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FOCUS MAGAZINE
COVER STORY
May 2013
French Design in Singapore
Luxury & Intelligent Wood Panels By Philippe Plesse, APAC Representative Director, Ober Group Largest concert hall, luxury hotels and condominiums in Singapore? Intelligent decorative woods? All designed and manufactured in France by prestigious designers. Ober Group is composed of two French companies, Marotte in Paris and Oberflex in Bar le Duc. Both of them are expert in precious veneer and marquetry. Ober Group designs and manufactures luxury decorative wood panels mostly used for walls, ceilings and furniture. In addition to their main retail customers (such as Louis Vuitton, Rolex, Hermes, Clarins, etc.) for whom Ober Group selects and manufactures unique combinations of veneer, texture and finishes, Ober also cooperates with APAC architects and designers.
SINGAPORE AS A SHOWCASE Main recent projects in Singapore are the luxury condominiums Nassim Road Park and the Mark@Paterson Hill, where Ober supplied 30,000 sqm of wood panels used for living rooms, bedrooms and bathrooms. In 2012, for the Star Vista largest Concert Hall in Singapore, Ober worked closely with Aedas architects in Hong Kong and Singapore to design and manufacture custom-made Obersound tiles. Using natural American cherry glued under high pressure and high temperature, each tile is double perforated and cut with variable angles for optimum sound absorption. Overlapping each other using an installation system specially designed for this project,
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Smartwood is 100% designed in Singapore and developed in collaboration with two other French companies.
Obersound tiles deliver the best acoustic performances and perfectly match this breathtaking architecture. In total, Ober supplied 2500 Obersound acoustic panels for this project, all manufactured in Bar le Duc, France. In 2012 Obersound acoustic tiles were also installed for the conference rooms of the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong and for the auditorium and public area of the Taipo Temple financed by Mr Li Ka-shing. With a range 150 wood species and 600 references, Ober Group is leading the market by constantly investing in technical innovation and creative design. Ober Group also cooperates with renowned designers, such as Christian Lacroix, who designed the Marotte collection last year and the 5.5. Designers who designed the Techtonique collection.
WHERE TECHNOLOGY MEETS LUXURY WOOD In the second quarter of 2013, Ober Singa-
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pore will launch "Smartwood", an exclusive innovation mixing luxury wood and electronic. 100% designed in Singapore and developed in collaboration with IS-Smartlabs and ETN Innovation – two other French companies based in Singapore – Smartwood is the first invisible sound engine system that transforms an Oberflex panels into Hi-Fi speakers. Totally invisible, shockproof, dustproof and waterproof, this system enables a Wi-Fi connection with a wide range of compatibility (any portable device like Android smartphone, iPhone). This result is the fruit of Ober Group’s traditional savoirfaire and IS-Smartlabs’ experience in electronic integrated systems for architecture and yachting application. Thanks to its century of expertise in the decorative wood sector, Ober Group has developed a veritable culture of innovation, in aesthetic and technological terms, to meet tomorrow’s interior design needs. F TOP Star Vista Concert Hall in Singapore