Koskela launches Ngalya lighting collection

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By Penny Craswell

Ngalya is a project by Koskela that celebrates contemporary Indigenous fibre arts in Australia. This powerful work that play an important role maintaining cultural practice is also incredibly sought after as lighting.

Ngalya is a new Koskela range of lighting created in collaboration with six Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art centres from around Australia. Photo: supplied

Created to mark 10 years of Koskela’s collaboration with Indigenous Arts Centres (that began with Yuta Badayala by the weavers of Elcho Island Arts), Ngalya sees Koskela working with Indigenous makers from six different Arts Centres across Australia to create a series of completely new lighting designs.

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Object Stories: Confetti armchair by Design by Them

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By Penny Craswell

The latest collection from Sarah Gibson and Nicholas Karlovasitis, designers and owners of Sydney brand Design By Them, is called Confetti, named for its vibrant multi-coloured material made from 100% recycled plastic.

Confetti Armchair, Ottoman and Modular Lounge. Image: supplied

The range includes an armchair, bench, modular lounge, booth and ottoman, which combine the recycled plastic with upholstered shapes in a range of colours, and a series of tables, an umbrella stand and a planter.

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Sydney bayside home, with bookcase

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By Penny Craswell

Sam Crawford Architects has refreshed and rationalised the interiors of this townhouse in Sydney’s Blackwattle Bay to create an expanded, streamlined and light-filled home with a focus on the beautiful things in life, including art, objects, books, and views of the bay and city skyline beyond.

Blackwattle Bay Townhouse by Sam Crawford. Photo: Anson Smart
Blackwattle Bay Townhouse by Sam Crawford. Photo: Anson Smart

The first step in this renovation was to shift and expand the kitchen and living areas by moving the study. The newly enlarged kitchen features a generous brass-clad island bench as a centrepiece, with green tiles on the splashback, white cabinetry on the back wall and black cabinetry on the island. Along one side of the kitchen and adjoining living area, a wall of plain white cupboard doors conceals a large pantry to the left and a stunning drinks cabinet and bar with wine storage in warm timber to the right.

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Top 10: Danish design objects

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By Penny Craswell

On a recent visit to Denmark, I was totally overwhelmed by the quality and quantity of beautiful Danish design objects. Probably my favourite store was Illums Bolighus, which is conveniently located next door to Georg Jensen and Royal Copenhagen in Copenhagen’s main square (opposite the excellent Cafe Norden).

From ceramics to glass, metalwork to leather, I have included my favourite Danish design pieces and brands in a handy list for those travelling to Denmark or just wanting some design inspiration.

Hammershøi vase by Hans-Christian Bauer for Kähler, Finnish Design Shop

Kähler first started creating ceramics in Denmark in 1889. The Hammershøi series, designed by Norwegian designer Hans-Christian Bauer, is a modern interpretation of the classic ceramic vases that Dane Svend Hammershøi created for Kähler in the early 19th century. The new version features the same distinctive vertical ribs.

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Review: Waterhome by Inga Liksaite

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By Penny Craswell

In Como, a small town on the southern shore of Lake Como north of Milan, the Museo della Seta (Silk Museum) recently showed the textile works of Lithuanian artist Inga Liksaite in a solo exhibition called ‘Waterhome’.

That House by Inga Liksaite. Image: supplied

The works are a mixture of hand-stitching and machine-stitched canvases, making use of small stitches to create a pattern that only translates its subject when viewed from afar, like an Impressionist painting.

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Review: ‘Broken Nature’ Triennale in Milan

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By Penny Craswell

There is no question that the world is in climate crisis, with school children on strike and increasing numbers of governments around the world declaring a climate emergency, so the theme of the XXII edition of the Triennale di Milano this year is particularly apt. Broken Nature: Design Takes on Human Survival is an exhibition and series of international installations that explores what designers are doing to tackle the problem.

Totems, Neri Oxman and the Mediated Matter Group at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Triennale Milano. Photo: Gianluca Di Ioia
Totems, Neri Oxman and the Mediated Matter Group at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Triennale Milano. Photo: Gianluca Di Ioia

Broken Nature takes as its starting point the inevitable extinction of humans and explores the myriad ways that designers are attempting to tackle the problem. “Humanity is in peril… the strain we are placing on environmental bonds is significant, the needle measuring the tension is already in the critical zone, and the pressure is mounting,” writes Italian-born NY-based curator Paola Antonelli in the catalogue essay.

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Review: Tayim restaurant at the Harbour Rocks Hotel

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By Penny Craswell

On the ground floor of the Harbour Rocks Hotel, with dining overlooking busy pedestrian street Nurses Walk in Sydney’s The Rocks, is Tayim, a new restaurant, bar and deli with design by architecture studio Welsh & Major. The exterior brick facade has been restored and updated, while the interiors are a lesson in successful adaptive reuse, pairing historic sandstone walls with minimal design insertions to create a blank canvas for complex Middle Eastern flavours.

The kitchen at Tayim restaurant, Harbour Rocks Hotel by Welsh & Major. Photos: Tom Ferguson

The project was made all the more challenging by the heritage constraints to the site, which was previously the 1890s Evans’ Stores warehouse, as well as the considerable functional requirements of creating a working restaurant, bar and deli.

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Ethics in Practice: Architecture and local materials with Five Mile Radius

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By Penny Craswell

Five Mile Radius is a Brisbane-based practice whose approach to architecture centres around the use of locally-sourced building materials in construction. Clare Kennedy founded the studio alongside a group of architects and students, working on a range of building and art projects, as well as various workshops, educational events and other public engagement programs.

Shingles at Jungle Love, design by Five Mile Radius. Photo: Markos Huges

“Responding to the growing need to move away from globalised supply chains to more self sufficient models, we are working on a future where Australians can build using ethically sourced resources from their own shores,” explains Clare Kennedy from Five Mile Radius. “Our practice begun with hands-on material experimentation for art commissions. We tested our ideals by making things then quickly realising our limitations. Although we are now working on larger projects for commercial and private clients, every project still involves this process of hands-on prototyping and testing.”

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Object Stories: Shaker Family Cabinet by Trent Jansen

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By Penny Craswell

Sydney-based designer Trent Jansen takes a research-led, anthropological approach to his work that often involves delving into the history of materials, movements and mythologies, and also includes cross-cultural collaboration.

Shaker Family Home by Trent Jansen. Photo: Romello Pereira

His most recent work, which is being exhibited as part of Local Milan at the Milan Furniture Fair in April 2019, is the Shaker Family Home. This piece is simultaneously a single work, and also a collection of works, with each part folding away into the structure of the main piece.

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Miniatures from the world of Harry Potter

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By Penny Craswell

Architecture students from a Melbourne School of Design intensive have created eight intricate miniature sets from the Harry Potter world by J.K. Rowling in a new exhibition called “Smoke and Mirrors”.

The Burrow, Harry Potter project, Melbourne School of Design architecture students. Photo: Jannette Le

Teams were tasked with designing and fabricating an animated set model based on sourced material, with different models showing Gringotts bank, Ollivander’s wand shop, the Shreiking Shack, the Burrows (home to the Weasley’s) and parts of Hogwarts itself, including The Chamber of Secrets. Students built character profiles from source materials, then designed the spaces to reflect how the characters would have used the space.

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