SINGAPORE - The year-end festive season is usually the busiest for home-grown design companies and artisans who create gifts for shoppers looking for something creative and different.

Several local and international stores have in 2023 included unique architecture-themed merchandise, ranging from home decor accessories featuring the facades of Peranakan shophouses to wallpaper designs inspired by Singapore bridges.

In May, home-grown lifestyle and gifts brand Supermama launched SG Mementos, a series of five sauce dishes featuring Singapore landmarks such as Marina Bay Sands and Housing Board blocks.

In 2013, the brand won Design of the Year at the President’s Design Award, the nation’s highest recognition for design.

Co-founder Edwin Low, 44, says the idea for the keepsakes was to capture the essence of places that residents and travellers have fond memories of. They have proven to be a hit.

“The first batch of SG Mementos was very well received and we are producing our third batch,” says Mr Low, who co-founded Supermama in 2010 with his wife Lee Mei Ling, 43.

The duo are working on a new project featuring Singapore cityscape designs.

Mr Low says architecture defines the city.

“Every city has its own skyscape and building structure,” he adds. “That means every building in a city can be a souvenir.”

Designer and author Karen J. Fernandez, who founded KarenMade in 2018, says her bestsellers are Singapore architecture photographs reproduced on home accents such as tea towels and trivets.

“The designs that feature shophouses and Peranakan tiles, as well as some of the more modern buildings such as the Durian (Esplanade), sell very well,” says the artist, who is in her 50s.

In 2022, she published Singapore: My ABC Of Favourite Things, a 72-page photographic essay on Singapore.

Fernandez says shoppers are drawn to the stories behind local architecture.

“Singapore’s blend of European, Chinese and Asian influences in its architecture is intriguing to shoppers.

“This blend can be seen almost everywhere in Singapore, such as our historic shophouses sitting cheek by jowl with modern skyscrapers, or low-rise shophouses in Kampong Glam holding court against the ultra-modern Duo Tower in the Bugis precinct.”

The Straits Times scopes out seven architecture-themed gifts designed to please.

Singapore Bridges prints from Onlewo

Home decor and gifts brand Onlewo’s architecture-themed Singapore Bridges wallpaper design features well-known bridges in Singapore, such as Cavenagh Bridge and Alkaff Bridge.

Founder Mike Tay, 52, says the new design caps a year of robust growth for Onlewo, which started in 2017.

Today, it is one of the top brands for creating Singaporean designs sought after by global names, such as American investment giant BlackRock and French wines and spirits conglomerate Moet Hennessy.

The company, which draws inspiration from its Singapore roots to create “patterns with stories”, stocks a range of Singapore-made fashion and lifestyle goods at its boutique in Joo Chiat.

Mr Tay says showcasing bridges is his way of paying homage to one of the most romantic architectural forms in cities.

“While waterways give sustenance to life, bridges invite lives to link up and prosper together socially and economically,” he says.

“Through this design, we celebrate the charm of both heritage and contemporary Singapore bridges, which are footprints of our progress.”

Info: Visit Onlewo at 17 Joo Chiat Place or go to onlewo.com

Sauce dishes from Supermama

Home-grown design and lifestyle goods brand Supermama’s SG Mementos features familiar landmarks such as Housing Board flats, Gardens by the Bay and the Marina Bay Sands integrated resort on a set of five sauce dishes.

Founders Edwin Low and his wife Lee Mei Ling say the fine bone china collection, which was released in May, is popular with both Singaporeans and tourists.

Info: Priced at $15 a piece, the collection is available at Supermama’s new flagship store at 213 Henderson Road. The store is also giving away Supermama caps till Dec 24 for purchases above $100. Go to supermamastore.com

Architectural models from Red Dot Design Museum Shop

Find more than 20 architectural model kits that replicate urban scenes, such as a dog run in the park or a cityscape, at the Red Dot Design Museum Shop at Marina Bay Waterfront Promenade.

The kits are put together using Japanese processed paper by Fukunaga Print Company, which collaborated with Terada-Mokei, a specialised modelling company in Japan.

The Dog Run (Architectural Model) is one of Terada-Mokei’s bestsellers.

The gift shop in Singapore also curates a collection of design collectibles that are replicas of Red Dot Design Award-winning projects since 2007.

It is located in the Red Dot Design Museum, which opened in 2005 and showcases more than 500 award-winning works from across the globe.

