The Design Writer

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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By Penny Craswell

Launched this week in Milan as part of Milan Design Week, ‘Me and You’ is a new range of lighting by Australian designers Volker Haug (Volker Haug Studio) and David Flack (Flack Studio).

They say that necessity is the mother of invention or as Plato wrote in the Republic: “Our need will be the real creator”. This plays out in the story of Me and You: when David Flack was installing a vintage light and the glass fitting broke, he contacted Volker Haug to come up with an emergency replacement.

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By Penny Craswell

The house is large, with rounded concrete walls, a half moon pool and stunning views of the surrounding valley. James Bond enters the sprawling living room through a glass door looking for Mr Whyte. “Well, hi there,” says a woman from a red armchair before cartwheeling out of it, “I’m Bambi.” James Bond can only take a few steps towards her before her colleague, sprawled out on a rock in a tiny yellow bikini says: “And I’m Thumper.” What follows is one of the most memorable fight scenes in James Bond history.

It’s also the scene evoked by architect and ex-Grand Designs presenter Peter Maddison at the recent Metricon conference Master of Design in Hobart to make an important point. “Architecture is about more than just habitation,” says Maddison. “It can be both memorable and iconic.” This scene from the 1971 movie Diamonds are Forever was filmed in the Elron House designed in 1969 by US architect John Lautner for interior designer Arthur Elrod. Even the armchair is iconic – this is Serie UP 2000 by Gaetano Pesce for B&B Italia.

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The Pacific Sisters is an artist collective based in Auckland combining costume, fashion, performance, dance and filmmaking in their work, which is rooted in Māori, Pacific, and Queer identities. This year, as part of the Biennale of Sydney ‘Ten Thousand Suns’, their work is on display at the Art Gallery of NSW from 9 March to 10 June.

The Pacific Sisters is a Tāgata Moana art collective that emerged from the fringes of mainstream arts and culture in Aotearoa New Zealand in 1991. Members are: Lisa Reihana, Rosanna Raymond, Ani O’Neill, Suzanne Tamaki, Selina Haami, Niwhai Tupaea, Henzart @ Henry Ah-Foo Taripo, Feeonaa Wall, and Jaunnie ‘Ilolahia.

Pacific Sisters advocate for the environment, Indigenous, POC and Queer rights and body sovereignty. The collective is an active and influential part of the wider Moana arts community, nurturing and mentoring younger artists, as well as inspiring and supporting each other’s individual art practices.

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By Penny Craswell

The future of housing was the topic of discussion at the Master of Design conference Mo.D/24 held recently in Hobart by Australian building company Metricon. 

The company, which builds homes in four states of Australia – Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia – chose to hold their inaugural conference in Hobart – a chance to get away from the everyday and gain a new perspective.

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By Penny Craswell

A cost of living crisis combined with the growing realisation (or certainty in some cases!) that we don’t need more ‘stuff’ makes gift-giving tricky, but I’m still here for quality, low cost, ethical gifts to cheer up your festive season. As I always advise, consider giving to charity, there are some great initiatives at this time of year, like World Wildlife Fund’s Adopt a Koala, UNHCR’s Empowering Gifts, World Visions’ Charity Gift Card, The Smith Family’s Gifts from the Heart and plenty more.

1. Buy these beautiful candles made with natural Australian beeswax collected from bees and bee-keepers throughout regional Australia by Queen B. queenb.com.au

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Text by Penny Craswell

Located on former agricultural land in north-east Victoria, this new home with the relatively small footprint of 100 square metres mimics agricultural buildings, with exteriors in corrugated metal and timber, and a timber picket fence that continues onto the facade at either end to create a striking effect.

One of the challenges of designing this house for BRD Studio was the climate, with temperature extremes from -5 to 45 degrees celsius and the potential of bush fires, and the remoteness of the site, which meant there was no ability to connect to mains power and water.

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Text by Penny Craswell

A former storage shed in Byron Bay’s Arts and Industry Estate has been transformed into a gallery space on the ground floor and flexible workplace on the mezzanine level above by Sydney architecture studio Benn + Penna.

The space is minimalist in grey and white, with a stainless steel mesh used to wrap the mezzanine level and a striking white spiral staircase connecting the two levels providing a visual anchor for the space. The space is also soft, with diffused light and acoustic lining installed to make the former industrial space feel more gentle and inviting.

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By Penny Craswell

Iranian women all over the world have donated headscarves, which were collected and used as a primary material to create stadium seating in an act of resistance against gender inequality by Sydney-based Iranian-Australian designer Nila Rezaei and Austrian designer Christopher Krainer from RK Collective.

Crafted Liberation: A Quest by Women of Iran is a direct response to the recent death of Kurdish-Iranian woman Mahsa Amini, who, last year at 22 years old, was arrested by the Iranian ‘moral’ police and died in custody due to an improper headscarf violation. Her death sparked widespread protests among Iranian women worldwide. The symbolism of the stadium seating is because, since 1981, Iranian women have been banned from attending men’s sporting events in stadiums.

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