The Story of Ebb

The prestigious Four Seasons Yun House restaurant was designed by AB Concept, the specialist luxury hospitality designers based in Hong Kong who I have worked with before. They kindly credited me when the restaurant was shortlisted in the Hotel and Bar Design Awards this autumn.

AB Concept’s design render of Yun House restaurant incorporating my two tone flow design.

A year after opening, Venus Assets, the contractors for the Four Seasons Hotel in Kuala Lumpur, have commissioned me to build a large scale installation for the feature wall in this Chinese restaurant. Although initially my Flow design was considered, the large space, spread over various seating areas surrounding the wall needed an installation of impressive texture to give all round interest and impact. The wall for the installation is several metres high and wide and so gave me the opportunity to develop Ebb, made up of sculptural pods of porcelain which are installed directly to the wall in flowing formations, allowing for a greater freedom than fixed panels of Flow, shifting and moving in a similar, more expansive way: the wall becomes the artwork.

The pod form was developed from experiments to exaggerate the flat shape of the beads used in Flows and with the possibility to colour on one face to create the two tone shifting effect of Flows. The differing size of the pods allows for more play with the perspective of the overall design. Having seen how pods sit against the wall surface, I lifted the ends of the form to allow for under “lights” with metal leaf reflecting off the wall.

Once happy with the form, a specialist mould making factory in Stoke helped me with mould design and made enough moulds to cast numerous pods for large scale installations.

The mechanics of mounting has gone through many trials leading to a satisfying hidden magnetic solution which is simple to use. Finally, in order for the pods to be installed in exactly the layout I have designed, installers will be given a map to work from, built in the Sketch-up application so that they can see in 3D perspective and print-off to use as necessary.