“If you pick up a stone from the street and use it as a paperweight for the papers on your desk, that stone has become valuable to you, but have you actually added to the value of the stone? ……
You have not added value to the stone. Instead, you have discovered a value in your relationship to the stone that was always inherent in the stone.”
The Creative Act: A Way of Being, by Rick Rubin
As we stand ready to brave yet another new version of technology, our students in LASALLE’s Interior Design studios are consciously taking a small step back to revisit primitive ways of making, playing and discovering. This is a kind of retrace which can generate exploration and deeper familiarity with the materials we have on hand.
This exhibition is a sharing of the explorations in our design studio—where students’ discoveries can serve as a springboard to rethink materials and their applications. There is no final outcome, only many possible beginnings that bring delight to imagination.
Alongside these raw sediments of discovery is the application of clay in the production of 3D ‘brick modules’. Form follows material—with clay as the filament for 3D printing, new thinking and approaches to form must be adopted. Terrablock: a collaborative workshop between Singapore Polytechnic and LASALLE, led by Atelier Hoko, enables one of earth’s primitive resources to be adapted into the advanced system of form production.
As we engage with ‘primitive’ materials and discover new familiarities, journey with us and experience delight in finding that hidden stone and its inherent value again.
Image: Djohan Johari, New Primitive Exploring Composites & Form (2026)
