Writing about the ideas behind design. Think about it.
This 40 square metre home in Hobart designed by Josh FitzGerald, Director of architecture studio Archier for himself and his wife Millie was always meant to be moveable.
Casa Acton was only made possible thanks to Millie’s father, who suggested that the couple design a small home on some land he owned, with a view to moving the house to new land owned by Josh and Millie when they were ready.
Read moreWe asked Anna Grassham from Melbourne auction house Leonard Joel for her take on design at auction in Australia.
Over the last 10 years I have seen significant growth in all areas of mid-century design across Australian auction houses. In the early days, collectors and dealers were able to pick up bargains at auction, and flip items on to secondhand stores or ebay and make a good profit.
It was evident around the early 2000s when the Scandinavian wave took over, all things 1960s just went nuts. Prices at auction were doubling and tripling for teak sideboards, chests of drawers, sofas and armchairs. Australian brands that produced 1960s furniture such as Parker and Fler started becoming expensive and collectable.
Read moreThis new interior by design studio Sans-Arc has transformed an old tram shed on the Karrawirra Parri (River Torrens) in Adelaide’s Thebarton into a relaxed cafe space with natural materials and a rustic flavour. Bloom Cafe offers a contemporary fusion menu and also makes use of its riverside location for functions and outdoor dining.
Even though the clients took on a 10 year lease, Sans-Arc wanted to take a light approach, preserving the shell of the building so it can be transformed again for future tenants. “In a world of venues being demolished and re-fit regularly, we dream of coming into spaces where our process is simplified by the existing building, a beautiful envelope, where a few simple moves inside create a space perfect for the offering,” says the design statement.
Read moreMost architecture responds to site, taking into account the rise and fall of the land, exposure to wind and sun, and consideration of neighbours and views, but in some cases, the location is so unusual that it becomes an overriding factor in every design decision. Such is the case for Sam Crawford Architects who have completed their second house on Scotland Island, a small island with only 600 inhabitants and only accessed by boat in Sydney, Australia.
This part of Sydney is pretty remote anyway – situated between the northernmost part of the Northern Beaches and Pittwater – but its inaccessibility by road makes every house build a complex proposition. Luckily, with this house, Sam Crawford Architects were doing it for the second time and had already troubleshooted many of the issues. They also understand the beauty of the island: “Middens, containing remnants of shells and fish gathered and cooked by Guringai*, have been found on the northern and western parts of the Island and there are numerous rock engravings carved by the Guringai people on the surrounding hills,” says the architect statement.
Read moreAdelaide-based ceramicist Kirsten Coelho has a new solo show at UNSW Galleries called ‘The Return’ that explores the concept of a journey and how it changes us, inspired by Homer’s Odyssey and a recent trip she took to Greece and Italy to explore ancient ruins.
It all started with an audiobook of The Odyssey read by Ian McKellen that Coelho and her husband listened to on a road trip from Alice Springs to Adelaide. The idea of a journey and of how we can change and how home can change resonated with her, especially having moved home from the US to Australia as a five year old child. “[The Odyssey] ignited something in me about home and journeys, and how you change on a journey and what the idea of home is,” she says.
Read moreLast year, Sotheby’s in Paris sold a hippopotamus bathtub, bidet and toilet set by François-Xavier Lalanne for 2.1 million euros.
François-Xavier Lalanne (1929 – 2008) was a French artist known for his large animal sculptures that also open out to form desks, cupboards, dressers, bars and other functional items. As well as the Hippopotamus Family, there’s also Lalanne’s Duck dresser which also sold for a similar sum this year, and his Rhinoceros desk and sheep drinks cabinet ‘Grand Mouflon de Pauline’, two of many Lalanne pieces that sold at a 2019 Sotheby’s auction for quadruple the expected prices.
Read moreBy guest contributor and graduate of architecture Nikita Bhopti
If we were to leave an object behind for our loved ones, what would it look like? What is its significance? Does it tell us anything about what happened in that time, or carry a certain meaning about what is to come? Curated by Marsha Golemac for NGV Melbourne Design Week, Future Inheritance invited 20 multidisciplinary artists to ‘consider how, and why, objects carry meaning’. With each artist asked to ‘leave behind’ one object for the next generation, the exhibit is a collective archive of our past and present, with several objects carrying a beacon of hope for future generations.
Sitting on individual white plinths, the objects are arranged like soldiers on either side of the gallery space – both confronting and present. A ceramic vessel sits to the front left of the exhibition, greeting you as you arrive. Titled ‘Worship Me’, artist Nicholas Smith engrains the intersection of his Catholic upbringing and queer identity into this object. Through hand-building this vessel, Smith sculpts in devotional images ranging from medieval to 17th century western paintings, depicting iterations of the Man of Sorrows. Focusing on the ‘homoerotic undertones of this genre’, the tension of queer identity in the catholic realm is brought to the forefront. Smith’s ‘repetitious act of rubbing fingers’ against the vessel’s surface, the bulging forms of the vessel itself and the skin-like finish, complete with what reads like bruising, carries a sense of the grappling emotions experienced between the catholic and queer community.
Read moreIn a remote part of Bali’s northern coast, The Tiing is a new building with an old soul, constructed using traditional materials and techniques from the region. Designed by Australian designer Nic Brunsdon in collaboration with local studio Manguning, this 14-room resort is only reached after 2.5 hours travelling on smaller roads through the jungle.
Most striking are its bamboo-formed concrete walls, which feature vertical ridges made by the bamboo forma, into which the concrete has been poured on site. Bamboo is plentiful in the area and concrete is the most common building material in the region.
Read moreAustralian designer Marc Hendrick started Slowdown Studio in Los Angeles in 2015, working closely with designers all over the world to produce an eclectic and creative collection of throw rugs. Each rug is created in collaboration with a different artist and is jacquard woven using American-grown cotton. Australian design brand Koskela has a long relationship with Slowdown Studio and is now offering a range of their throw rugs through its Sydney store and online.
As part of the London Design Biennale, Andrew Scott and Hangrui Zhang have created the London Orchestra From Waste Materials, a project that creates instruments from discarded materials and plays new music composed for them.
The project provides a way of using the huge amounts of waste created in a city as big as London to create joy through music and a sense of community during the city’s lockdown.
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