SINGAPORE — Milan may be the centre of the design, especially for Italian designers, but don’t count Luca Nichetto among the city’s fans or residents.

“Design is not only in Milan, I want to show people, especially those in Italy, that you can be a designer anywhere,” said the 36-year-old who has his studios in Stockholm and Venice. Born in the island of Murano, just north of Venice, Nichetto maintains a deep attachment to Venice. “Living and working in Venice is just like therapy as I travel so much and I’m constantly on the go so when I go back Venice, it’s like going back to the past. Many things are the same in Venice as they were 500 years ago.”

Being based outside of Milan also has its career advantages as companies in Milan viewed him as a foreign designer, and he gets plenty of work outside Italy as well like creating pieces for Brit furniture firm Established and Sons and Swedish company David Design. Perhaps it’s why it took Italian sofa maker Cassina, three years to find Nichetto revealed Cassina brand director Gianluca Armento.

The duo were in Singapore last week to unveil Nichetto’s twin creations for Cassina — the La Mise sofa and the Torei table — at Dream Interiors. “I was already creating the sofa when I was in Japan last year for Tokyo Designers Week and I was quite fascinated by the wooden trays that the Japanese used to serve drinks and thought wouldn’t it be nice if these trays had legs to become small tables? It would be good to have something to accompany the La Mise sofa, too,” he explained. “In fact, it’s called Torei as the Japanese word for tray is ‘tore’.”

Fresh from the success of designing for Cassina, Nichetto is currently hard at work for another project — this time for a non-Italian client. He’s been invited by the city of Cologne to be the guest of honour for the city’s famed interior design trade show, Imm Cologne, taking place next January where he will be presenting his vision of Das Haus or the ideal house. “It’s a real honour as I’m the first Italian designer to be asked to be the guest of honour,” he said.

And for his vision of Das Haus, Nichetto is inspired by the slow food movement. “I thought perhaps I can do a slow house — where you enjoy time you spend outside the house inside. For that, he focused on bringing nature or “an Amazon forest or green lung” into the centre of the home. He also added a bibliotheque in the Das Haus.

“People need to read more, we’re not zombies. We need to take care of culture. We need to slow down. To me real luxury is time for yourself,” he said.