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 bo...