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Hitting the big time: How this Singaporean came to design for luxury furniture brands B&B Italia and Herman Miller

Besides being B&B Italia’s youngest designer, Gabriel Tan will soon be designing for more top names, joining other luminaries in furniture design’s hall of fame

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Corinne Kerk

Published Thu, Feb 29, 2024 · 06:00 PM
    • He may be a very successful designer today, but focusing on his Milan Design Week show in 2007 almost cost Gabriel Tan his degree.
    • Tan and his wife Cherie founded Origin Made.
    • Tan at home in Porto. He moved his family there to be closer to European furniture makers.
    • Home is a townhouse Tan and his wife bought in a central but quiet part of the coastal city of Porto, at the top of a slope that leads to the river.
    • On the ground floor of his townhouse home in Porto is a showroom and an office, while the family lives on the three floors above.
    • Tan collaborates with local craftsmen to produce items for Origin Made.
    • The Luva modular sofa and Cyclade tables, pictured here in Tan's Porto home, are his debut collections for Herman Miller.
    • The Cyclade tables are very organic, sculptural pieces with notches and holes that can overlap.
    • Tan's Quiet Lines collection for B&B Italia makes him the brand's youngest designer.
    • An Origin Made vase designed by Tan and made by a local artisan using an old Portuguese technique.
    • Tan was inspired by the amphitheatres of ancient Rome when he designed these Origin Made trays which are handcrafted in Portugal.
    • He may be a very successful designer today, but focusing on his Milan Design Week show in 2007 almost cost Gabriel Tan his degree. PHOTO: GABRIEL TAN STUDIO
    • Tan and his wife Cherie founded Origin Made. PHOTO: GABRIEL TAN STUDIO
    • Tan at home in Porto. He moved his family there to be closer to European furniture makers. PHOTO: GABRIEL TAN STUDIO
    • Home is a townhouse Tan and his wife bought in a central but quiet part of the coastal city of Porto, at the top of a slope that leads to the river. PHOTO: GABRIEL TAN STUDIO
    • On the ground floor of his townhouse home in Porto is a showroom and an office, while the family lives on the three floors above. PHOTO: GABRIEL TAN STUDIO
    • Tan collaborates with local craftsmen to produce items for Origin Made. PHOTO: GABRIEL TAN STUDIO
    • The Luva modular sofa and Cyclade tables, pictured here in Tan's Porto home, are his debut collections for Herman Miller. PHOTO: HERMAN MILLER
    • The Cyclade tables are very organic, sculptural pieces with notches and holes that can overlap. PHOTO: HERMAN MILLER
    • Tan's Quiet Lines collection for B&B Italia makes him the brand's youngest designer. PHOTO: B&B ITALIA
    • An Origin Made vase designed by Tan and made by a local artisan using an old Portuguese technique. PHOTO: ORIGIN MADE
    • Tan was inspired by the amphitheatres of ancient Rome when he designed these Origin Made trays which are handcrafted in Portugal. PHOTO: ORIGIN MADE

    GABRIEL Tan startles you by saying he never felt he could be good at anything.

    At least, that was the case until he met a French professor at the National University of Singapore, who nurtured his interest in furniture design. In fact, the design-loving Tan thought he wouldn’t even make the cut for the university’s then-new industrial design programme, as he couldn’t finish the entry test.

    He may be a very successful designer today, but focusing on his Milan Design Week show in 2007 almost cost Gabriel Tan his degree. PHOTO: GABRIEL TAN STUDIO

    But with encouragement, the young undergraduate went on to clinch several international design awards. In his final year, he formed a furniture design collective named Outofstock with three friends from Singapore, Argentina and Barcelona, whom he met at a design workshop in Stockholm.

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