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Five years after launching SIXiDES, Astley Ng reflects on building a renovation ecosystem platform and why the industry needs a Renovation Operating System.

Five Years of SIXiDES: Building a Renovation Operating System in Singapore

Five years into building SIXiDES, the question is no longer whether the platform works as a renovation marketplace. The real question is whether the industry can evolve beyond fragmented tools and disconnected processes into a structured renovation ecosystem.

Five Years of SIXiDES: What Building a Renovation Operating System Actually Looks Like

SIXiDES is an interior design tech and renovation platform that uses tech to change the way people renovate their homes. Conceived as a means to safeguard aspiring homeowners in realizing their space with ease and peace of mind. SIXiDES unique features provide an integrated solution that guides the users right from the very beginning till the end of the renovation journey.

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Why You Need Design?DESIGN RESULTS FROM human decisions. You can design with intention, which means you have a chance of doing it well, or you can let it happen, which means you&rsquo;ll probably fail. Design happens whether you&rsquo;re aware you&rsquo;re doing it or not paying attention. Everything is designed. Things are either badly designed or well designed.&nbsp;<img src="https://s3-us-east-2.amazonaws.com/sixides-us/uploads%2F1652956410573-1652956410573.jpeg" class="fr-fil fr-dib" style="width: 100%;">&nbsp;What Do I Mean By Design?Design is how we communicate what an object does, or its function, through its shape or&nbsp;form.Take an oven mitten. Study it for a bit, and it becomes obvious that your hand goes inside. That&#39;s the form. The minute you have the oven mitts on, you understand it makes it easier to handle hot food on hot plates. That&#39;s the function.&nbsp;Design is also the process we undertake to solve a problem. It hurts to take hot plates with your bare hand. A mitten is the solution to that problem. If you ask five designers to define design, you&rsquo;ll get five different answers.&nbsp;When you think about the design of a chair, you consider both how it looks and how it feels to sit on. A well-designed office chair corrects your posture and enhances your productivity, while a well-designed living room chair lets you lie back and relax, watch TV, play with your iPad, and take a nap.&nbsp;If you and I were to design a chair together, we&rsquo;d have to consider some factors from the beginning. Of course, we&rsquo;d consider the seat&rsquo;s size, the height from the ground, the angle of the back, the materials, and the fabric. Before we made any of those decisions, we&rsquo;d ask ourselves about the chair&rsquo;s goals. Who would be using the chair? What would they be doing? How would the chair benefit the person sitting in it? These answers affect how we communicate its function. When a person&rsquo;s expectation of the chair matches their experience of sitting in the chair, they get more joy out of it. This is design done right.&nbsp;Will those considerations ensure that the chair is well designed? No, but they certainly increase the odds. Not thinking about them ensures that our chair is badly designed.&nbsp;<img src="https://s3-us-east-2.amazonaws.com/sixides-us/uploads%2F1652956410594-1652956410594.jpeg" class="fr-fil fr-dib" style="width: 100%;">&nbsp;What Is Design&rsquo;s Value?Imagine two chair shops across the street from each other. One shop takes the chair&rsquo;s design into consideration from the start. They hire the best chair designer they can. The chair designer researches other chairs on the market to figure out where they&rsquo;re lacking. They ask people what they like and dislike about their current chairs, research materials, consider the chair company&rsquo;s budget and profit margin, and source materials and manufacturing to make sure the chair is built right. They test different designs. They make adjustments. They test again. They come up with a solid design that meets both the company&rsquo;s goals and people&rsquo;s desires. The chair goes into production. It sells well. Everyone is now rich.&nbsp;The people at the chair shop across the street also make chairs. They select adequate materials and make a seat, some legs, a back. This is definitely a chair! Then they hire a designer and say, &ldquo;Make this a comfortable chair!&rdquo; The designer adds a sad little foam rubber seat cushion. The chair does not sell. Everyone becomes miserable.&nbsp;The value of good design is the increased possibility of success. We understand its importance in everyday objects like chairs, clothes, watches, coffee makers, and a good mattress. When it comes to interior design, we tend to think of design as a surface layer applied at the end to make things beautiful. In truth, interior design is much more than that. It can be intentional or happenstance. For design to be truly great, you need to build it into your projects from conception to completion.&nbsp;People hire professionals because they can hold us accountable. When the users cannot understand how to make use of a curved wall for storage or how to deal with small spaces, you want to know you&rsquo;ve got people trained in designing effective solutions that work well and will design based on a predicted outcome and not be playing guessing games.&nbsp;Can I guarantee that hiring a professional designer will result in good design? No more than a University can guarantee that studying there will make you smarter. But it certainly improves your odds. Especially if you find the right fit.&nbsp;Look for thoughtful, inventive problem solvers with excellent communication skills. Don&rsquo;t get dazzled by the &ldquo;beautiful decoration&rdquo; trap. Treat your designers (and call them designers) as adult professionals. We are responsible for measurable job performance goals, the same as other employees.

