Colin K Okashimo: ‘I’ve achieved more than I have ever thought I would as a sculptor and landscape architect’
Sculptor and landscape architect Colin K Okashimo on creating meaningful work over his 42-year-career.
Ten years ago when I visited landscape architect and sculptor Colin K Okashimo’s office at Beach Road, the space was filled with staff members, work-in-progress models and marquettes. Last month, when I walked into his current office in a warehouse building along Syed Alwi Road, it was still chock-a-block with models and marquettes, but the difference was that there were only five people in the team, including Okashimo.
“I’m doing less work in general. I make a conscious effort not to take projects just for the sake of it. But maybe now we are too quiet,” jested Okashimo. Taking on fewer projects does not mean doing less work. Rather, it allows the firm more time to think through and develop each project, resulting in better outcomes.
Tall, bespectacled and always dressed in black, Okashimo, who is of Japanese descent, was born in Toronto, Canada in 1958. After graduating with a landscape architecture degree from the University of Guelph in 1982, he headed to Honolulu to work for Belt Collins, a landscape, engineering and master planning firm. That year, at the age of 24, the firm sent him to the Singapore office, where he rose to become regional managing director just three years later. In 1996, he started Okashimo Pte Ltd.
A string of accolades defines the firm’s 28-year oeuvre. Early projects like Belle Mare Plage resort and Ephelia resort in the Seychelles were prodigious of Okashimo’s adeptness in creating impactful work. Following these, he also crafted manifold contemplative landscapes marked with evocative sculptures cast from bronze, stone and glass in hospitality projects like The Ritz-Carlton, Nikko in Japan and Pullman Mandalay Mingalar. Several private residences and high-end condominiums in Singapore and Malaysia also bear his imprint.
In 2015, Okashimo was awarded Singapore’s most coveted design prize – the President’s Design Award ‘Designer of the Year’. It is testament to his inspiring body of work that he first documented in a monograph titled Provoking Calm in 2014. This year, he released a second tome, Evoking Calm. In both, the words and images of architectural writer and photographer, Patrick Bingham-Hall, provided insight into the workings of Okashimo’s mind.
Provoking Calm’s oxymoronic title reflected an earlier restless spirit preoccupied with the concept of duality, and how the symbiosis of tension and calm shapes unique schemes; Okashimo conceived meditative settings, and then punctuated them with poignant sculptures. His minimalist approach is influenced by Japanese Zen gardens – a result of his Japanese heritage and long-time practice of meditation.
So, what transpired between the two books? “It seems that 10 years later, at this stage in my life, my work has been more about the feeling and emotional aspects; about bringing memory into the experiences I create. Maybe it’s a reaction to the chaos and confusion in our urban existence,” said Okashimo. “In a way, Evoking Calm is representative of where I am in my own inward journey now.”
This “journey” is intertwined with another exploration – that of him as a sculptor. While Okashimo was trained in master planning and landscape architecture, sculpture has been a perennial obsession. He is deeply influenced by famed American-Japanese sculptor and landscape designer, Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988). The latter’s abstract stone sculptures bore traces of modern art concepts and Japanese craft, and are inextricably related to their contexts.
“I discovered that I was just as interested in sculpture as I was in landscape…and I could create art without a brief,” he mentioned in Evoking Calm. Bingham-Hall wrote in the book: “Okashimo perceived that the nexus between sculpture and landscape presented a marvellous opportunity to produce something unique, to ‘curate an environment’ that was redolent with meaning on many levels.”
Okashimo’s obsession with sculpture led to further studies in London, where he obtained, on separate occasions, a Master’s degree and PhD in the topic. In his office, sculptural forms are explored through marquettes. Many of them are realised, writ large, in a factory in Xiamen that he has collaborated with for decades.
The materiality and expressions are varied, giving Okashimo a voice of his own. They range from gargantuan structures, like the 110-ton seating sculpture, Strength in Unity II, for YTL Land’s headquarters in Kuala Lumpur, to myriad petite glass objects spread across water bodies in Hotel Maya Kuala Lumpur City Center.
Okashimo’s relationship with sculpture has shaped the evolution of his landscape designs. “Twenty years ago, I made the harder decision of not taking on any landscape architecture projects unless we were doing a sculpture in it as I was then struggling to establish myself as a sculptor more. So, I’d say my previous work was probably more object-defining, which is what is expected of a sculptor, but the downside was that there wasn’t enough dialogue with the landscape,” he reflected.
In his later years, Okashimo was more deliberate about finding a balance between landscape, architecture and sculpture in order to shape holistic and meaningful experiences. One method is to design the landscape as both physical and metaphysical pathways. “It’s about distilling ideas of how one arrives somewhere, go though a journey and then end at a destination,” Okashimo elaborated. Like Noguchi, he also started to see the wider environment as part of his scheme.
An example is the Piang Dao Mind Retreat in Chiang Dao, a half-hour’s drive from Chiang Mai. Okashimo created the private retreat with some like-minded friends and designed it together with Singaporean architect Sonny Chan. In the project, Doi Chiang Dao (‘Doi’ means mountain) is the protagonist; all else are supporting cast.
“We didn’t have to design the landscape; we just had to enhance it. It’s about framing an experience or sequence of experiences, and the destination may just be the view,” said Okashimo, who crafted a journey from the driveway that delays revelation of the magnificent mountain until one arrives at the pool deck.
In Pullman Mandalay Mingalar’s courtyard garden, he designed stepped structures leading down to a pool, inspired by nearby historic water-wells. Here, the journey is not just about reaching one destination. “Guests can walk in any direction around the pool. It’s like being in a cloister, and the walking becomes meditative,” Okashimo explained.
When I asked him what keeps him busy these days, he listed a 250-acre resort in Seychelles “on one of the best sites in the country” as one project. Another is a bungalow in Singapore where he is designing one of his largest and most unique bronze sculptures, based on an ancient Chinese poem chosen by the client.
Okashimo highlighted that these pieces also function as seating for friends and family to gather around. “It’s more than just a beautiful object in the garden. As you are aware, my curated environments of sculpture and landscape have and will always be about encouraging people to slow down, stop, sit and find an opportunity of reflection, meditation and contemplation,” he commented.
Okashimo has also started on the masterplan of a 125-acre estate in Dumfries, Scotland that has a 400-year-old Castle, a 19th century mansion with 12 rooms and the Royal Caledonian Curling Club, founded in 1838. He shared: “What makes this project special is the vision of the owners – a dynamic and sensitive Scottish and English couple that sees this as more than just a restoration project. They not only want it to be creative to draw both local and international visitors, but also a legacy blueprint to serve as a flaming beacon for generations of custodians in the future.”
Clearly, it will take some time for a project like this to finish But, quality over quantity, as suggested in his response to my question of what he felt after completing his second monograph. “Probably, my immediate reaction was whether I had enough in me for a last book to make it a trilogy. That’s my ego talking, of course. Upon further reflection, maybe it’s not about another 10 projects in 10 years, but that one project that creatively challenges the many issues of calm that have crept into my work over the years, and taking the time to go through the processes I have found effective as a master planner, landscape architect and sculptor.”
The future, he added, is not about having expectations. “I’ve achieved more than I have ever thought I would as a sculptor and landscape architect. For that, I am very grateful.”