Sydney-based designer Trent Jansen takes a research-led, anthropological approach to his work that often involves delving into the history of materials, movements and mythologies, and also includes cross-cultural collaboration.
Shaker Family Home by Trent Jansen. Photo: Romello Pereira
His most recent work, which is being exhibited as part of Local Milan at the Milan Furniture Fair in April 2019, is the Shaker Family Home. This piece is simultaneously a single work, and also a collection of works, with each part folding away into the structure of the main piece.
The Carafe table has a visual and structural complexity to it that is characteristic of the work of Charles Wilson, a Sydney-based designer who worked in close collaboration with Herman Miller over a period of years to complete the project.
Carafe table with drawer designed by Charles Wilson for Herman Miller
The underside features a series of compartments in moulded plywood including open shelves as well as a closed, sliding drawer that opens both ways, sloping inwards to create a geometry that is tucked in under the tabletop. The leg structure spans to the corners of the table, supporting the shelves but visually forming a third layer underneath that is drawn together at the centre in a distinctive T cross-section which Wilson says references industrial structures. Read more →
Unlike other parts of Australia, the South West coast of Victoria does not get very hot – summer maximum averages are around 23º (73ºF) while winter minimum averages are around 6º (42ºF). Architecture firm Jackson Clements Burrows have designed a small holiday cabin along the coast here as an experiment in small living as well as a way to test the best architecture to suit the climate.
Small footprint living at the Moonlight Cabin by JCB. Photo: Jeremy Weihrauch of Gollings Studio
Called Moonlight Cabin, the structure has a small footprint at only 60sqm (645sqft), an intentional choice to challenge what size is necessary for a holiday house. Inside, the cabin is one large space, with the kitchen, bathroom and utilities clustered in a central “pod”. Read more →
Lyn Balzer and Tony Perkins are a Sydney-based photography and designer/maker duo with an international sensibility, whose works are nevertheless deeply rooted in Australia. Their new exhibition at Sydney’s Australian Design Centre, called Scented Intoxication, features works made from a range of materials in two simple colours: black and white. But it is scent that is the most extraordinary feature of this exhibition.
Gallery view, Scented Intoxication. Photo: Supplied by Australian Design Centre
When you enter the exhibition space, it hits you right away, a beautiful, heady perfume that is not sweet or perfume-like in the traditional sense, but is reminiscent of burnt wood or native Australian vegetation or both. Lyn and Tony worked with French-born Australian-based Elise Pioch Balzac of Maison Balzac to create two scents for two scented candles: L’Obscurite (darkness) is a black candle with a scent inspired by one of Lyn and Tony’s photographs of a sea cave in Kiama NSW. Elise interpreted the image in a scent inspired by volcanic rocks using tree resin, birch tar and red cedar. The other scent is L’Etrangete (strangeness), a white candle with a scent inspired by another photograph by Lyn and Tony, this time of a waterfall in a lush rainforest. Elise interpreted this image of sunlight in greenery as a scent with lemon myrtle, native ginger and hemp. Read more →
