Melbourne Design Week

Object Stories: 1 Hour Bag by Dowel Jones

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By Penny Craswell

Fabric waste is a huge contributor to landfill and, while textiles can be recycled, it doesn’t happen as much as it could or should. Enter Adam Lynch and Dale Hardiman of Melbourne design studio Dowel Jones and their concept, New Model, a zero-waste approach to design. The first project for New Model, the 1 Hour Bag designed by Soft Serve Studio, utilises surplus, remnant and waste materials.

Blue bag, New Model by Adam Lynch and Dale Hardiman

The 1 Hour Bag is made from pieces of upholstery fabric that are too small to be used for upholstery and would otherwise go to waste. The majority of the bag is made from this recycled material, with any small parts made from new material coloured bright green to provide maximum transparency on which parts of the bag are recycled.

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Highlights from Melbourne Design Week

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By Penny Craswell

This year’s Melbourne Design Week centred on the topic “design values”, covering furniture, objects, installations, publishing and architecture. Apart from the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), the other key venue for exhibitions and events was Watchmakers, a temporary exhibition space in Collingwood donated by the owner of Piccolina Gelateria, who will be building their kitchen and gelateria in the space following the event. Folk Architects was responsible for its transformation, stripping back the space to its original patina and applying subtle use of mirrored Laminex to provide an ideal site for the experimental exhibitions within. Here are some of the highlights of this year’s event.

1. 26 Original Fakes

This exhibition at the Watchmakers venue by young designer/curators Dale Hardiman and Tom Skeehan of Friends & Associates challenged 26 designers to modify a fake Jasper Morrison Hal chair as a statement on Australia’s replica industry. The resulting show explored a huge range of issues, from authenticity, to ethics, to material concerns, with a dose of humour thrown in. I was very pleased to write the accompanying exhibition text myself – see my separate post. More on 26 Original Fakes.

Tom Skeehan (left) and Dale Hardiman (right), curators of 26 Original Fakes at Watchmakers, part of Melbourne Design Week. Image: supplied

Exhibition view of 26 Original Fakes. Photo: Wayne Taylor

 

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26 Original Fakes for Melbourne Design Week

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This exhibition text was originally written by Penny Craswell for 26 Original Fakes, an exhibition curated by Dale Hardiman and Tom Skeehan of Friends & Associates as part of Melbourne Design Week.

26 Original Fakes, Melbourne Design Week

Fake furniture takes the original design and perverts it. The image in the magazine might look the same, but the object is fundamentally different – not just in quality, longevity, function and aesthetics, but also in its very essence. What makes the original authentic is stripped away and all you are left with is an empty simulation. Read more →