Lamitak City, sleek design playground of laminates, opens at retro Bras Basah Complex

SINGAPORE - For creatives, students and subculture hunters, Bras Basah Complex has long lived in collective memory as a serendipitous spot for specialist art supplies, niche books and indie print shops.

Now, the mall’s cultural cachet is fading and it seems largely patronised by families on the Singaporean quest for school assessment books from anchor tenant Popular Bookstore and neighbouring purveyors.

Yet, cross the nostalgic threshold into the new Lamitak City showroom, which opened on Sept 24, and the rawness dissipates into a lo-fi hush. The sleek, contemplative urban sanctuary does not feel like a shop; it is a 5,317 sq ft design playground where home owners can explore the possibilities of laminates.

Celebrating the 25th year of their home-grown company Lamitak, the Tan family pictures the space as a cultural catalyst, bridging the locale’s artistic spirit with their global future. The immersive Lamitak City changes not just how home owners buy laminates, but also how these materials are experienced.

Laminates are durable, decorative sheets engineered by fusing layers of paper under intense heat and pressure. Like a stylish “skin” for everyday surfaces such as cabinets and walls, laminates are design chameleons that deliver the look and texture of wood, marble and other natural materials, combining low maintenance and high-end aesthetics.

To translate these versatile surfaces into a sensory experience, Selwyn Low, co-founder and director of multidisciplinary design studio Farm, bypassed the transactional showroom model where buyers are overwhelmed as they flip through clinical ring binders of laminate swatches. 

Farm leaned into the tactile poetry of analogue discovery, pushing back against hyper-digitalised realms. 

The concept of the experiential gallery is “part retail, part museum, part community”, Low says.

He and Jansen Tan, Lamitak’s director of product and brand, drew inspiration from the romance of wandering through bookshops, stationery stores, vinyl record rooms and museum gift boutiques.

Music store nostalgia

This thinking manifests in how the materials are housed. Channelling the rhythm of music nostalgia, laminate samples are arranged to mirror the pleasure of browsing vinyl racks, cassette tapes and CDs.

When a vinyl-size laminate fashioned as rich wood grain or fine marble, for instance, resonates with you, tap it on an RFID scanner.

This triggers crisp visualisations and close-ups across a high-definition screen. 

The showroom also features large-format 3m laminate panels, illuminated by track lighting that toggles between warm, cool and neutral ambience. This dance between old-school touch and interactive tech helps home owners imagine how a surface will live within their actual walls.

In that spirit, Lamitak City conveys the idea that surfaces go beyond the two-dimensional, becoming an embracing “atmosphere” that buyers can take home.

“It’s not just surface,” Low reckons. “It’s a part of your everyday life.”

Lamitak City is also seen as a venue to ideate with the design community.

Alexander Tan, 52, co-founder and strategic adviser of Lamitak, explains: “More than a place to showcase what we create, it is a place for discovery, exchange and new possibilities – bringing the design community together to explore where surface design can go next.” 

He works alongside his sister Geraldine Tan, 54, director of business development (international); and 45-year-old younger brother Jansen Tan. Their father Andrew Tan, 74, is chairman and managing director of parent company TAK Products & Services, which he founded in 1989.

Collectible, curious postcards

Pivotal to the design discovery is the Ways Of Seeing, Ways Of Living showcase of postcards by 11 creatives, which was unveiled the same day at Lamitak City and will run through end-December.

It returns with new designs in 2027, after Chinese New Year.

The collectible postcards, which are free, are also framed as visual cues to inspire home owners. Instead of chasing generic trends like Japandi, for instance, the postcards encourage customers to think like creatives. 

Curated by interdisciplinary design consultancy Plus Collaboratives, the postcard series is an analogue counterpoint to algorithm-driven design discoveries.

Cheryl Sim, its co-founder and design director, says the platform brings together Singapore-based creatives across design, art, photography, fashion, craft and spatial practice to reinterpret Lamitak’s surfaces. 

Some creatives were chosen for their creative synergy with Lamitak, she adds, such as fashion label Graye, which designed the front-line uniforms. 

New additions were chosen for the sensitivity to their craft, ensuring an “open-ended conversation”.

The front of each postcard shows an evocative image that feels like an alluring book cover, Jansen Tan explains. Flip the card and the back reveals an interior design palette, highlighting two or three laminate choices. 

“It’s a visual cue,” he says. “It’s a starting point for exploration.”

How to embed quietude in a home

Take Low’s postcard, which is a glimpse of the Kinn Habitat boutique hotel in Hongkong Street.

Community-centric lodging tends to be quite loud and colourful, he says, but Kinn presents choices to guests.

“You could be very introspective, yet choose to engage, which is something that we observe in a lot of Gen Zs as well,” he remarks.

“The ability to have that quietude in the city was something that drove the whole project.”

By looking at his card, home owners can imagine a deeply restorative vibe for their home and potentially pinpoint a laminate or a combination.

For participating creatives like interior designer Ruby Chong, the cross-disciplinary playground of Lamitak City breaks them out of silos. It is also a wellspring of inspiration for the creative co-founder of @hellohomebodies, a lifestyle brand and content studio. 

“I am in my own bubble a lot of the time. I’m designing a space for my clients and I go deep into it,” she says.

“But what really inspires me is if I draw ideas from other creatives or other disciplines that I’m not familiar with.

“When you have campaigns that bring different creatives together, you exchange ideas.” 

Exploring the world

Beyond the local design community, Lamitak ventures into the world to touch, feel and observe, then distils that into material design.

Jansen Tan has photographed the white expanse of Italy’s Carrara Mountains, where the ancient quarries once supplied marble for Michelangelo’s sculptures.

He highlights the eco benefit of laminates, which replicate marble and rare hardwoods to reduce quarrying and logging.

His sister Geraldine concludes: “Laminates are a ‘low-conscious’ product. They can add beauty to a space without you even realising it.”