Office space

William Lim, architect, CL3 Architects (cl3.com)

I like to design my own furniture in projects, but I also experiment with different materials. Making furniture for myself helps me do both.

We reference a lot of movies. Interior design is very visual and our imagery is often like movie sets. In the Mood for Love is one we refer to a lot, it helps us communicate ideas.

We use that in mood presentations. We often need to explain ideas, and it's easier if we find an object that can tell an entire story.

We put clocks in our design and my art explores our relationship with time. Time is the fourth dimension involved in my work.

It's not important for us to win awards, but we do passive marketing by entering them. The Chinese market is very conscious about awards, and it helps us get together in the community and share ideas.

That's a Mid-Autumn lantern; the use of colour and animals is fascinating; I try to apply that to my design. It's local and kitschy, but it's also very 'Hong Kong'.

All architects keep journals; they help us realise our thinking process. Sometimes it's a day, sometimes it's months, but it guides you through the process.

Models let us visualize; not just the box itself but seeing the space inside.

Design deals with 3D elements and practicality; art deals with 2D and emotion. I go back and forth between both - my art helps me take a step back and visualize things.

Design is often compared to music in terms of rhythm and structure; it helps us resolve our design.

David Erdman & Clover Lee, architects, DavidClovers (davidclovers.com)

Posters from our work at the Hong Kong Biennale - we were delighted to have been involved with a major event in our first six months here.

Our 'war room' wall. The pin-up board is like the plot device in The Usual Suspects - we use it to see possibilities, fictions and the intricate relationships between the pieces and parts of our design.

We eat up any magazines that will keep us in touch with either the critical or option side of the discourse.

This model was prototype and research for using Corian - the stuff that's used for counter tops - as a system of cladding. Our storefront door was the first application.

Toys are always good to tinker with, though we have no 'tinker toys'.

We were both professors, at UCLA and Rice. This is about 10 per cent of our total book collection, which we surround ourselves in. Knowing where your ideas come from is crucial to being innovative.

Music inspires us - lots of Brooklyn stuff these days: Toro Y Moi, Grizzly Bear, MGMT, Caribou, Bon Iver.

Sketch paper - for scratching, tearing out and overwriting ideas as they lay on top of one another.

David Ericsson & Alexis Holm, product designers, Void (voidwatches.com), Gram (gramstore.com)

Coffee is essential, it keeps us going. We only make espresso. We can't be bothered making anything more complicated.

We listen to a lot of Swedish music, more than we did when we were in Sweden. We miss Sweden. Kent is on our playlist now.

We do small-scale production in the shop, so we work a lot with our hands. We're both into that and we love creating things physically, not just sketching.

Shelves are a flexible solution, we can hoist them up if we have parties. It's part of creating a flexible space.

We're not designers inspired by fashion magazines. We get inspired by fabrics or factories or literature.

The shoes are Alexis' brand. They're the reason we can do all the other fun stuff as well. They've paved the way for everything else we do.

Helmets for protecting our heads. Motorbikes are great for getting around Hong Kong - we can swerve in traffic, park them anywhere.

Void watches are David's pet project, how he started the business. It was the first thing he produced for the brand.

Our leather is from a New Territories tannery; we'd rather it had a few scratches and was locally made, than flown over from Italy for lots of money. We support the killing of local cows.

That's kind of stuff we blow our profits on. The toy car is for fun. Our attitude is to have fun in the office.

Candace Campos, interior designer, Candace Collective (candacecollective.com)

Vintage pieces really inspire me and I source them for clients. In California, there are so many vintage markets and stores, but there are practically none here. People here don't value used pieces.

The lamp's from a photography shop in Sham Shui Po. I love industrial-style lighting. It's great for decor.

I have a lot of vintage luggage - I don't have colourful furniture, so they add colour to the house. I sometimes source them for clients, and they're great as makeshift tables.

That's a popular Shanghai delivery bike called Phoenix. I found a dealer in Jordan that sells them. Design wise, I think they're amazing.

I love design magazines and have hundreds of tears from them. I rip about 15-20 pages out of every magazine. I like to have them around to look at and be inspired.

UK ELLE Decoration - their photoshoots are a wonderful combination of vintage and modern. There's not a single issue that doesn't hurt me because they're so beautiful.

When I decorate an interior, I use a lot of neutral colours - white, gray - so I like to infuse other areas with colour. I love the softness in the colours of flowers mixed with feathers.

SANAA is a Japanese architecture firm, they built the New Museum in New York's Bowery. It's one of my favourite buildings in the world.

Similar to the flowers, I don't use much colour in my interiors, but I love using glass. I collect a lot of glass when I travel: jars, cups, anything.