On another extraordinary level are folded origami robots, or soft robots, that can perform varied tasks simply by controlling airflow and pressure. The robots are molded from paper and silicone rubber and can bend, twist, grip and even lift more than 100 times their weight.

These pneumatic prototypes are not as advanced as other robots, with no internal moving parts and electronics, they are quite simple forms. Almost akin to early life forms in the natural world like amoeba, they extend and move in a naturalistic and anthropomorphic way.

One of the creators, chemist Xin Chen of Boston University, says “If you want to go through a winding tube or rubble or some other tough environment that’s difficult to reach, you need to be flexible.”

Mechanical robots built of metal and other hard materials are normally powered by electricity and have complex internal circuitry and parts. They are heavy, and inflexible however are extremely good at carrying heavy equipment, can diffuse bombs and we can use them on assembly lines to build cars.

But there is a need for a more flexible type of robot and scientists and developers have looked to nature for other models for the basis of their designs. They have turned their attention to insects, birds, snakes fish and even quadrupeds such as dogs to gain inspiration for a new generation of robot.

The Whitesides team, funded by the Pentagon’s research unit, have developed the air-powered robot that constricts and expands. The robot can squeeze its way through a mouse hole and small cracks – a useful skill to have in earthquake-relief efforts or in the battle field. It can crawl, squirm and inch it’s way through difficult crevices adjusting and changing it’s dimensions. These robots are relatively cheap and easy to produce, are more resistant than their hard-bodied counterparts, are predominately made from elastomeric polymers and simple designs that require few body parts.

The video shows the soft bodied robot wiggling its way underneath a pane of glass.

Newer developments have incorporated the use of fabric, mesh and silicone-moulded shapes to strengthen the robot and get it to perform different functions. In the future, the researchers hope to add wiring and electronics to bring even more functions to their forms.

paper-robots-bellows-advanced-functional-materials

What can they be used for?

“In principle, you could scale down to microscopic or nanoscopic scales,” Chen said. “You can’t do the same with hard materials.”

Have you bought shoes for 99 cents and got ten years international travel out of them?

Well a Mr Fuller bought these in 1978 and trudged them all around Europe. He mended one toe strap with wire and felt they had a good two more years’ wear left, when his family prized them from him out of sheer embarrassment and gave them to the Powerhouse Museum.

Rubber thongs were a recognised anti-establishment symbol in the 1960s and 1970s, known as bangers and double pluggers, they epitomised an unpretentious and egalitarian society and reached iconic status. Australians embraced them heart and sole! Some men were even seen in them at the Opera! The residue from those subversive days is evident in the banning of thongs from many clubs and restaurants. Provocative fashion statements soften with time and thong sandals have now evolved into a benign unthreatening style of footwear – now the most popular shoe style around the world for both men and women.

Surprisingly much engineering expertise and ingenuity went into the design of thongs – the right rubber formula – the plug must not pull out – harder than you might think. Engineer Jim Merser designed the plug in a cupped shape so that as the toe thong pulled up vertically the round disc holding it into the sole spread sideways, getting wider and it did not pull through. Dunlop patented this design as a ‘device by which central forces are diverted externally.’

Thongs gained ground from the 1950s and from the early 1960s Dunlop often sold over a million pairs a year. China has long overshadowed this, producing 800 million pairs in 2001 – no surprise then that 6 million thongs are floating on our oceans.

Marine biologist Gary Carlos has a theory that the thong’s innate asymmetry separates the right thong from the left on our oceans.

Left thongs veer to the right and end up in Indonesia and right thongs end up on remote Queensland beaches and Pacific Islands.

So get down to the beach and make sure you leave your thongs above the high water mark!

Far more than a prominent architect, Le Corbusier was a visionary artist, a complex intellectual whose interests and skills included painting, writing, sculpture, furniture design, photography and urbanism.

Le Corbusier is a Powerhouse Museum exhibition, co-curated by Charles Pickett of the Powerhouse Museum and Paris based architect and historian, Pascal Mory. The exhibition is designed by Durbach Block Jaggers with Wendy Lewin.

There will be two full scale reconstructions of Le Corbusier’s best-known works: Le Petit Cabanon, the beach hut he designed for his own use at Cap Martin in 1950 and an apartment from the Cite Radieuse, built 1947-1952 at Marseilles, certain to be highlights.

Aimed at an Australian audience, the exhibition will present a comprehensive view of the work and working life of Le Corbusier, focussing mainly on housing, emphasising the relevance of his work to contemporary architecture and urban design. His work as a graphic designer and interior designer will also be featured within the exhibition as well as a variety of media and artefacts unmatched by any other architect or designer.

Portrait d'Yvonne by Le Corbusier

Joan-Maree Hargreaves spoke with Charles Pickett, Co-Curator, Le Corbusier, for the Powerhouse Museum

JH: How did the exhibition come about? Why Le Corbusier?
CP: He was the first architect to work in several countries – Australia is the only continent minus a Le Corbusier building – and he created not only a lot of the basics of modern design but the modern image of the architect.

JH: Why is Le Corbusier important in 2012?
CP: There’s always been a steady stream of books and exhibitions about Le Corbusier, but it has really picked up in recent years. That’s partly a result of a general re-appraisal of modernism that’s been happening, plus dissatisfaction with the ‘spectacle’ architecture of the past decade or so. Le Corbusier’s work is focused on simplicity, serenity and human scale, which seems very relevant now. There’s also more appreciation of his art and its relationship to his design.

