The Design Writer

By Penny Craswell

Ambling along the streets of Paris, I can’t tell you the joy of coming face-to-face with the curving glass facade of department store Samaritaine. Having enjoyed the work of Japanese architecture studio SANAA in the Art Gallery of NSW in Sydney, it was delightful to realise that this is also their work, completed in 2020. The size and scale of the building directly matches the surrounding buildings, all of which are that classic Haussmann size – bigger than a house, smaller than a skyscraper. These singular proportions are what make Paris Paris. At the same size, Samaritaine stands out for its materiality – undulating glass waves that create an opacity to the interiors while matching the size of the fenestrations of the buildings opposite, reflected as ghostly apparitions in the glass. Inside, a glass atrium contains a mini forest, softening the whole building and its contents.

Interestingly, this not my first experience of delighting in a glass facade in Paris. Designed by Jean Nouvel, the Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art in the Raspail also has a stunning glass facade, which presents as a gridded wall of glass to the street, behind which both the interiors and garden are visible as you walk past. I remember visiting the building in the mid-2000s and finding that mix of hard modern glass and soft green garden peeking from behind a delicious contrast.

I was sorry to hear that the Fondation Cartier will be moving to a new building on the Rue de Rivoli at the end of 2025. Jean Nouvel is redesigning the interiors of this one, a Haussmannian building just near the Louvre and while I’m sure it will be fantastic, I do hope the Jean Nouvel building in the Raspail continues to have a life. 

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It’s been a while since I’ve visited Milan Design Week and wow have the queues grown! The city was busy and the design was amazing – I especially loved the installations at this year’s event.

This year I reported for InteriorsAU so head over to the architectureau.com.au website to read my Ten of the Best Design Products and Nine of the Best Installations.

By Penny Craswell

Sydney ceramicist Scott Duncan’s new solo exhibition at the Arthouse Gallery presents an intelligent and humorous body of work made with a deftness of touch that only comes from years dedicated to the craft of making.

Amphora vases, wall pieces and oversized sculptures line the walls, each with a round face roughly rendered in smiles, frowns and grimaces. One of humanity’s quirks is that we see faces everywhere and anywhere – and there is just enough in these to give each work a palpable personality – this one is sassy, that one sad, this one gleeful and so on. The forms themselves reference ceramics history, clearly drawing on forms from the Italian and Greek pots of the classical period.

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By Penny Craswell

On a beautiful evening at the Sydney Opera House, London-based designers Martino Camper and Max Lamb sat down together for a chat as part of the series Artist to Artist. But first they had to make their own chairs.

Martino’s was a fairly simple affair – a timber stool onto which he attached the back, which was a piece of wood appropriated earlier from a dusty corner of the Opera House’s backstage. 

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By Penny Craswell

Welcome to your one stop shop for ethical gift ideas during 2024’s festive season. Reuse your Christmas (or other festive) decorations, go recycled or recyclable, support small, handmade and/or Indigenous-owned businesses, and, where possible, give to charity. Oxfam has Charity Gift Cards That Do Good, Child Fund Australia has Christmas Gift Ideas, Barnardos has Gifts for Kids, and there are plenty more out there to choose from. Because there is enough selfishness in the world already, so add some goodness to your festive cheer!

1. These gorgeous Turning Candle Holders are by Sydney-based designer (and Design Academy Eindhoven graduate) Marlo Lyda. In an excellent example of zero-waste design, they are made out of camphor laurel offcuts, sourced either from the production of turning or from mills in the Northern Rivers Region. $85.00 each marlolyda.me

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By Penny Craswell

I have some fantastic news to share – my new book The New Sustainable House will be on sale from 29 October and is now available to pre-order online or at all good booksellers! The book will also be on sale in the US and the UK from 2025. Published by Thames & Hudson with graphic design by Claire Orrell.

This book features sustainable 25 houses from all around the world, from Spain to India to Mexico, from Australia to the UK and the US. Publisher Paulina de Laveaux and I spent a long time choosing projects for this book and it features some of the best architecture from around the world, with each project also being sustainable thanks to its design, systems, materials or other features.

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Review by Penny Craswell

How to Create Things for the World Sustainably

Sarah K, Supercyclers (Near Future Publishing), 280 pp hardback, RRP $90.00

Of all the “wicked problems” of the world, the problem of too much stuff is one of the most difficult to solve – and it is one that falls directly into the lap of designers. Designer, educator and author Sarah K is one person who has taken on the problem as a calling, dedicating her career to teaching, exhibiting, designing and consulting on the topic.

In her book How to Create Things for the World Sustainably, Sarah K tells the story of how she came to put sustainability at the centre of design – that “flip the switch” moment that shocked her into dedicating her life to the cause. “I think it’s important to acknowledge this first shift in thinking, so that we can recognise in ourselves that we are moving from the mindset of the old paradigm into the new one.”

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By Penny Craswell

Melbourne’s Never Too Small, known for their beautifully produced videos about small footprint living, recently curated a new exhibition as part of Melbourne Design Week. “Multifunctional Pet Furniture” featured 11 different pieces of furniture designed by an international cohort of architects and designers. Each piece was made locally with plywood thanks to Castlemaine-based makers Jem Selig Freeman and Laura Woodward from Like Butter and exhibited at Never Too Small’s offices in Collingwood.

“There’s a hard rubbish room in my apartment building,” explains Colin in the exhibition precis. “People often discard pet houses or furniture and it [made] me wonder if their pets passed away or if they simply didn’t use the pet house and found it too bulky for their apartment. It’s disheartening to see that 90 percent of the time, these pet houses are still in perfect or near-new condition, leading to a significant waste of materials.”

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By Penny Craswell

Hidden in plain sight – a new exhibition of design objects by curators Dale Hardiman and Tom Skeehan of Friends & Associates was exhibited amongst the books at Bookshop by Uro in Collingwood as part of Melbourne Design Week.

Before visiting Bookshop by Uro in Collingwood last week, I felt I knew it, having done an online book launch with Mat Ward during lockdown, despite having never been in person. Walking in, my eyes scanned the shelves and I vaguely wondered where the exhibition was, before asking for Mat. It was only after we had said hello that he pointed out one of the exhibits – the Tome portable lamp by Charlie White, an artist who creates works out of second-hand materials.

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