For Fang Low, CEO and co-founder of Figment, Singapore’s colourful shophouses are more than an architectural legacy—they are a window to a more dynamic and connected way of living
Winston Churchill once said, “We shape our dwellings, and afterwards our dwellings shape us.” This saying rings true in the case of Fang Low, the 33-year-old CEO and co-founder of Figment, who built a company that conserves and reimagines traditional shophouses and then leases them out for residential purposes.
Growing up in a Chinese baroque shophouse in Tanjong Pagar showed Low what it’s like to live in a neighbourhood “full of kampong spirit” as he describes it. As a child, he spent his afternoons playing badminton in the carpark or reading books at the independent bookstore around the corner—a different upbringing from the high-rise living that defines much of Singapore today.