Completed in 2021 in Fukuoka, Japan. Images by Tomoyuki Kusunose, Fukuoka Jisho. OMA’s only built project in Japan up until 2012 can be found in Fukuoka. The Nexus World Housing complex was completed more than twenty-five years.
Ministry of Design Merges Banking and Biophilia at a Citibank Wealth-Management Center in Singapore
June 9, 2021
By Rebecca Dalzell
Money plants, parlor palms, and bird’s nest ferns are among the tropical species filling the conservatory at Citi Wealth Hub, a wealth-management center in Singapore by Ministry of Design. Photography by KHOOGJ.
The founder and director of Ministry of Design, Colin Seah, admits that his firm was not an obvious choice to design a high-end bank. “We’re a bit of a black sheep,” he says. “It’s our natural impulse to be slightly rebellious and question convention.” The Singaporean architect has earned accolades for such edgy constructions as the Race Robotics Laboratory, a futuristic black cave, and the piercing triangular Vanke Triple V Gallery. Investment banks, by contrast, favor plush but predictable interiors. Yet Citibank Singapore was ready for a change when it held a competition to create the Citi Wealth Hub, a wealth-management cent