I think people are also impressed by Le Corbusier’s ability to work across several disciplines – as well as architecture he made his mark as an interior designer, writer, graphic designer and artist. This sort of multi-tasking has become an ideal again.

'Le main ouverte' (1954) by Le Corbusier

JH: How is the exhibition planning coming along?
CP: We are starting to build some momentum now – things are happening with the exhibition design, loans, the book and so on. The designers for the project are Camilla Block and Neal Durbach with Wendy Lewin, while Vince Frost is doing the graphic design. We also have Jean-Louis Cohen contributing to the exhibition book – so it is quite a star-studded line-up.

JH: Tell us a little bit about your research trip/s for the exhibition?
CP: I spent a couple of weeks in France last year visiting a lot of Le Corbusier’s buildings and the Fondation Le Corbusier in Paris – nice work if you can get it! The highlight was probably visiting and staying at the Unite d’habitation in Marseille. I did a book about apartments in Australia a few years back, and the Unite is the most famous and most influential apartment building in the world – it is an experience to visit it, especially the amazing roof top.

JH: Le Corbusier, the exhibition will stand apart from other architecture exhibitions by featuring full scale reconstructions of two of Le Corbusier’s best-known works. What are you hoping these reconstructions will achieve?
CP: We are planning to recreate the interior of one of the Unite apartments. These split-level apartments are simple and modest but also quite beautiful in the way the light filters through them – very hard to recreate in a museum, though. They show how appealing and functional a simple apartment could be if well designed.

The other recreation is the Petit Cabanon, the tiny beach hut Le Corbusier designed for himself and his wife Yvonne on the Riviera. It’s really a statement of the basics of pleasure and happiness, utterly simple and completely part of its setting.

JH: What does the Le Corbusier exhibition mean for you personally?
CP: It’s different from most of my work for the Powerhouse Museum, but I’m hoping it will be a good demonstration of what the Museum can do. There are a lot of talented people involved and the result will be pretty spectacular.

JH: Are there still lessons to be learnt from Le Corbusier in Australia?
CP: Certainly, and I hope the Cabanon and the apartment make people think about what is important in the way we live and how our homes are designed. Le Corbusier had a way of isolating what is essential for contentment and comfort – I especially love the way he created things that were functional and rational but also totally individual – an ideal that not many people achieve.

JH: How is it working with your Co-Curator, Paris based architect and historian, Pascal Mory? Does working in different continents provide any particular advantages and/or difficulties?
CP: Pascal is a successful architect himself and is very insightful about Le Corbusier. He is certainly based in Paris but seems to be always on the move – so it is hard to keep up with him sometimes. But we are lucky to have on board someone with his experience and contacts.

JH: What have been some of the highlights so far in the exhibition planning process?
CP: Large projects are always a bit of a roller-coaster for the people involved; there are a lot of lenders and others outside the Museum who must be kept informed and involved.

The pleasure comes largely through working with such fabulous artefacts and designs – the other day we went to see one of the Le Corbusier tapestries that we are borrowing. Very exciting to see it and imagine it on display. The Powerhouse Museum workshop is making some models for the show of houses and a car (yes, Le Corbusier designed a car) and it’s satisfying to see them come together.

JH: What Le Corbusier object or artefact are you most enamoured with?
CP: The buildings are the favourites obviously but I also love a lot of his art; I think this will really surprise people when they see it. Le Corbusier has a rather austere image but his work is full of colour and sensuous motifs. There’s a passion in his art that also comes through in much of the architecture.

The rooftop of the Unite. Photo taken by Charles Pickett on a Le Corbusier research trip.

Images courtesy of Fondation Le Corbusier.

This is not the first time Weiwei has teamed up with Herzog & de Meuron having worked together four years earlier on the now famous Bird’s nest for the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

Beijing_national_stadium

A floating roof platform will be supported by twelve columns with water as a primary feature of the design. The roof of the pavilion will be barely five feet off of the ground and it is planned to dig a few feet deep into the soil below so that visitors can walk beneath. The primary purpose of the roof, other than to protect from the elements is to collect rainwater.

“On the foundations of each single Pavilion, we extrude a new structure (supports, walls) as load-bearing elements for the roof of our Pavilion – eleven supports all told, plus our own column that we can place at will, like a wild card. The roof resembles that of an archaeological site. It floats some five feet above the grass of the park, so that everyone visiting can see the water on it, its surface reflecting the infinitely varied, atmospheric skies of London. For special events, the water can be drained off the roof as from a bathtub, from whence it flows back into the waterhole, the deepest point in the Pavilion landscape. The dry roof can then be used as a dance floor or simply as a platform suspended above the park.”

After a successful exhibition of 100 million porcelain sunflower seeds at the Tate Modern in 2010, Weiwei has been plagued by a litany of accusations in China. He has been arrested, detained and interrogated by Chinese officials for ‘tax offences’. At this stage it is unknown whether he will be allowed to leave the country for the launch of the pavilion in June.

image of Ai Weiei transferred from [http://de.wikipedia.org de.wikipedia]; Transfered from de.Wikipedia; de:Image:Ai weiwei.jpg by User:Oxxo

image of Bird’s Nest http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Beijing_national_stadium.jpg; Peter23

If however, you are highly stimulated by individuals who transcend the boundaries between art and fashion; whose greatly respected designs are collected by museums around the world; and who represents a sense of enduring passion, non-conformist attitude and Australian optimism, then you should read on.

Photo courtesy of Sunday Life Magazine. Photographer Chris Colls.

