Strategically located on the ground floor of one of the biggest malls in Malaysia, Aesop introduces an entirely new layout for its newest opening at 1 Utama Shopping Mall, Petaling Jaya. The brains behind the minimalist interior, Singapore-based design group FARM Studios, attended the grand opening to share their side of the story on the insightful creative process behind the store. What started off as an initiative to grow and cultivate the local Singaporean arts community turned into a group of 4 partners who are now on its way to making a name in the design industry region-wide.
Inspired by the Malaysian tin trade industry in the nineteenth-century that was extensively spread across the nation, including the very compound that is now the 1 Utama Shopping Mall, elements of galvanised corrugated metal sheets line the walls throughout the store. “Tin has always been seen as a humble and mundane material that has been used in kampung (village) houses, but the lineage and evolution of tin is something worth showcasing,” says Peter Sim, one of the four partners of FARM Studios, “We wanted to give our take on this humble but ubiquitous material.”
