Gabriel Tan

Gabriel Tan grew up wanting to be an aircraft pilot, needing to be made aware of the design origins of prod­ucts around us. But while serving in the Singa­porean Navy, some­thing changed, and he began devour­ing every­thing he could find on indus­trial and furniture design.

Tan was soon study­ing indus­trial design formally at the National Univer­sity of Singa­pore, and he attended his first Milan Furni­ture Fair in 2006. A year later, he returned to Milan, this time as an exhibitor with startup design collec­tive Outof­s­tock, a collab­o­ra­tion among Tan and three other design­ers based in Barcelona and Singa­pore. After Milan, the group succeeded in produc­ing a steady stream of furni­ture for clients in France and Denmark and inte­rior design work for clients in Singapore. 

In 2019 Tan moved from Singa­pore to Porto, Portu­gal, with his wife and two young sons. Currently, he runs his firm, Gabriel Tan Design, with offices in both cities.