From Bondi to London’s Chelsea Antique Market to the pages of Italian Vogue: one radical, original and creative Australian designer is still doing what she does best: creating authentic, exceptional, distinctive designs that are unmistakably Jenny Kee.

For over 40 years, Kee’s work has appeared on silk, on paper, on wool, on cotton, on ceramics and on canvas. Her designs are world-renowned, exhibited at the Art Gallery of NSW, the Australian National Gallery, the Powerhouse Museum (see the Jenny Kee fashion collection), London’s Victoria and Albert Museum and the Marimura Museum in Tokyo.

Unlike many designers who reinvent themselves to the point of being unrecognisable, Kee has carefully crafted her niche in the fashion design world and her colourful floral prints are now on the catwalks in 2012 just as they were back in the seventies and eighties.

Joan-Maree Hargreaves speaks with Kee about the new avant-garde, her latest collection, Art of the Scarf and who she would include if she were to curate a modern fashion exhibition today.

JH: Tell me a bit about your most recent project Art of the Scarf, and how it relates to your body of work.

JK: To wear art has always been my passion. Over recent years I’ve had time to reflect on what I do best and what in my work has the most integrity. Intricately collaging my paintings and designs onto silk is my form of art.

JH: What has been the response to your new works?

JK: I’m thrilled to be appreciated by my peers, but the biggest surprise has been that a new generation of designers have discovered me, kids with fresh eyes who are loving my work for the first time. This is so inspiring and exciting to me.

JH: Your prints are once again on the pages of Vogue and in high end fashion stores across the country. How does it feel to still be at the pointy end of the fashion industry?

JK: I feel honoured and humbled to be still placed at the cutting edge of the industry……..but it’s the only place I know to be.

JH: What do you think makes your work so enduring and timeless?

JK: My direct inspiration comes from my love of this country, my awe and wonder at the beauty of nature in Australia, the design of the natural world. The waratah, which is such an ancient flower, is my totem. I will keep painting it until I die.

JH: Do you think the response to your designs has changed since you opened your dress shop Flamingo Park in Sydney’s Strand Arcade in the seventies?

JK: I opened Flamingo Park in 1973 and joined forces with Linda Jackson. We had both been travelling for years. I had been living in London in the 60s and Linda had been in Asia and Europe. We saw Australia with such fresh eyes, and the public was enchanted. There was a new Australian nationalism. Gough Whitlam was an inclusive world class Prime Minister with a sense of humour. Linda and I made Opera House dresses, opal fabrics, koala and kookaburra knits. Now that culture is part of our history; Linda Jackson is currently being honoured in a big retrospective exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria.

JH: Who would you include if you were going to curate modern fashion exhibition today?

JK: Romance Was Born, Sara Phillips, Therese Rawsthorne, 2 by Lyn and Tony, Dion Lee, Carl Kapp, Andeol and the new Dylan Cooper

JH: How do you continue to evolve your style?

My subject is nature and it keeps evolving and I hope I do too! My world of colour and design changes as I look more closely, and deeper into details in the bush.

JH: Nature has always been an inspiration to you. In 2012 what would you count as a new inspiration?

JK: New inspiration comes from my spiritual path of Buddhism, which also has such a rich visual tradition. I’m especially inspired by all the Tibetan goddesses and deities….the art of the spirit and the spirit of nature.

JH: Do you think the current economic, social and cultural climate is having an impact on art, craft and design in Australia?

JK: Of course it has an impact. But in some ways an adverse economic climate can make us more creative. My message is stay small, keep integrity, stay true to your creative vision…and DO IT! And live simply and recycle creatively.

JH: You were featured in photographer William Yang’s photo-performance piece ‘My Generation’ which documented bohemian Sydney on the 1970s. Do you think there is potential in Australia for a design avant-garde?

JK: There is always an avant-garde in every generation, and in 2012 from what I see the avant-garde is about a non-consumer lifestyle and the idea of recycling in design…recycling objects in new ways. The whole challenge for design now is to conserve resources, and to not waste anything…This is the challenge that the new avant-garde is facing.

JH: What does the future hold for Jenny Kee?

JK: My emphasis in the Art of the Scarf will be on small is beautiful. My business is tiny. I iron and pack and finish every scarf. It matters to me that I do it myself because I pour real love into each scarf.

My emphasis will be on distilling everything I’ve ever done into a series of works on silk which I hope will become classics. A small footprint with a large impact, I hope.

Her winning entry, Detroit’s Shadow, is a life sized crocheted reproduction of a Model N Ford engine from 1916, made in steel and copper wire – an expression of nostalgia for the lost industrial heritage of Detroit, former car capital of the world.

Mondro conjured up this work over many months with a single wire and a hooked crochet needle to express her tribute to her family who were employed in the car industry for over 60 years. In the bigger picture she references the generations of women who used fine hand work to express their identity, yet remained anonymous. Through her work in many different media, Mondro presents her thesis on the importance of integrating fine art and traditional craft.

Constructing Detroit’s Shadow was a laborious process and required a strict schedule of over 300 hours, to complete. Working from a sketch is not Mondro‘s chosen method. Materialising in three dimensions comes more easily. Her technique became ‘engrained, subtle, exact and machine-like‘. A master of exploring the depths of human emotion, Mondro vehemently believes in the positive and healing force of art and self expression. Her work explores significant aspects of being human. Art allows us to connect with others and express emotions that do not usually surface. Mondro’s public art projects focus on how art benefits community.

Anne Mondro at work. Photo by Patrick Young.