DESIGN RESULTS FROM human decisions. You can design with intention, which means you have a chance of doing it well, or you can let it happen, which means you’ll probably fail...

Word From The Nerd 

Some designers continuously come up with awkward designs for their customers&rsquo; homes. Do they do it with the best intentions? Do they do it because it addresses functional and aesthetic needs? Are they just trying to cut costs and produce only the bare minimum for their clients? Today, let&#39;s dive deep and talk about the top 3 embarrassing Home ID mistakes that will also cost you dearly!&nbsp;&nbsp;No. 1: MARBLE LAMINATES (High Pressure Laminates)Please stop sticking marble looking laminates on your carpentry doors. That is not how marble or stone looking laminates should be used for interior design.&nbsp;To understand how these laminates should be used, we need to understand how the actual marble stone is used. In real world situations, designers and architects love to use marble; not only on the floor, but also on the walls as wall features.&nbsp;&nbsp;This kind of application is known as a highlighted treatment, where we draw the attention of the visitor to look and marvel at the wall feature. In many of these situations, designers will use big slabs and use a method of vein matching known as bookmatching.&nbsp;<img src="https://s3-us-east-2.amazonaws.com/sixides-us/uploads%2F1660201604898-1660201604898.jpeg" class="fr-fil fr-dib" style="width: 100%;">Photo Credit : Bookmatching by Hafary&nbsp;Bookmatched natural marble and stone is a notoriously expensive product, as the manufacturing process for it is time-consuming, labor-intensive and wasteful.&nbsp;&nbsp;The bookmatching technique can only be carried out using the finest quality marble, which has defining attributes of clarity and definition. One example is Statuario Venato, which has a clear white base and a few, very pronounced, strong brown-gray lines. Due to the colossal expense of bookmatched natural marble and stone, we don&rsquo;t see it very often. Hence, the rarity and value.&nbsp;&nbsp;On the other hand, we have these marble veins laminates&hellip; (sigh)&hellip;&nbsp;<img border="0" src="https://s3-us-east-2.amazonaws.com/sixides-us/uploads%2F1660201604920-1660201604920.jpeg" class="fr-fil fr-dib" style="width: 100%;">Photo : Poor use of marble looking laminates on the cabinets&nbsp;These laminates look like the real thing. While there is nothing wrong in having laminates that are replicas of natural materials, like wood grain or stone, it looks tacky and awkward when the treatment or application is done incorrectly.&nbsp;Some designers choose to use these marble laminates on cabinet doors. In reality, such applications defy logic. Typically, a piece of marble is about 25mm thick. They are heavy and it is impossible to install real marble slabs onto the doors and use them like regular cabinet doors.&nbsp;&nbsp;For many, choosing to use replica materials is to create a certain sense of believability, as if it is real marble or stone. So use the marble laminates, just use them in the way that mimics how real marble slabs are used on wall features. Laminates from Lamitak even&nbsp;have&nbsp;a range that can be bookmatched!&nbsp;<img border="0" src="https://s3-us-east-2.amazonaws.com/sixides-us/uploads%2F1660201604939-1660201604939.jpeg" alt="lamitax, bookmatched marble, lunigiana" class="fr-fil fr-dib" style="width: 100%;">&nbsp;Photo Credit :&nbsp;<a href="https://www.lookboxliving.com.sg/shopping/lamitak-creates-bookmatched-marble-metal-finishes-with-laminates" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Lamitak Bookmatched laminates</a>&nbsp;Conventional marble laminate comes in a size of 1.2m by 2.4m, and some designs will require more than 1 piece to create a wall feature. But by using more pieces, the &ldquo;real marble&rdquo; illusion is broken and the overall result becomes a plasticky, repetitive look. In the natural world, a natural material&rsquo;s veins and patterns never repeat.&nbsp;&nbsp;By itself, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the marble laminate material. Just use it in a believable manner. Know the material size and play along those factors to achieve a dignified and realistic look.&nbsp;&nbsp;No. 2: Bad Ceiling (AKA &lsquo;L&rdquo; box ceiling in Singapore) Designs&nbsp;One of my personal pet peeves is how certain renovators, in the spirit of profit, will propose ill-serving and unsightly false ceiling designs. Some of these renovators will justify their designs by saying they have artisanal value, artistry to fabricate&hellip; yadah yadah.