Insight
Expat Entrepreneurs|Designer in focus
Designing a future in Bangkok Dutch design guru Casper Oplaat explains how he built a career in interior design in Thailand By Martine Olthof
■ WITH its haphazard wiring, buildings springing up in every
available space, and spaghetti-like roads confusing even the best GPS systems, Bangkok is to most observers an unplanned mess where chaos rules over order. In short, it’s not the kind of habitat you’d expect to appeal to an interior and product designer whose work revolves around clean lines and carefully considered structure. But it’s exactly this kind of heady environment that Dutch designer Casper Oplaat thrives on. No stranger to change and disorder, Casper became a global citizen at an early age. His parents worked worldwide for Philips and would move on average every three years, so he quickly learned to enjoy all the sensory pleasures that moving to a new culture affords. In the process he also became a polyglot, picking up German, English, Portuguese, French, Italian, Spanish and Thai – a talent which has allowed him to quickly take on board the design trends of every country he’s set foot in. For Casper, Google is a verb in no less than eight different languages: “Being able to tap into the design trends and traditions of different countries really does help me to be a better-rounded designer,” he says.
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Casper, who studied his Master of Business Administration degree at IESE Business School University of Navarra, Spain, made the move to Thailand in 2010, when his partner began working for advisory services company KPMG Bangkok. Prior to the move the couple had lived in Lagos, Nigeria, where Casper was involved in redesigning the Dutch Embassy. He also created his own cane furniture for the couple’s home – a concept that was soon copied en masse by the locals. Upon moving to Thailand Casper began studying Interior and Product Design at Accademia Italiana Bangkok where, among other tools of the trade, he learned technical drawing. During this time he was also approached by his first clients several expats all looking for cost effective ways of sprucing up their apartments. Since then, 45 year old Casper has created a unique bag for the Vespa scooter which fits behind the bike’s windscreen; has given the teakwood mansion at the Dutch Embassy a complete makeover (he also designed the concept for the embassy’s lavish garden party to celebrate the inauguration of the new Dutch King, Willem-Alexander); and has also built up a network of clients who he can work with from a distance thanks to a nifty 3D computer programme which simulates the different rooms in a house and calculates the space, allowing Casper to create his designs from any location. >>
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