This work is a progression from her Vulnerable Series in which three-dimensional genderless human figures were crocheted in steel wire. Fortuitously, the crochet technique produces kinks and lines that aptly suggest body creases. When photographed in different poses their flexibility suggests emotional connections, vulnerable and complex relationships. A series of crocheted hands, Reconstruct, emerged from this same technique.

Mondro was offered a residency at Artspace in Sydney in 2009. On this visit the artist was inspired by the skeleton of a deserted industrial site at Cockatoo Island on Sydney Harbour. When the Love Lace Award called for works inspired by a sense of ‘place’, there was an immediate connection with her own sense of history in Detroit.

The work quirkily humanises this machine, this symbol of large scale mass production, in much the same way that the human context is brought to the Vulnerable Series figures. Crochet’s lack of precise lines engenders a softness, a vulnerability of great appeal to the senses.

Mondro has exhibited in many galleries across the United States and driven many public art projects. She is currently Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan, School of Art and Design, Ann Arbor and has served on the North American Goldsmiths Board for the last 5 years.

In naming Anne Mondro winner of the Love Lace Award, the judges congratulated her on both her initial concept and the resolution of this work. The Powerhouse Museum is proud to showcase Detroit’s Shadow along with 129 other outstanding works in the Love Lace exhibition, on display until December 2012.
First published in Powerline September 2011.

The Love Lace catalogue featuring all artists in the Love Lace exhibition is available at the Powerhouse Museum Shop or online.

The exhibition by Gramazio & Kohler and Raffaello d’Andrea, in cooperation with ETH Zurich, features flying drones constructing a architectural structure of a ‘vertical village’ for 30,000 inhabitants out of foam blocks at a scale of 1:100. The real newly founded village for which this model is created, is located in the rural area of Meuse, taking advantage of an existing high speed train connection that brings its inhabitants to Paris in less than one hour. It is from this quest of an “ideal” self-sustaining habitat that the architects pursue a radical new way of thinking and materializing verticality in architecture.

Flight Assembled Architecture consists of over 1500 modules which are placed by a multitude of quadrotor helicopters, collaborating according to mathematical algorithms that translate digital design data to the behaviour of the flying machines.

The exhibition at the FRAC Center in Orleans, France, continues until February 19th.

Flight Assembled Architecture/Architectures volantes from FRAC Centre on Vimeo.

The Australian emerged during what may be seen in reflection as a boom time for illustration in the first decade of the 21st Century. He believes this may explain why he has never experienced a ‘weak’ period in his profession. However, if peer and critical recognition is anything to go by, timing has nothing to do with it.

Huynh’s career has gone leaps and bounds since being awarded the inaugural Design NSW: Travelling Scholarship (presented by Arts NSW and the Powerhouse Museum in association with the British Council) in 2008. He used the $18,000 scholarship to undertake a wide variety of professional development activities in Japan, the United Kingdom and New York in 2009. Huynh, who cut his teeth making comics from his home in Sydney’s western suburbs, has since been awarded Berlin’s Young Illustrator’s Award, and was named one of the most innovative contributors to Sydney’s culture at the 2009 Creative Sydney Festival.

Today, despite the GFC and global economic anxieties, Huynh is nothing but optimistic about his place in the world. “I think there is always call for a visionary, a unique and genuine voice, a skilled craftsman; that may come from a naive or inexperienced place, but it seems to me that those are enduring qualities that are trend proof, recession proof, whatever proof.” In the Big Apple in 2012, Huynh’s professional to-do list included having his work published in one of the most recognised newspapers in the world, the Sunday New York Times. A few of the editors at the newspaper had been familiar with Huynh’s work for some time, and it was a matter of waiting for the planets to align. In January, Huynh was able to draw a line through this career dream when the newspaper published one of his illustrations. “For a young illustrator, picking up a Sunday New York Times is the best, it is like a real, contemporary, exciting slice of young illustration at the moment,” he explains. “There are few outlets with the turnaround, vast thematic subject matter and sheer heft that can support regular risk-taking with illustration, exposing young artists, and always reliably showcasing the best of today’s professionals all in the one paper.”

American audiences seem to have taken to Huynh’s work with fervour. The illustrator has found the experience working in the US has already paid off. “It’s been rewarding and validating to see a positive reaction to work I’ve developed in great confidence and faith, but has had some difficult finding its own feet back home,” he says. “I know that has a touch of ‘I told you so!’ in it, but the value is not, or not only, in the accuracy or inaccuracy of my instincts or process, but that it has been a tangible demonstration of the right work only having to find the right audience.”

Back in Australia, although Huynh’s work may still be finding a mainstream following, it is highly sought after and no less highly regarded. He was recently commissioned by the Powerhouse Museum to illustrate a book about record keeping throughout time called, ‘Digital Dark Age: A Cautionary Tale,’ which seeks to act as a warning about the fragility of digital storage of our memories, stories and ideas. The subject matter made for a challenge. Once Huynh and the authors (Matthew Connell, Louise Preston and Helen Whitty) established a narrative architecture, work could begin on the design and aesthetic that would best express their aims – including telling the urgency of capturing information and evoking excitement and immediacy from a younger audience. “We ended up with a dog stealing a spear from a storytelling circle around a smoky campfire and trying to entrust it in the hands and bellies of any number of emerging and oft disappointing technological beasts,” he explains.

Matthew Connell, Principal Curator of Physical Sciences and Information Technology at the Powerhouse Museum and one of the authors of ‘Digital Dark Age: A Cautionary Tale’ (and ‘A Maths Odyssey’ which the Powerhouse Museum also commissioned Huynh to illustrate) praises Huynh’s illustrations for their simplicity, richness and evocative nature. “I was just amazed at how he captured the essence of the story with these images,” says Connell. “Each image caught a mood or series of events in a way that when it came to writing the story for the book we knew that our job was to say as little as possible. We knew he’d done it with these images.”