Info: Priced at $26 a kit. Visit the Red Dot Design Museum Shop and Cafe at 11 Marina Bay Waterfront Promenade or go to museum.red-dot.sg

Shophouse collections by KarenMade

Shophouses have always fascinated Karen Fernandez, founder of online gifts store Karenmade, who has immortalised them in tea towels and coaster sets.

Her photography of shophouse facades in Chinatown, Kampong Glam and Little India is showcased in a range of gifts, from notebooks and trivets to canvases and umbrellas.

The images are not retouched or enhanced, so as to preserve the authenticity of the details and the distinctive colours.

The majolica tiles – also called Peranakan tiles, seen in the architecture of early colonial-era shophouses – are a highlight of the collection.

“The shophouse collection features Peranakan tiles which, together with the Doric and Corinthian pilasters, decorative friezes and auspicious symbols of fruit and flowers, showcase Singapore architecture in all its rich and multi-layered styles,” says Fernandez, who returned to Singapore after more than 20 years living and working in the United States and Britain.

Info: Singapore Shophouses Tea Towels are priced at $30 each. Wood coasters cost $34 for a set of three, with an additional custom-sewn batik bag at $10. Go to karenmadesingapore.com

Peranakan Tiles Collection by Singlapa

Watercolour paintings of majolica tiles are featured prominently in home-grown artisanal gifts brand Singlapa’s Peranakan Tiles Collection.

The mainly fabric collection includes coasters, totes, towels and table runners inspired by the Peranakan tiles found in colonial-era shophouses around Singapore.

Ms Lovey Chin, 47, is the founder of the Singlapa brand, which was launched in Singapore in 2022.

She says each watercolour and gouache painting is meticulously recreated from original tiles dating back to the early 1900s by the brand’s principal watercolourist, who goes by Roong.

Roong’s paintings are then reproduced on a range of media such as paper and fabric.

They are also featured in other collections of greeting cards, aprons, scarves and more.

The Peranakan Tiles Collection table runner, which is available at 200cm and 300cm in length, is designed to be a centrepiece for the festive communal dining table.

Info: The Peranakan Tiles Collection cotton table runner is priced at $76 for a 200cm table centrepiece and $83 for a 300cm runner. For new and festive Singlapa collections, go to singlapa.com for a list of its stockists.

Drawings of ‘cantik’ architecture from Yeni Lim

Self-taught digital artist Yeni Lim’s online store is chock-full of “cantik” (Malay for “pretty”) artworks which preserve the past through digitally hand-drawn images of shophouses, old housing estates and black-and-white colonial-era bungalows.

The 40-year-old stay-at-home mother of two girls aged 12 and 10 says she wants her digital art trove on her website, yenidraws.com, to be an ode to a bygone era.

“Growing up in the 1980s, I remember vividly my grandaunt’s shophouse in Blair Road and the cosiness of the place,” says Ms Lim, whose father is Chinese Singaporean and her mother, Malay Indonesian.

“That is why I love to create artworks that spread the feel-good aspect of living in Singapore, especially our cantik architecture.”

She creates each digital art piece by starting on a basic outline, and then adding layers – sometimes as many as 10 – till the piece is complete.

Her online store has more than 10 homeware designs that include wall art, mugs, plates and fabric goods.

Lim says: “My artworks are also my ‘heart-works’ that show my passion for Singapore’s built environment.”

Info: Go to Lim’s store at 01-53, 55 Tiong Bahru Road, or buy online via @yenidraws on Instagram and yenidraws.com

Shophouse-themed tree ornaments from EM + Co Art

Home-grown studio EM + Co Art sells a set of four Christmas ornaments that feature Peranakan shophouse facades in teal, lilac, hot pink and coral surrounded by tropical plants, which also make great souvenirs.

Ms Courtney Haley, a Canadian microbiologist-turned-artist, founded EM + Co Art in 2020.

In constant awe of the diversity of shophouse facades in Singapore, she tries to capture them in her paintings, which she then reproduces in media such as ceramic, cloth and paper.

“I introduced my shophouse ornaments in 2021 and have been playing around with different styles and colours since,” says Ms Haley, 35, who moved to Singapore in 2018 with her husband.

Info: Priced at $40 for a set of four ceramic ornaments which come with red ribbons. Individual ornaments priced at $15 each. Stocks are available at A Raft of Otters, 03-102, 163 Tanglin Road, and at emandcoart.com