A space for others

THE sight of a coffee place and vibrant eateries is not something one would associate with dusty, old printing press machines of yesteryears.

Yet, APW chief executive officer Ee Soon Wei has managed to turn his family’s underutilised printing facility, previously a scene of stagnation and dilapidation from years of neglect, into a vibrant space for people and businesses to come together. He made a way for the new to co-exist with the old. And whatever work that was done to APW, he made sure they worked around the “soul” of the place.

And Ee was intentional with how he developed his space.

“I’ve already figured out that i want to target a certain audience, which are those in the age range of 18 to 25 years old. I’m very interested in this target market and anything they are involved in. Whether it’s lifestyle, food, accommodation, I want to build that lifestyle for them,” he says.

After he brought in Pulp three years ago, other F&B outlets followed suit including Australiabased Breakfast Thieves, local social enterprise Agak-agak, Kaiju, Case Study and Proof.

In March last year, the floor above the main printing area was rebranded as Uppercase, a co-working space for creative-based startups and freelancers. The 6,000sq ft space is home to companies such as Pow Ideas, studio 25 and FTalent.

On most weekends, APW plays host to a myriad of bazaars, events, workshops, shows and exhibitions.

In recent months, APW has also added a rather unique mix to its list of tenants with 52 Barbers, a vintage-style gentlemen’s grooming place, and Plant Cartridge, an urban farming solutions provider operating out of a repurposed container cabin.

“So the birth of this so-called creative campus was really an exercise of responding to limitations. For every limitation there was, you kind of make use of what you have and make the best of all outcomes. I started responding to what this place could be changed into,” Ee says of his plans for APW over the past four years.

“But it was starting to gel together. And our vision for a creative campus, where we wanted to accelerate the creative economy and lifestyle-integrated infrastructure, was coming to fruition,” he adds.

But it is not just about trying to fit in as many tenants as possible.

Ee has also dedicated a sizeable space to creating a pocket park in one of its corners to maintain greenery in APW. The park was developed in collaboration with Think City.

“So this experience has been this whole case study about, when you take over a space, do you really need to kill it, or do you leave it better. My personal philosophy is if you take on something, make sure you leave it better than when you found it. So very naive, right? Well, that line took me four years in lah,” he says.

Not only has Ee successfully turned APW on its head, he has also made it into a space for others to thrive in.