Author: despc

By Penny Craswell and Paul McInnes

This essay was written for the exhibition ‘Everything you Touch: Design from Denmark’ at The Modern Object in Canberra from 22 September to 22 October 2022, curated by Penny Craswell and Paul McInnes.

Penny:

For me, there is something so classically Danish mid-century about a warm brown teak tapered table leg or sideboard. Danish design from this era is so beautifully balanced in its proportions – not too heavy, nor too flimsy. The materials have a warmth and tactile quality that is missing from the machine aesthetic of the era with its stainless steel angles. I also always love to hear the Danish language as it always reminds me
of my Danish godmother and her husband. What do you love about Danish design?

Paul:

I’m a modernist at heart, but I’ve always been attracted to the warmth and timeless quality of Danish design from the 1950s and 1960s. I think it’s the combination of Bauhaus functionalism and the Scandinavian concept of hygge that has contributed to its enduring popularity.

Australians have always has a strong connection with Danish design. Australian taste was shaped by post- war immigration, and the work of newly resettled European designers. In the 1950s and 1960s, Australia became a major world market for Danish (and Scandinavian) design, and many local furniture companies were quick to embrace the Danish Modern aesthetic.

Hayson furniture in Melbourne is a case in point. Its founders, Cliff & Peggy Hayton started producing Danish inspired designs following a trip to Copenhagen, selling them under the ‘Hans Hayson’ label.

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By Penny Craswell

A florist and cafe is always a wonderful combination, allowing you to consume your hot beverages in amongst some flowers. Based in the Melbourne suburb of Abbotsford, La Fantaisie is especially appealing thanks to a beautiful interior by Bergman & Co.

The interior of La Fantaisie had good bones to start with, located in a two-storey Victorian building with brickwork, arched windows, a gorgeous entry door and generous proportions.

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By Penny Craswell

Sydney designer and jeweller Bic Teieu explores concepts of cultural hybridity and the home by exploding and rearranging floral motifs in a series of metal objects made from sterling silver and precious sheet metal alloys, which was recently exhibited at UNSW Galleries.

Created as part of Tieu’s PhD, this body of work has a strong conceptual and theoretical basis, exploring the designer’s own identity as a Southeast Asian Australian woman living between cultures.

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By Penny Craswell

The design challenge set for Riofrio Carroll Architects by the owners of this house in the Melbourne suburb of Carlton was to combine two long narrow terraces, demolish additions from the 1950s and 1970s, and reuse the bricks to build a new extension.

Each terrace is five metres wide with a heritage facade in patterned brick with decorative plasterwork above. These two facades were retained as a part of the property’s history: “An important aspect of the architectural project was to maintain the layers of history that had made their mark over the decades on the property,” says Nelson Riofrio from Riofrio Carroll Architects.

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By Penny Craswell

I’m excited to announce that ‘Reclaimed: New homes from old materials’ will be on sale in Australia from 30 August and is now available for pre-order from Booktopia Australia. The book will be available for sale in the UK from 2023 and in the US as well (to be confirmed).

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Marisia Lukaszewski of aestheticalliance reviews the ‘Future of Fashion’ exhibition by Stella McCartney and RE-CUT by Toogood x Carhartt, two shows proving fashion is a vital part of Salone del Mobile and Milan Design Week.

Micro dosing the ‘Future of Fashion’ exhibition by Stella McCartney

As one approaches the venue of Caselli 11-12, a 1800s neo-classical tollbooth located near the Turati metro stop in Milan, a collection of resin mushroom statues herald the location for the latest preview of ‘Future of Fashion: An innovation conversation with Stella McCartney’.

Launched originally at the UN’s COP26 climate conference, the evolving and travelling installation aims to leverage UK fashion designer Stella McCartney’s past and present achievements to inspire future action. Salone del Mobile is a ‘laboratory’ for design experimentation, innovation, and cross-pollination, making it a natural platform to introduce the designer’s proposed construction and supply-chain solutions of our shared tomorrow.

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By Penny Craswell

Australian-born UK-based designer Brodie Neill recently presented a body of work made with reclaimed, recycled and waste materials as a demonstration of circular design at Sotheby’s in London last month called ‘Material Consciousness’.

The show features nine pieces grouped into three categories: ocean plastic, reclaimed timbers and circular metals. “Each design has a story of what it once was, is now and could be in the future. As designers, we inherit these materials from nature, industry, and society and play an important role in reshaping them with better purpose,” says Neill.

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By Penny Craswell

Set within a vineyard in South Australia’s Fleurieu Peninsula, 45 minutes drive from Adelaide, is Esca Blewitt Springs, a luxury off-grid retreat with prefabricated architecture by Das Studio.

The building is the second of two prototype suites designed by Das Studio and inspired by director Dino Vrynios’s travelling fellowship to research the world’s best practice in modular construction and prefabricated construction methodologies.

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By Penny Craswell

Design is not just about creating products to sell and buildings to live in. Many designers are now looking past the traditional forms of design and architecture, and exploring design’s potential to positively impact the world in other ways. This includes how design can help rebuild habitats for bees and other pollinating insects whose natural homes have been destroyed or degraded by humans.

In The Netherlands, Matilde Boelhouwer has turned her research and design skills to reversing the drastic decline in insect population in urban environments. As part of her project Insectology: Food for Buzz, she collaborated with university researchers, scientists and engineers to design five different artificial flowers that can be installed in any urban environment to provide an emergency food source for bees and other insects.

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By Penny Craswell

This house in Melbourne’s Brighton East features a new extension with a distinctive roof that architects Wowowa describe as a colonnade. It also has a colourful new interior with a kitchen in chocolate brown, yellow, pink and multi-coloured terrazzo, and bathrooms in green and blue.

The architects have added four bedrooms and two bathrooms, extra living spaces, storage, and increased connection to the exteriors in one fell swoop with the colonnade – a new section of the building connected by a row of columns. “The hardworking colonnade is the innovation in this design,” the architect’s statement says.

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