Huynh acknowledges the risks involved for authors in commissioning illustrators to help to tell their story. “It can be daunting for all involved when working on a book about something like recording technology with computers and digits and tape and vinyl and tablets and all sorts of gadgetry, and to have the artist hand back a book full of bold anthropomorphised monsters and a new animal protagonist,” says Huynh.

Huynh’s unique style is what continues to help place the illustrator’s work in front of high profile clients from Rolling Stone to the Rugby World Cup. Moving to New York has not only opened up his world view, but also helped to narrow his personal professional vision. “There are the tangible and obvious benefits of having myself and my work placed before the eyes of industry types and new friends, but perhaps most importantly has been informing and reshaping my own understanding of what I can be, what I’d want to be, and, just as importantly, what I wouldn’t want to be by my exposure to a wide range of work from professionals at a world class standard from all walks of life and perspectives,” he says.

On his transition, both geographically and professionally, Huynh is philosophical. “I return to New York a very different artist with a different mindset,” he says. “Under the scholarship, I was willing and open to learning as much as I could, embracing my role as student and apprentice. But today, I am captain of my own ship!”

Of her work titled Rice Bowls, Do says ‘The concept and aesthetic style of these bowls was influenced by the Korean daily utensil, the rice bowl. When I started making these bowls I was thinking about my childhood memories which are linked to the idea of the rice bowl. Personally a bowl not only acts as a container for objects but it also symbolizes a receptacle for the thoughts of myself or someone else.’

Do’s Rice Bowls created from oxidised steel and inlaid with gold, silver, bronze and odong (a copper-gold alloy) wire use the traditional Korean metal craft technique of jjoum ipsa (or choum iybsa). The artist uses a chisel and chasing hammer to create closely spaced indentations across the entire surface of the object in horizontal, vertical and diagonal directions. The resulting surface of the object has the appearance of woven fabric. Metal wire can then be inlaid into the chiselled surface to create a pattern.

Rice Bowls is created as a pair to represent the male and female is a traditional Korean convention. The male rice bowl has a domed lid covering the bowl and both the lid and bowl are densely covered in intricate inlaid patterns with a blue-black oxidised steel background.

The female rice bowl is also decorated with inlaid wire against an oxidised steel background and has a hole in the centre of the lid. It is less ornately decorated with a delicate chiselled surface that mimics a fabric-like texture.

The inlaid patterns used by Do were inspired by Joseon dynasty bojagi or wrapping cloths. In an ordered Joseon society wrapping cloths were a way in which women could creatively express their respect, love and wishes for the recipient and their family. Wrapping cloths were used in many different ways, to wrap, cover, carry or store objects. The sang po for instance is used to cover food or tables where food is served.

Through her work Do brings together childhood memories, Korean cultural traditions and the handicrafts, the ipsa technique and bojagi style of decoration with it’s inherit meaning.

Do says, ‘When I was practicing the iybsa technique, each chisel mark and hammer stroke proved equal to every single line of stitching in a wrapping cloth. The feelings involved in the chisel mark or stitching line were very similar, and this united and transcended the past and the present.’

You will find Rice Bowls in Spirit of jang-in: treasures of Korean metal craft closing 12 February 2012. Joungmee Do will be participating in a workshop at the Powerhouse Museum on this final weekend.

Their varied colour combinations and lack of decoration differentiated these bowls from the dinnerware that was most valued in mid twentieth century Australia: matched sets of fine porcelain or bone china, with intricate applied decoration. In such formal dinner sets, soup bowls lacked handles and were intended for use at a dining table. In contrast, handles made the Boyd ramekins appropriate for use at the kitchen table, in front of the television, or outdoors, while their cool design and good quality finish set them above other crockery suitable for such informal meals.

The appeal of these objects to a new generation could be put down to their mix of Bauhaus-inspired simplicity and unusual colour combinations. Or it could be simply that they are cheap and cheerful. But why do examples in good condition keep turning up for sale? Perhaps, after a first flush of use, they were reserved for special occasions, consigned to a high shelf and forgotten for years. More prosaically, they could have moved gradually into the dim depths of cupboards, replaced in everyday use by bowls that stacked more compactly in dishwashers. It is thus perhaps appropriate that the Museum’s ramekins are still in their original packaging and have never been selected for display.

Retro Revival, Adrian Franklin

From Retro: A guide to mid-20th century design revival by Adrian Franklin, published by New South Publishing in association with the Powerhouse Museum, 2011

First published in Powerline, September 2011

Bike riding and bike making in Australia has seen a series of peaks and troughs. The first began with the penny farthing in the 1880s, then the safety bicycle from the 1890s, followed by the Depression years of the 1930s when cycle racing was at its height. Today, bike culture is booming and it encompasses various subcultures, from the ‘fixie’ scene of fixed-gear bike enthusiasts, to the fashion conscious upright European riders, right through to the mainstream urban cyclists.

Indeed city councils such as the City Of Sydney are doing all they can to encourage their residents to push pedals to move from place to place. It recently developed ‘The City of Sydney Cycle Strategy and Action Plan 2007-2017’ which is part of its commitment to achieving a sustainable future by making riding a bike as attractive a choice of transport as walking or using public transport. The council aims to increase the number of bicycle trips made in the City of Sydney, as a percentage of total trips, to 10% by 2016 (from less than 2% in 2006).

