Inez Halim
Founding Principal · Singapore
Twenty years across hospitality and private residence in APAC. Leads design direction for the house.
The Studio · Singapore HQ · Dubai
One house. Two studios.
— The House
SATU was founded in Singapore and grew, slowly, into a multinational design house.
Today we work from two studios — Singapore as our headquarters and Dubai as our regional studio for the Gulf, Europe and Africa. More than ten offices across APAC complete the picture, but the practice is run as one room.
Our principals lead every commission personally. The team that listens to the brief is the team that stands beside the principal on handover day.
We take a small number of commissions each year, residential and commercial in roughly equal measure. We do not chase scale. We chase the room.
— The Principals
Three hands. One signature.
Tariq Al-Hassan
Regional Principal · Dubai
Anchors the practice in the Gulf. Built SATU's Europe and Africa book from the Dubai studio.
Mei Tanaka
Head of Atelier
Curates the maker network across Italy, Japan, Morocco and Indonesia for every commission.
— Values
What we keep to. Every commission.
Discretion
We work largely under NDA. Names are shared only when our principals choose to share them.
Long horizons
Most of our buildings are designed to be lived in for a generation. We design accordingly.
One signature
From Singapore to Lagos, the same standard, the same taste, the same hand.
Material truth
We use real stone, real wood, real metal. Surfaces are made to age, not to date.
— From the Studio Notes
"A studio is a way of seeing. Two cities, one way of seeing."