With a brief to reinstate the fact that salads can be hearty meals, the Asylum went about conceiving a fresh identity for a new hospitality project in Singapore.

As we saw with the Chocolate Research Facility late last year, Chris Lee has a talent for injecting a humorous angle into sometimes-stark spaces.

Playing on the stereotype of salad being rabbit food, a fake plastic lawn in the window of the Salad Shop littered with bunnies offers a humorous appeal to the salad bar fit-out.

The brief required the team to reinstate the fact that salads can also be hearty daily meals for everybody, hence the chosen tagline “For Herbivores, Carnivores and Everything else in-between“.

Animal silhouettes were created as the core design language to reflect the brand philosophy.

Passersby are offered glimpses of the interior framed through massive cutout shapes of forks and spoons on a plywood feature screen.

While cement flooring and plywood fittings accentuate the organic space, graphic printed stools and customised “scenic“ fabric lampshades breathe a sense of freshness into the environment.

For more on Chris Lee’s creative endeavors, turn to p.55 of Habitus #8, where Madhavi Tumkur talks to the recipient of the 2009 President’s Design Award.

The Asylum
theasylum.com.sg

Read more about Chris Lee’s body of work in Habitus magazine issue 08