Fortunately for design aficionados, with this resurgence in bike cultures comes an abundance of new bike designs emerging around the globe. In Australia, we’ve seen the success of emerging designers such as Robert Dumaresq, who was awarded the 2009 Australian Design Award-James Dyson Award for his Switch Commuter Bike, a high performance folding bike specifically designed for easy handling in crowded environments by folding to the footprint of just one wheel. And the popularity of contemporary bike making was highlighted in an exhibition called Made to Measure at last year’s Sydney Design festival. The exhibition showcased custom-built bicycles from around the country that were designed by a group of invited bicycle builders.

However, its not only bike specialists and industrial designers creating these unusual designs. People from varied and unexpected backgrounds and professions are using their own particular skill sets and applying them to building a two-wheeled person carrier.

Take the Bamboo Bike, designed by Sydney’s Mik Efford who in April 2010 decided he had had enough of sitting in front of computers all day designing websites. So instead he turned his mind to making bikes that use a renewable material. Unfortunately, the bike is still at the prototype stage because bamboo has no grading or strength certification in Australia which is preventing it from being sold at this stage.

Or, across the globe, there’s the Lagomorph Design bike, designed by an American furniture maker. It has been described as the ‘Bentley’ of the bike world because of its $6000 price tag and high-quality materials. The Lagomorph is made from American Black Walnut timber with custom aluminium fittings.

Back in Australia, Gary Galego’s Carbonwood Bicycle caused a fuss at the Workshopped exhibition in 2009.

Indeed using materials such as wood is not a new phenomenon, explains Margaret Simpson, Curator, Transport & Toys at the Powerhouse Museum. “Timber was the original material for bicycles. Our reproduction hobby horse bicycle is timber and so is the original bone shaker or velocipede,” says Simpson. Both of these represent or date from the early to mid 19th century. “Of course they were terribly heavy and cumbersome.” By the 20th century bikes were made of metal although wood rimmed wheels were used in the 1930s and 1940s for racing bikes such as the Carbine bike c.1938 in the collection.

Simpson has been researching and adding to the Powerhouse Museum’s bicycle collection for over 20 years at quite a steady rate with a new acquisition every few years. The collection is expansive and includes some eccentric designs, including the Edworthy spring frame bike. This design was an attempt to improve bicycle strength through the incorporation of circular ‘springs’ to the frame. These ‘springs’ were intended to mitigate vibration that could lead to stress failure of the frame.

Some of the more bizarre designs include a bike with various dog houses on the back belonging the Sydney eccentric, Richard Lee, modified to travel on the back of a bicycle, plastic / wood / metal / glass / paper / foam / fabric / sequin, used by dog Edward Bear. “Or the beautiful Dursely Pedersen bicycle of about 1900 which has some unique features including a lightweight triangular frame of thin diameter tube, duplicated to give extra strength, and a curious hammock-style saddle, made from woven cord suspended between the handlebars and rear frame,” Simpson explains. The idea was that the seat followed the movement of the body and was said to be comfortable, making the bicycle easy to ride on long journeys.

According to Simpson, one of the most visually impressive bikes is the Italian Colnago, of 1989-1995. The Colnago C35 is one of the first road bikes made with a carbon fibre frame and was launched in 1989 to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the company founded in 1954 by Ernesto Colnago at Cambiago near Milan. This limited-edition bike features monograms and lettering highlighted in gold leaf and some gold-plated parts. “However its sculpted frame is its most striking feature. Unlike metal frames, carbon fibre frames are generally formed in one piece, known as a monocoque,” she says. The C35 was produced in association with Ferrari, which began using carbon fibre in its Formula One cars during the 1980s.

Simpson believes the recent upsurge in bike ownership and riding for pleasure is probably unprecedented and suggests that the bicycle’s enduring design must be related to its incredible efficiency and simplicity which has seen it succeed around the world being used by everyone from Chinese broom-sellers to Dutch families. Simpson argues the global popularity of the design was cemented when in 2007, listeners to BBC Radio 4 were asked to vote for the most significant invention since 1800. “In Britain it was voted the most important invention of since 1800 with 59% followed by the transistor at 8%. The computer came in at 6% and the internet at 4%. The bicycle came out ahead of the steam locomotive and the automobile,” Simpson says.

“It is incredibly affordable and ecologically friendly something extremely important to us today.”

Since the build-up to the 2008 Olympic games, China has been racing to create innovative architecture using high-profile Western architects and architectural firms including Koolhaas and Scheeren of OMA. Koolhaas has said the following of his experience in China:

‘With globalization, we all have more or less the same future, but Asia and Africa feel much more new. I’ve been doing research in China recently, investigating cities that emerge suddenly, in eight years or so, seemingly out of nothing. These places are much more vigorous and representative of the future. There, building something new is a daily pleasure and a daily occurrence.’

Many recent architectural projects in China have become cultural icons. Yet it is arguable whether they contribute to the habitability of the city and promote human interaction. However Koolhaas’ faith in the ‘congested’ city, supported by his manifesto Delirious New York written in the 1970s, celebrates and analyses the city as metaphor for the variety of human behaviour and uses it as a testing ground for metropolitan lifestyle.

Koolhaas stands apart from his counterparts arguing that architecture has little impact on the happiness and well being of society and that chaos and difference are impossible to discipline and are essential conditions of modernity. In his view the architect has limited power to create order and serenity. It is the role of architects to create spectacles and coincidences.  He strongly believes that the ‘unplanned’ and ‘juxtapositions’ are essential elements of urbanism, and that architecture should encourage rather than discipline urban randomness.

