lighting

Review: Scented Intoxication exhibition by Lyn and Tony

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By Penny Craswell

Lyn Balzer and Tony Perkins are a Sydney-based photography and designer/maker duo with an international sensibility, whose works are nevertheless deeply rooted in Australia. Their new exhibition at Sydney’s Australian Design Centre, called Scented Intoxication, features works made from a range of materials in two simple colours: black and white. But it is scent that is the most extraordinary feature of this exhibition.

Gallery view, Scented Intoxication. Photo: Australian Design Centre
Gallery view, Scented Intoxication. Photo: Supplied by Australian Design Centre

When you enter the exhibition space, it hits you right away, a beautiful, heady perfume that is not sweet or perfume-like in the traditional sense, but is reminiscent of burnt wood or native Australian vegetation or both. Lyn and Tony worked with French-born Australian-based Elise Pioch Balzac of Maison Balzac to create two scents for two scented candles: L’Obscurite (darkness) is a black candle with a scent inspired by one of Lyn and Tony’s photographs of a sea cave in Kiama NSW. Elise interpreted the image in a scent inspired by volcanic rocks using tree resin, birch tar and red cedar. The other scent is L’Etrangete (strangeness), a white candle with a scent inspired by another photograph by Lyn and Tony, this time of a waterfall in a lush rainforest. Elise interpreted this image of sunlight in greenery as a scent with lemon myrtle, native ginger and hemp. Read more →

Video: Alphabeta by Luca Nichetto at London Design Festival

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Alphabeta is a new lamp designed by Italian Luca Nichetto for Hem, a brand that only launched last September 2014 at the London Design Festival. Hem’s first UK retail store opens this Saturday 19 September as part of this year’s festival, and an installation celebrating Alphabeta will come to life from 21 September at Somerset House.

More about Hem

Try the Alphabeta online configurator

Objects reborn from demolished house in Christchurch

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By Penny Craswell

What would happen if you took all the waste from one demolished house and used it to create new objects? This question is the foundation of a new exhibition, book and auction called “Whole House Reuse” in Christchurch, New Zealand. An initiative of social enterprise Rekindle, the project highlights the huge amount of landfill created by the construction industry each year, particularly in Christchurch which is still demolishing and rebuilding after the Christchurch Earthquake in 2011.

Reading station by David Trubridge Design Studio (David Trubridge, Marion Courtille, Mathilde Polmard, Mat Stott)
Reading station by David Trubridge Design Studio (David Trubridge, Marion Courtille, Mathilde Polmard, Mat Stott)


It took seven days for a professional salvage crew and team of volunteers to fully deconstruct the single storey house in the Christchurch suburb of New Brighton, leaving behind only the concrete ring foundation.

Read more →

Review: Vivid lights make Sydney shine

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By Penny Craswell

One of the most famous and widely visited parts of the annual Vivid Festival of Light, Music and Ideas, is the array of light installations and projections that turn freezing Sydney in nearly-winter into a playground of light and fun (and crowds, the less good bit).

The Museum of Contemporary Art with projection, Vivid Light 2015. Photo: Penny Craswell
The Museum of Contemporary Art with projection, Vivid Light 2015. Photo: Penny Craswell

This year I thought I would do a proper post on the lights so that you can all see it for yourselves without having to fly to Sydney, or if you are already here, go out in the cold and brave the masses. This year, the best part was probably the projections on the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) called “Mechanised Light Assemblage” by Australian artist Rebecca Baumann who worked in collaboration with multidisciplinary French team Danny Rose. It had moments of Tron, and also a whole section that brought to vivid life Baumann’s own 2011 artwork “Automated Colour Field” which is in the collection of the MCA. Read more →

Video: Round-up of Ventura Lambrate at Milan Design Week

Video: Round-up of Ventura Lambrate at Milan Design Week

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While everyone goes to Milan for the Salone del Mobile, it has become apparent in recent years that the best design, the cutting-edge work, the really innovative stuff, is not happening at the fairgrounds, but in town, at precincts like Brera, Zona Tortona and Ventura Lambrate.

Although Ventura Lambrate is the furthest away, and can often be hit and miss, there is a huge amount of design talent shown each year. This year more than 900 designers from around the world showed their work. Check out this great video summary of the event by the organisers.

View here.

Ruth McDermott and Ben Baxter review lighting in Milan

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This year, the Design Writer’s Milan coverage comes with a distinctly luminous quality – that’s because lighting designers Ruth McDermott and Ben Baxter of McDermott Baxter have written up an exclusive review of the fair for us, with an eye on the best of lighting design during the Salone del Mobile, Euroluce and surrounding design events. Ruth and Ben were in Milan to show their Nimbus light, an innovative LED work inspired by Sydney’s dramatic storm clouds (sounds very familiar at the moment, doesn’t it Sydney-siders!).

Ruth McDermott and Ben Baxter with Nimbus in Milan 2015
Ruth McDermott and Ben Baxter with Nimbus in Milan 2015. All images: McDermott Baxter.


Ruth and Ben write: The main thing that struck us looking at the variety of light fittings in both Euroluce (the main fair attached to Salone del Mobile) and other locations such as Ventura Lambrate and Zona Tortona was the use of warmer toned and natural materials in lighting. The following is a small selection of lighting pieces that caught our eye. Read more →

Australian lighting innovation in Milan

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By Penny Craswell

It’s that time of the year again, when all the major designers and design brands turn their attention to Milan for the annual Furniture Fair, happening in the second week of April. While I won’t be heading there myself this year, Ben Baxter of McDermott Baxter will be writing up some of the innovative lighting designs he sees there, while showing the Nimbus light.

Nimbus by McDermott Baxter
Nimbus by McDermott Baxter

Ruth McDermott and Ben Baxter will be showing Nimbus as part of Ventura Lambrate Station, one of four Australian studios showing work in this new part of the exhibition for emerging designers. Nimbus is a continuation of McDermott Baxter’s experiments into lighting, using new technology and a low energy philosophy to create innovation artworks and design pieces. Read more →

Design writings: Christopher Boots studio visit

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“We visit Boots in his Fitzroy studio. The streets lined by large oaks and restored facades are a far cry from the suburb’s working working-class roots, when Boots’ studio would have been home to one of many factories that formed the beating heart of the area’s industrial past.

via Broadsheet

“From an outsider’s perspective, Boots is living the dream: a studio in a fashionable suburb—which also doubles as his house—and luxury brand Hermes calling to design the Christmas lights in their New York store.

“Inside, Boots’s studio is a flurry of activity flanked by the fixtures that have brought him acclaim the world over. By one wall, there are iterations of Boots’ signature crystal fixtures, the Prometheus series: handmade chandeliers embellished with quartz around a ring of bronze.”

Alan Weedon visits Christopher Boots in his studio for Broadsheet, a well written article that gives in insight into this hard-working, talented designer.

Read the full article here.

 

 

Melbourne designer Nick Rennie talks Ligne Roset

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By Penny Craswell

Ligne Roset is one of those furniture brands in Europe with a long history, with roots in 1860s France, where the company was founded selling walking sticks and sunshades. Skip forward to the present day and the 5th generation Roset family are running the company, including Michel Roset who first looked at Melbourne designer Nick Rennie’s profile in 2011.

image44986.tifRoset liked what he saw, in particular the Saldo table, a geometric design in 8mm thick ‘crystal’glass that comes with self adhesive sliders. Within twelve months, the product was launched. Read more →