Derek Lee is a London-based interior designer and a MA Interior Design candidate at the Royal College of Art. While specialising in large mixed use public spaces, Derek is open-minded and adaptable, always challenging himself as an experiential designer to adopt new ideas, materials, and techniques in his practice.
He is highly observant of the people who inhabit a space - their lifestyle, behaviour, movement, and senses - and constantly draws inspiration from the arts: from the proportions, forms and colour palettes of contemporary artwork to the rhythm and notes of classical music.
Humans spend 89% of our lives within a built interior. ‘The space’ directly affects the way its inhabitants feel and behave; such that spatial design is beyond mere visuality, it is a thought process, a tool to enhance humanity through its ability to frame lives. Derek is a firm believer in the importance of the process and the story behind, coming from sketches, model studies, and research, which form the basis to a strong spatial identity.
Projects
- THE ART OF MEMORY, Migrational VenturesThis project investigates the significance of art as an effective channel to tell stories of immigration and represents how artists, with challenging migrational backgrounds are deeply affected by this in the way they make their art. In the main body of the building my mixed media immersive installations present contextual narratives of the four selected artists of distinct backgrounds within defined galleries, each representing their memories and the impact of migration. The route of the exhibition is self-determined, yet curated entrance and exit sequences ensure that the visitors complete their journey with a renewed realisation and inspiration of artists' migrational experiences. Exhibition-goers don't often realise the emotional depth behind celebrated art works, many of which heavily influenced by their migrational experiences, whether they are traumatic, nostalgic, liberating, or miserable. This important element is often discussed in the categorisation of ethnicity, as if migrational experiences are only race-induced. This approach fails to recognise migration as a deeply universal experience and is detrimental to an international, culturally-rich city like London. During my years interacting with street artists in New York, I came to a realisation that they are not merely art makers, but true humans with voices and stories to tell, and this exhibition aims to do just that. By transforming the artists' inspiration of their works - their migration stories - into immersive experiences in the form of mixed media installations, my design draws attention away from the aesthetics and materiality of their works to them as migrants in London. The designed experiences act as a time machine that leads visitors through the artists' displacement processes and evokes an emotional journeys corresponding to each artists' unique history. After the exhibition, visitors will gain a new tool to rethink and re-appreciate art work and artists from various backgrounds, while questioning the norm of categorising migrants with colours.
Work history
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Designer & Assistant PMSteven Leach Associates, Seoul
- Seoul, South KoreaFull Time
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Interior Design AssistantARExA (Architecture Research & Design), New York
- New York, United StatesFull Time
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Skills
- Concept Design
- 2D
- 3D
- 3D Modeling
- Development
Education
Master's Degree of Interior Design, School of ArchitectureRoyal College of Art
- London, United Kingdom
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Bachelor Degrees, Fine Arts in Interior DesignSchool of Visual Arts
- New York, United States
Awards
Helen Hamlyn Design AwardsRoyal College of Art
ShortlistedBest Urban InterventionRoyal College of Art
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