&nbsp;&nbsp;The reality is, these designs make the ceiling look atrocious, distracting and complicated. Sometimes, when paired with additional downlights, the whole ceiling just looks like a big mess.&nbsp;<img border="0" src="https://s3-us-east-2.amazonaws.com/sixides-us/uploads%2F1660201604955-1660201604955.jpeg" class="fr-fil fr-dib" style="width: 100%;">Photo Credit :&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nobroker.in/blog/gypsum-false-ceiling/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Examples of messy looking ceiling designs</a>&nbsp;To maximize profit for their project, the unscrupulous renovator would propose the bare minimum amount of false ceiling box ups, for example only 300mm in width.&nbsp;&nbsp;Now, this small amount of false ceiling together with downlights, makes for a disproportionate composition. And when cutouts are made for services like air con blowers etc, that is when it looks really bad.&nbsp;&nbsp;When large downlights are installed, the visual composition becomes disproportionate. The light diffusion from the downlights are also severely compromised, as they are closer to the walls and not spreading to the&nbsp;center&nbsp;of the room.&nbsp;No. 3 &ndash; Weird TV Feature Walls And TV ConsolesAsian IDs may take the cake when it comes to coming up with the weirdest designs for TV feature walls and Consoles. Now, some of these designs border on being weird and whimsical. Some are just plain ridiculous.&nbsp;&nbsp;There is a common misconception that TV consoles must be symmetrical and balanced. While symmetry and aesthetics are important, so is proportion and treatment. If done wrongly, your TV Feature may end up looking like an altar.&nbsp; &nbsp;<img border="0" src="https://s3-us-east-2.amazonaws.com/sixides-us/uploads%2F1660201604973-1660201604973.jpeg" class="fr-fil fr-dib" style="width: 100%;">Photo : Bad examples of TV consoles and feature walls&nbsp;&nbsp;There&rsquo;s also the 画蛇添足 (adding limbs to a snake) design strategies that these excessive renovators like to do for their clients&rsquo; homes. They add layers, odd forms, lights and experiment with different types of material all within the small wall space, which results in distracting the person from watching the TV&hellip; Designing a TV feature wall should complement your TV watching experience, rather than distract and take away from the experience!&nbsp;<img border="0" src="https://s3-us-east-2.amazonaws.com/sixides-us/uploads%2F1660201604990-1660201604990.jpeg" class="fr-fil fr-dib" style="width: 100%;">Photo : Adding a lot of unnecessary details to the TV Feature walls&nbsp;What can you do about it?Some advice to mitigate the examples of bad design above:&nbsp;Less is more &ndash; in design, it&rsquo;s better to be plain and simple. Look at the space as a whole, as opposed to just looking at adding frills to one particular sector or furniture.&nbsp;Be natural &ndash; think logically about how natural finishes perform in the real world and when you use synthetics, always be believable in the execution of the design.&nbsp;Do more research &ndash; deep dive into how other successful designers implement their designs and do not be immediately convinced of the design offered by your renovator. Always start with a mood board and share your intended goals with your designer/renovator as early as possible to be aligned on the vision of your home.&nbsp;There are definitely more than 3 embarrassing design mistakes that homeowners and IDs/renovators are susceptible to. I look forward to sharing more next time in the next Word from the Nerd!

Some designers continuously come up with awkward designs for their customers’ homes. Do they do it with the best intentions? Do they do it because it addresses functional and aesthetic needs? 

The Poor, The Bad and The Weird: Top 3 Embarrassing Home Interior Design Mistakes

In this article, we are going to be talking about what real interior designers do vs renovators. There’s a distinct difference and it's not just about qualifications. 

Spilling The Beans, 4 Things You Need to Know About The ID Industry in SG

As an interior designer with over 25 years of experience, both domestically and regionally, I have noticed the phenomenon of consumers themselves replacing the role of an interior designer. In home related projects and in more economically advanced countries like Singapore, Malaysia and China.

Five Years of SIXiDES: What Building a Renovation Operating System Actually Looks Like

Five years into building SIXiDES, the question is no longer whether the platform works as a renovation marketplace. The real question is whether the industry can evolve beyond fragmented tools and disconnected processes into a structured renovation ecosystem.

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