It’s not surprising to find illogical combinations of shapes and materials in his arsenal. However as enfant terrible and advocate of spectacle and complexity, it is still unclear whether his writings match his designs. Apparent randomness in the exterior of the CCTV HQ cloaks the well designed internal order of the building that includes a well thought-out path to allow public access without intruding on work environments.

Constructed separately, the towers were designed to meet at the top where they were joined by the bridging floors. It was during the construction stage that they were prone to independent movement caused by wind and variations in surface temperature. Construction issues were therefore a key consideration in the design process.

The recently acquired model of the CCTV HQ by the Powerhouse Museum clearly demonstrates the engineered structure that was designed to take the forces of stress. The irregular grid of the supporting steel diagrid structure is a visible expression of the forces travelling through the steel frame. Loads follow these diagonals and allows gravity and lateral loads to be transferred along it to the ground. The denser diagonal patterns indicate a stronger load.

This load bearing structure also gives the building the strength to support the cantilever overhang and to withstand seismic activity common in the area. The framing system marries columns, diagonals and bracing into one system insuring internal cores transfer minimal amounts of gravity load. As a result floor slabs transfer less lateral loads and allows more open space. This also allows floor plates to be a different shape on each level. Trusses span the bottom two floors of the overhang. The loads above these are transferred to the trusses which subsequently transfer the loads to the diagrid system.

The video shows the CCTV HQ and the TVCC (Television Cultural Centre), complex. Unfortunately in 2009, the TVCC building was badly damaged by fire ignited by fireworks during New Year Lantern Festival celebrations and has not been open to the public.

The model of the CCTV tower is in the Powerhouse Museum Collection.

The recently formed design promotion organisation, Good Design Australia, will present the Australian International Design Awards, one of the longest standing and most prestigious design awards in the world.

With a proud heritage dating back to the Industrial Design Council of Australia established in 1958, the Australian International Design Awards is recognised by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID) as Australia’s peak design endorsement scheme.

Last year’s title of the overall Design Award of the Year was given to Kompan for its dynamic children’s playground design, ICON. The innovative playground combined electronic games with challenging outdoor play equipment, giving children the best of both worlds.

Good Design Australia is a new design promotion organisation that operates the Australian International Design Awards and seeks to promote design in Australia and abroad. Good Design Australia is guided by the Good Design Council, a newly established advisory committee comprising representatives from the design industry in Australia and internationally.

The ‘longlist’ of nominations are selected by industry experts who seek innovative and engaging designs across seven categories: Architecture, Digital, Fashion, Furniture, Graphics, Product and Transport. Unsurprisingly, many of the design world’s most acclaimed big names made the cut, including Zaha Hadid Architects, Vivienne Westwood and Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec.

Lesser known, but no less awe-inspiring are designers who are forging new territory and shifting the ‘sustainable’ paradigm in design terms.

The transport category appears to be one of the most exciting of all. Manifesto’s Bike Hanger is a bold and brilliant design solution to the problem of urban bike storage. It has the capacity to vertically store up to 15 bicycles in a minimal amount of space and can be operated without any power, except for the user’s own pedalling power.

All of the nominations will be on show at the Designs of the Year exhibition at the Design Museum, London from 8 February – 15 July 2012. A full list of the Design of the Year 2012 can be found here. From this list of nominations, a jury will select the seven category winners and an overall winner for the Design of the Year 2012.

If there is one item of furniture that is completely modern, it is the coffee table. As far as I can tell, there were no Greek or Roman coffee tables to inspire later European makers of antiques, partly because coffee drinking was unknown in classical antiquity. But then again, they didn’t watch TV either, and it was the combination of drinking coffee and watching TV that gave the impetus for the coffee table.

By 1675 there were 3000 coffee–houses in the UK, but not a single coffee table, or at least, not as we know them. This is because, until the twentieth century, people drank their coffee sitting on fairly normal dining chairs at tables that were dining table height. You can find antique long, low tables which are even described as coffee tables but, believe me, most of them have had their legs shortened after the modern coffee table became popular.

So what prompted their design in the first place? There are several theories. One has it that low tables popular in the Ottoman Empire were imported and became fashionable. This may be true, but they did not become an established feature of western homes until later, when people began to favour sitting on much lower sofas. From the late 1920s and 1930s, one sees a few low tables that are probably the ancestors of all coffee tables. One of the first to be called a coffee table was produced by Mies Van Der Rohe in 1929 and was constructed, somewhat outrageously, of chromed steel with a glass top.

However, it was not until television held people in specially designed low-slung chairs and sofas for such long periods of time that the idea of eating and drinking at this elevation became feasible or popular.

Tea was still drunk mainly at the table but coffee somehow detached itself from dining formality and wandered about the house more. It is therefore sculptor Isamu Noguchi’s coffee table of 1944, just at the beginning of the TV era, which is often considered the ancestor of all coffee tables. Like Mies Van Der Rohe’s earlier piece, it was glass topped, but that’s where the resemblance ends. Noguchi’s design was warmer and softer, with a free-form wooden base of ebonised walnut. It fitted in well with the relaxed, comfy space of the modern ‘television room’ and allowed coffee cups and the odd magazine to be within each viewer’s reach.

Australia was onto the coffee table very early and Paul Kafka’s coffee table of 1940 is a masterpiece of modern design. Made of walnut veneer and sapele wood with a peach mirror-glass top, this three-tiered coffee table would fit into any modern interior, from Art Deco to Memphis. After Kafka, every major Australian furniture designer offered a coffee table. As a piece of furniture, the coffee table offered the designer the opportunity to identify the clearest expression of their times.

