Top image: Collaboration with Commune – Contour Sofa by Ginie Kok aims to incorporate additional storage space into the seat without adding visual volume.

A total of 154 students from the Department of 3D Design at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) recently presented their final year projects for 2014.

The exhibition, held from 3 to 7 June at NAFA Galleries and National Design Centre, took ‘Perfectly Grey’ as a theme to instigate opportunities for new, creative ways of thinking.

Collaboration with Commune: (left) Living Shelf by Lee Hui Min incorporates greenery into a bookshelf; (right) The Transitional Furniture Series by Eshton Chua comes with a detachable mirror and moveable stool that can be tucked away neatly under the cupboard.

One highlight of this year’s graduation show was a collaboration between students and home-grown furniture design and lifestyle company, Commune, in which ten final year furniture majors were given the opportunity to design for the company for their final year project. The brief was ‘Smart Living Concept’, and the students were required to design a piece of furniture for the bedroom, living room or dining room to suit the needs of urban dwellers living in small spaces.

Collaboration with Commune: Lumos by Eileen Lim is a dining/work table with an inbuilt lamp. The light can be adjusted to serve as both ambient and task light, and can be affixed on either end of the table. Storage space is also built in for cutlery and stationary.

The programme was led by local designers and NAFA lecturers such as Hunn Wai (Lanzavecchia + Wai), Gustavo Maggio (Outofstock), Jason Ong (Jienshu) and Mohammad Fadzli Jamil.

The top prize was the chance for the students to have their work manufactured by Commune, and as testament to the quality of the work, the company selected five works to manufacture, two more than was originally intended.

Collaboration with Commune: Workbox by Muhammad Hazim Bin Abdul Rashid is a wall-mounted workstation with panels that can open up to serve as table space only when needed.

Mohammad Fadzli Jamil, senior tutor and project leader says, “This was an excellent chance for the students to understand what real live work is like. They discovered many constraints when working with the manufacturer and some of them struggled but I feel that it was a very good learning process. The experience will highly benefit the students when they enter the workforce.”