The Fragment Room officially opens its doors today. You can even smash things with a Supreme crowbar.
By Tira Lee
Photos courtesy of The Fragment Room
Photos: The Fragment Room / Timothy Suen
Each session at The Fragment Room is about half an hour to an hour long. You will be provided with a set of safety gear and your preferred playlist. Items for destroying include crates full of breakables and electronics. You can even bring along your own items (gifts from exes, ex-bosses, etc.) if you so wish. The best part? You don’t have to clean up afterwards.
We took some time to speak with The Fragment Room founder, Royce Tan, about how the idea for a rage room came about.
Why the name “The Fragment Room”? Is it a reference to the popular brand, Fragment Design, in any way?
That’s something I hear a lot, but contrary to popular belief, it has nothing to do with the brand, nor streetwear. “Fragment” came about when my designer and I were brainstorming names for the shop. We didn’t want a tacky or generic name and we played with the idea of breaking, but “The Break Room” was already taken. With a little help from the thesaurus and some wit, we thought, what do the items we break in the rooms do? They shatter, but shatter didn’t have that wow factor, so we changed it to “fragment”.
So who’s your target audience?
Our aim of the business is to not focus on one target audience. Our main audience would be people with high-stress levels and mainly working professionals. We also didn’t want to stray away from our roots as youths growing up in sunny Singapore.
You offer three different packages at The Fragment Room: Single, Double and Annihilation. Walk us through the differences between the three.
Taking inspiration from video games of our youth: 1 player (Single), 2 player (Double), Hell mode (Annihilation). As the names suggest, Single and Double are 1 and 2 people sessions and we provide one or two crates full of breakables, respectively. Annihilation is a single player mission that lasts 60 minutes – for you to purge all your inner frustrations and demons, that gives you unlimited breakables in that span of time. All packages will have you dressed head-to-toe in our safety gear. You’ll also be given a baseball bat.
How did the idea to create a rage room come about? There must have been a trigger.
My trigger was my previous job. Straight out of NS I was lost, so I started working in a new company as an outdoor sales specialist. My bosses were not the most supportive nor communicative, which led to a lot of frustration and confusion. Until this day I have no clue what went on in that company; it was a mess.
I decided to leave that job, and there I was again, lost, thinking if I should follow my peers and just get a degree knowing that I wouldn’t do well. One day, I saw this video on Facebook, I thought these people were mental, they were decked out in paintball gear breaking kitchenware with baseball bats and golf clubs. I googled and there was nothing like this in Singapore, not even in Southeast Asia. So here we are.
On a personal note, what makes you angry?
Traffic. Singapore traffic is the worst. People are not attentive at all, constantly straddling two lanes and well below the speed limit on the overtaking lanes.
What plans do you have for The Fragment Room in the near future?
I sure hope that it’s a fun and safe environment for our fellow Singaporeans to release their much suppressed emotions.
Fore more information and rates, visit The Fragment Room’s website here.
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