New Asian Style. Jane Doughty Marsden

      A room with a view. Overlooking a "very Manhattan" Singapore skyline, the retro and recycled living room of an Asian-American couple's apartment features a classic art-deco sofa (Tong Mern Sern Antiques, Arts and Crafts) crafted in Singapore in the 1950s, a coffee table made from an old Indian daybed supporting Burmese lacquerware, and two Bank of China armchairs "literally picked up off the street" after they were thrown out during a renovation.

      Eastern Ideals, Global Directions

      "LIVING in Asia is a little bit about chaos," says architect Chan Soo Khian, challenging notions that associate serenity with the East. As lifestyles become more urban and cities more congested (Bangkok's police are delivering up to 25 babies a day in the backs of gridlocked cars, while Singaporeans have to bid for the right to even own a car), people-and their homes-are looking inward.

      "Zen is here to stay," says Singapore-based interior designer Stefanie Hauger, "in the sense of a desire for a holistic lifestyle in which the home is seen as a sanctuary, with Asia having the added bonus of being surrounded by art and artefacts that stem from the very source of this new approach to living." Across the globe, from Donald Trump to Richard Branson, Prince Charles to Rob Lowe, people are using feng shui principles of placement in their homes, while the revival of the 1960s movements of minimalism and modernism can be seen as another reaction to postmodern excess. The role of the home as a tranquil refuge from the outside world has never been more important.

      Just how this is being done in Asia varies. A new generation of architects (many of whom are venturing into interior design) is revealing that what is Asian extends beyond artefacts-or a lack thereof-to spatial and spiritual qualities. The way one enters a house, the hierachy of privacy, ambiguous spaces created by transitory screens and surfaces between the interior and exterior, the presence of water, the open plan, a courtyard, shadows animating a blank wall-all are a celebration of simple beauty or what the Japanese call wabi sabi. "It's less a recognizable look and more an attitude of how we look at space and design," says Singapore-born Yale graduate Soo Khian.

      This attitude informs New Asian Style, whether the look is zen minimalist, contemporary ethnic, tropical modern, retro and recycled, or a fusion of two or more of these general trends, as it is most often these days. It is becoming increasingly hard to apply labels, as the examples in this book show. Thus, the pioneers of the Balinese aesthetic for residences in Southeast Asia more than a decade ago-architects like Kerry Hill and Ernesto Bedmar-are now transcending traditional archetypes in an unselfconscious contemporary tropicalism inspired in part by the work of Sri Lanka's most famous architect Geoffrey Bawa.

      "We are now referencing and reinterpreting past traditions through suggestion and association rather than replication," notes Hill, whose Singapore-based company KHA designed the Datai resort in Malaysia and Amanresort's Amanusa in Bali, as well as numerous private residences for Asia's elite. His partner, Justin Hill, asserts that "decoration has had its day and we are even moving away from traditional materials". Bedmar is also experimenting with materials such as aluminium and steel as alternatives to the increasingly rare well-seasoned timber to "achieve, in a very simple way, the same poetry, homeliness and romance as traditional architecture".

      While simplicity and zen 'holism' continue to be the trend (from Italian couturier Giorgio Armani's homeware collection to Singapore furniture designer Tay Hiang Liang), for most people extreme minimalism has proven too austere, impractical and downright confusing (yes, even to Asians, many of whom equate it, as one home owner says, with "an uncomfortable Italian sofa"). Regional interior designers such as Hauger and Marlaine Collins are predicting a return to comfort and an emphasis on softer interiors; international talents such as London homeware designer and Designers Guild consultant William Yeoward are already producing luxurious fabric collections inspired by the East.