Ngalya is a project by Koskela that celebrates contemporary Indigenous fibre arts in Australia. This powerful work that play an important role maintaining cultural practice is also incredibly sought after as lighting.
Ngalya is a new Koskela range of lighting created in collaboration with six Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art centres from around Australia. Photo: supplied
Created to mark 10 years of Koskela’s collaboration with Indigenous Arts Centres (that began with Yuta Badayala by the weavers of Elcho Island Arts), Ngalya sees Koskela working with Indigenous makers from six different Arts Centres across Australia to create a series of completely new lighting designs.
Australian designer Flynn Talbot has designed the installation ‘Full Spectrum’ as Australia’s exhibit at this year’s London Design Biennale (4-23 September), which explores the theme of ‘emotional states’.
Flynn Talbot’s “Full Spectrum” at London Design Biennale, Somerset House. Photo: Mark Cocksedge
Responding to the outpouring of love and positive emotion from last year’s Marriage Equality vote and legalisation in Australia, Talbot has created a circular screen of rainbow colours made with 150 hanging fibre optic strands. Read more →
The new Jolly light by Melbourne designer Kate Stokes is all about round, joyous geometries. Translucent hand-blown glass forms a bold half sphere, while its solid metal shade creates a more introverted profile in matte black, eucalyptus, burgundy or polished brass. In the wall light variety, this shape hugs the wall, whereas in the pendant variety, it sits at a jaunty angle from straight metal rods.
Jolly light by Kate Stokes was launched at ICFF in New York alongside SIA chair by Tom Fereday. Photo: Mike Baker
Launched at the recent International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) in New York, the light is produced by Australian design brand NAU, which also launched the SIA chair by Tom Fereday at the same event, presenting an Australian design showcase to the world stage. Read more →
Designed by Bruce Rowe from Melbourne’s Anchor Ceramics, the Potter DS is a series of lights made by hand in the studio using traditional pottery techniques.
Potter DS wall light designed by Bruce Rowe of Anchor Ceramics. Photos: Haydn Cattach taken for Rakumba Lighting
A simple vertical cylinder of clay forms the wall format of the Potter DS, with a subtle indentation in its body giving it the appearance of having two segments. A slit provides an opening to the light source within that glows against the wall behind. Read more →
This year, for me, Milan Design Week is all about The Milan Report 2017, a self-publishing venture that I’m launching along with the excellent Giovanna Dunmall (London design expert and writer) and Marcus Piper (multi-talented graphic designer, designer, typographer and writer).
We’re currently putting together a range of design week Q&As, themed features, diaries, picks, contributions from experts, as well as original photography, graphic design and typography – to see for yourself, pre-order here.
And, while I dedicate my time to that, check out a few highlights in picture form as follows – all photos taken by me.
A string quintet plays in the garden of Casa degli Atellani, where Da Vinci lived while painting the last supper – really! – thanks to AirBNB.
The news that David Bowie was a big collector of Memphis (over 100 items will go on auction at Sotheby’s in London on 11 November) makes sense – both were on the cutting edge of style in the 1980s and there is a little something of Ziggy Stardust in many of the designs.
Metropole clock, Memphis, designed by George J. Sowden, 1982
Reflecting on Memphis, the Milan-based collective led by Ettore Sottsass that launched onto the international design stage in 1981, it is interesting to note its place in design history. Read more →
Based in Florence, Italy, ex.t has always pushed boundaries when it comes to bathroom design, striving for simplicity and elegance while thinking outside the basics of bath, basin and bowl. This year, they launched two new ranges, in both cases commissioning a non-bathroom designer to create something different to go alongside their bathroom products.
Plateau and Raso designed by Sebastian Herkner for ex.t. Image: supplied
In the case of the new Plataeu and Raso collection, German furniture designer Sebastian Herkner was approached to design a range that includes mirrors and pendant lights in addition to washbasin, console and bathtub. An architectural language is created through the use of a shelf that sits just behind and below the rim of the basin, console and bath, creating a functional space to rest bathroom items, while also adding the illusion of a shadow or extra dimension. The mirror features the same shadow, an extension to the oval shape by way of a transparent frame on one side only. Meanwhile, the Raso lighting pendants in pink, grey, white and transparent glass offer a complementary design object that softens the bathroom interior. Read more →
A ribbon of light twists and turns above a pedestrian street in Perth’s latest urban renewal project, Kings Square, this is Connect(us), the latest light installation by Sydney-based artist Warren Langley.
Connect(us) by Warren Langley, Perth, by night. Photo: Trent Baker
Warren has been working with the medium of light and glass for over 30 years, creating individual light installations for the Shanghai World Expo in 2011, as well as more permanent lighting displays and public artworks such as a tower made of glass and light at the Canberra Glassworks and Aspire, a forest of sculptural trees in light under the underpass in Sydney’s Pyrmont, as well as major project for Parliament House Canberra, the Maison de la Opera, Amiens, France and the Centre for Contemporary Art, Tacoma, USA. Read more →
This year I’m reporting on the fair from home in Sydney, but thanks to email and social media (hello Instagram), there is plenty filtering through already from the world’s largest furniture design event, the Milan Furniture Fair. Here’s five designs that have instantly caught my attention, from designers near and afar, even before the fair begins.
1. Ross Gardam’s Polar Desk Lamp
Since launching his studio in Melbourne in 2007, Ross Gardam has launched several furniture and lighting pieces and his Polar desk lamp is being shown at Ventura Lambrate in Milan this year. These photos by Haydn Cattach show a variety of colours and backdrops – it will be interesting to see how these translate to different environments.
Polar desk lamp by Ross Gardam. Photo: Haydn Cattach
Rolf Hay visited Australia at the end of January to open the new HAY Sydney store with retail partner Cult. Here is my interview with Rolf Hay on communicating design, the pros and cons of storytelling and what sets Danish design apart.
Penny Craswell: I’m interested in your approach to communicating design, because I’m writing my Masters in Design on design narratives at the moment.
Rolf Hay: To be honest we have always tried to be quite straightforward with communication. I’ve always had problems in wrapping products into stories. Storytelling is interesting if it’s relevant, the question is what is the important information. It’s different when it comes to communication of the brand and the values of the brand. But for products, we try to do as little as possible.
Reception with marble counter, HAY Sydney store
PC: I’m interested in which stories are told about products – and I have been quite critical of the celebrity designer angle.
RH: I totally agree. I think in the fashion industry and the furniture and design industry, a lot of people perhaps feel a little bit insecure in the fancy salons. The design industry has a reputation for being arrogant and hard to get. This has to do with an overload of information and stories behind how fantastic the company is, and how amazing the products are. For us, it’s important when we meet our clients that we meet them with an open and honest attitude. And of course it has been very important that we meet the client with a lot of knowledge about the product – about materials, about production, about environmental issues. For the client it’s less important if the designer had an idea to do this chair when he was at the beach or on the toilet. Read more →
