay world, Syafiq’s works traverse the grey realms between the traditional and the contemporary. He has presented regionally and worked with institutions like Esplanade, SAM, ArtScience Museum, National Gallery Singapore, and Goethe-Institut.

Collaborator(s): The Assembly Design

Website: https://theassemblydesign.sg/

Project Title: EVERGREEN ORCHARD

A great street, we’re told. And it’s true. Orchard is so much more than retail. It is memory, culture, and community, woven into the very fabric of Singapore’s identity.

In our retelling of “New Orchard,” we confront the perennial Singaporean fascination with NEW, the narrative of “bigger, better, more.” Yet what makes Orchard compelling has never truly withered. Orchard is EVERGREEN. It is not Orchard that has changed, but perhaps our perception of it.

We could paint you a glossy vision of a dynamic lifestyle destination, blending heritage, nature, and urban vibrancy. But really, Orchard has always been, is, and will always be these things. It is a congregation of cultures, a stage for self-expression, a hub of hospitality, a realm for retail, and a smörgåsbord of sights, smells, and sounds. Both CATALYST AND CANVAS, Orchard has never been static. It is constantly reinvented, yet always recognisable.

The new Orchard, then, is not about erasing the old. It is the old made new, seen with fresh eyes, reframed for new generations. And so we invite you: reimagine Orchard with us, believe in it once again, and experience it anew, just as it was always meant to be experienced.

Orchard is dead. Long live Orchard.

Name of Designer(s): Mark De Winne & Rauf Zulkiflee Soh

Mark is a type designer with 20 years of experience in branding and typography. A 2018 Type Director’s Club Ascender, he founded Type Design Asia in 2024—the region’s first online type design school—and is launching a new type foundry in August 2025.

Rauf is a passionate design creative and founder of High There Studio, a branding studio dedicated to growing bold, character-rich brands. Driven by strategic creativity and a playful spirit, he’s committed to shaping the design industry while paving the way for young creatives to explore, connect, and thrive.

Collaborator(s): Hariz Azmi

Website: typedesign.asia | highthere.studio