Cover Cassandra Teo, the founder of Eden Living
Cassandra Teo, the founder of Eden Living
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Through Eden Living, Cassandra Teo designs and curates objects that slip quietly into daily life
At Boutiques Singapore’s festive edition last December, one booth felt less like a retail stand than a room quietly lived in. Dark wooden panels framed the space, low‑set lamps cast a gentle glow, and objects were arranged with the intimacy of a home rather than the formality of display. It was a signal of Eden Living’s ethos: design meant to be inhabited, not merely admired.
That same sensibility carries through when we meet founder Cassandra Teo at her studio, a modest nook tucked within neighbourhood café Chu & Co. The space is calm and contained, with lamps, frames and objects arranged as they might be at home. It reflects Eden Living’s preoccupation with restful living, and with products— portable lamps, sculptural objects and furnishings—designed for daily use. Wireless builds and compact proportions make them especially suited to smaller homes.
Beyond its role as a retail label, Eden Living also operates as a small collective of Korean makers and studios, bound together by long-standing friendships. The result is a tightly edited catalogue shaped as much by lived experience as by aesthetics.
It may come as a surprise, then, that Teo does not come from a design background. Armed with a degree in political science, she began her career in public service under scholarship at the People’s Association. “I worked at the community centre, and then I went into strategic planning and policy work,” she shares. “The work was centred on community engagement and understanding the needs of residents. What I do at Eden Living is similar at heart because I care a lot about designing for people’s needs.”
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Above The Pebble lamp
The Pebble lamp
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The pivot came during the pandemic. Her father, who had been working as a driver, began learning resin art as work became uncertain. He experimented at home, eventually turning the family dining table into a makeshift studio. “Like an artist, he tried different things,” she recalls. “Different materials, different ways of pouring.”
With the family homebound, Teo and her sister encouraged him to sell small objects—coasters and simple pieces—online. Teo photographed the products; her sister managed the website; and their mother packed the orders. Hands Design soon found an audience, led by her father, affectionately known as Uncle Ray.
“It was our first time stepping into the world of small business,” Teo says. “At the same time, I was inspired by my dad’s journey and was thinking about doing something of my own.” She began discovering independent studios online. One— focused on wooden lamps—stood out for its simplicity. She reached out to ask if they would be open to having their products stocked in Singapore. Design Studio Rising (dRising) became her first Korean partner.
Above Golden Hour is an illustration housed in a cherry wood frame. Photo: Eden Living
Golden Hour is an illustration housed in a cherry wood frame. Photo: Eden Living
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Founded by a husband-and- wife team, the studio had been crafting lamps for nearly a decade, developing both woodworking and circuitry in-house. Teo began bringing their pieces into Singapore, and several early designs—such as the light bars and acorn-shaped Dotori lamps—remain part of Eden Living’s catalogue.
Over time, and through ongoing conversations and shared experimentation, she began contributing ideas that evolved into original designs. Her first was the Chestnut Lamp, a floor fixture with a rounded, chestnut-shaped base. Though it appears delicate, it is engineered to rebalance itself when nudged— an intentional consideration for homes with children or pets.
That same attentiveness surfaces elsewhere. Noticing a lack of well-made wooden frames locally, Teo partnered with Little Spring Furniture, a Jeju-based studio, to produce a limited series of framed vignettes in maple, cherry and walnut, featuring her own illustrations and photographs.
By then, Teo was making regular trips to Korea—especially to Jeju— where relationships with other makers gradually took shape. One is Odujej, known for its stone crayons made from beeswax and mineral pigments. “I make it a point to travel down to visit my partners personally to understand their products and get to know them as people. That makes every curation or design more meaningful,” she posits
Above The Champagne lamp. Photo: Eden Living
The Champagne lamp. Photo: Eden Living
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Among Eden Living’s more technically demanding pieces is the Champagne Lamp, a slender, stemmed table fixture proportioned after a champagne coupe. Teo gestures to an early prototype as she explains its evolution. The challenge lay in achieving visual delicacy without compromising stability. The stem had to be carved thin, and the bezel narrowed almost to invisibility to preserve the glass-like profile. “It’s very thin,” she says. “But I needed it to have that champagne-glass look.”
Function, however, was never secondary. The lamp had to remain stable, usable and coherent within the wider Eden Living universe. “It’s about the story behind the item,” Teo says, “and how it complements the rest of the series.” The Champagne Lamp reflects her broader approach to design: a commitment to resolving details that may not be immediately visible, but matter deeply to her. “I spend a lot of time perfecting the tiny things people might not see,” she says. “But I want to, because it matters to me.”
Such details often reveal themselves later, in the way people live with the objects. Some of the most meaningful exchanges Teo recounts have little to do with form or material, and everything to do with circumstance. She recalls a customer who wrote to ask for a mini version of the Moon Lamp, purchased while she was nursing her sick, bedridden cat. Its soft, adjustable glow allowed her to keep watch at night without disturbance. “She placed the lamp beside him every night,” Teo says. After the cat passed away, the customer shared that every time she sees the lamp now, it reminds her of him. “I cried,” Teo admits. “I remember thinking—they are just lamps, but they’ve become an avenue for me to connect with people.”
Above Golden Hour is an illustration housed in a cherry wood frame. Photo: Eden Living
Golden Hour is an illustration housed in a cherry wood frame. Photo: Eden Living
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Encounters like these have accumulated over time. “They really keep me going because they’re so meaningful,” she shares. That sensitivity runs deep, tracing back to her father’s Hands Design—a legacy that endures following his passing last year. It continues to shape her approach to creation, as something that slips quietly into people’s lives, often in ways unforeseen. Eden Living reflects this ethos through a small circle of returning collaborators. “It is a collective,” she says. “They’re all an extension of who I am, what I curate, and what I care about.” These are not transactional relationships. “They’re my friends. People I care about, people I resonate with. These partnerships are based on real long-term relationships. Our values align, so these partners-turned-friends are willing to work with me to design and craft objects,” she expounds.
For Teo, Eden Living also serves as a framework for continuity. “Ultimately, what matters to me is that what I put out reflects what I value,” she says. “If that comes first, everything else should follow. Whatever I create is always to inspire a sense of wonder.” She believes her customers recognise this. “The people who come to Eden Living care about design, but more than that, they care about the stories behind it,” Teo muses. “When someone asks why I designed something, or what inspired it—that makes me really happy.”
Nafeesa Saini is the Features Editor at Tatler Singapore, where she shapes long-form stories on culture, business, philanthropy, wellness, and the people driving change in Asia. With a deep interest in storytelling that intersects meaningfully with identity and impact, she has profiled a diverse range of visionaries, from scientific pioneers in AI and health to creative trailblazers and literary minds.
Nafeesa’s writing includes cover stories and profiles that spotlight influential voices, alongside commentary on the trends reshaping our world.
Off the clock, Nafeesa unwinds with fiction, a good thrift hunt, and ‘brainrot’ TikTok scroll—while always keeping one eye on her next cultural getaway, usually to Indonesia.