Robert Klippel’s 1954 design for a coffee table that could be made from one sheet of wood demonstrates not only the cleanest of interlocking lines but also a design that could be easily translated into industrial art. A year later he produced one of the best coffee tables ever: his ‘Boomerang’ coffee table. Again, there is a smoked-glass top that provides a good view of its amazing sculptural base structure, comprised of two black and two white boomerang shapes that cleverly provide both the legs and the supports for the top. All four boomerangs articulate around a large red atomic sphere that focuses the entire design. If ever there was a design crying out to be reissued, this is it. 1955 was a good year for the factory of Functional Products in Sydney who were making Douglas Snelling’s coffee table: a simple free-form shape in maple with confident diagonal legs.

Through the 1950s to the 1970s the coffee table began to inhabit almost every home as a required element of furniture. The artists’ palette-shaped coffee table, mostly set on three unsteady legs, was widely manufactured or made at home during the 1950s. Although one feels that these were ubiquitous, it is nonetheless true that not many have survived into the present day. In 15 years of searching at my local markets and garage sales, I have only ever found one.

Through the 1970s, few coffee tables excite. They became generic and pedestrian, and for a ghastly period were made from cane and pine. These have very little retro interest. Enter John Smith in the 1980s, then under the spell of Memphis Design fromItaly. His hard-to-ignore  ‘Colourblock’ coffee table from 1984 brought back so much colour, art and excitement to the television room that I cannot imagine myself watching TV if I had that to look at instead.

This is an extract from Retro: A Guide to the Mid-20th Century Design Revival by Adrian Franklin, published by New South Books in association with the Powerhouse Museum.

Available from the Powerhouse Shop and online.

Fist published in Powerline, Dec 2011

This avant-garde collective of Italian designers and architects, formed in 1981 under the leadership of Ettore Sottsass, seems to be undergoing somewhat of a revival in the second decade of the 21st Century. The reason for this renaissance may lie at the heart of the Memphis Group’s ethos and what this collective stood for: “Memphis was an ‘80s design phenomenon. Given the current retro preoccupation with mid 20th Century design and nostalgia for the boom-time 80’s, it doesn’t surprise me that the Memphis Group’s bold designs and flagrant individuality are enjoying another vogue, though I suspect it may be a short flowering,” says Christina Sumner, Principal Curator Design & Society at the Powerhouse Museum.

Be it short lived or a more lasting bloom, certainly marking its significance to the design community to this day is the teaming up of an Australian design company and one of the Memphis Group’s core members, Nathalie du Pasquier. Last year, Melbourne-based Third Drawer Down worked with du Pasquier to re-release a series of her designs on a range of homewares and textiles, including tea towels, napkins, placemats and mugs.

The exclusive project came about when Abigail Crompton, owner and founder of Third Drawer Down, came across work by du Pasquier on various blog sites that she frequents. Crompton was unaware at the time that the collaboration would correlate with the 30th year celebration and exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London last year (Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970 – 1990) that sought to put the spotlight on the Memphis Group once more. “Everything in culture rotates or slides from side to side. I think the 30th year anniversary of Memphis and the amazing exhibition at V&A on Postmodernism, where Memphis were headlining the exhibition brought a new generation of followers to their work,” says Crompton.

A second collection is being launched at the moment at design fairs in Paris, New York and Tokyo through Third Drawer Down distributors. “Initially we licensed exciting patterns from the 1980s period; work Nathalie Du Pasquier produced during the Memphis phase,” says Crompton. “The second collection is exciting for both Nathalie and collectors of Memphis, as we commissioned Nathalie for new works that are featured across the collection of ceramics and textiles.”

The French-born, self-taught artist and textile designer, du Pasquier designed the first Memphis fabrics and floor rugs as well as tableware and furniture. According to Sumner, du Pasquier had a masterful and idiosyncratic way with colour and abstract geometric form. Crompton agrees: “Nathalie Du Pasquier is a pioneer of our modern time with her patterns and she has inspired many artists and designers over the past 30 years with her graphics and will continue to do so into the future.”

The Memphis Group were revolutionaries who broke away from mainstream modern design, and Sumner suggests, good taste is not generally a revolutionary priority. “While they probably cared little for good taste as such, the Group did care a great deal for good design. I think most contemporary designers would make a similar choice if required to,” she says.

Crompton posits that a fascination with the Memphis Group will always exist because of the curious nature of their designs: “I am unsure whether there is a particular significance to 2012 with Nathalie du Pasquier’s work as these designs are not constrained by a particular time and will always be seen as a little strange and shocking and will inspire all generations.”

The Powerhouse Museum collection houses a number of du Pasquier’s works from her time in the Memphis Group. These include two cotton furnishing prints, ‘Cerchio’ and ‘Zambia’ with “her characteristic abstract designs in singing colours,” explains Sumner. “We have a fabulous carpet called ‘California’ which is one of my favourite objects for its vision of dreamy clouds floating past behind sharply contrasting geometric forms, there’s a wild yellow tie bought in London in the mid ‘80s, and a bright red shirt with a design of cartoon space ships,” Sumner says.

The Third Drawer Down collection has been very successful thus far with orders from major department stores including Selfridges in London and design and museum stores around the world. The new range of homewares by Nathalie du Pasquier for Third Drawer Down is due for release in the coming months.

Nathalie du Pasquier's Placemats

With the building of the two main stadia for the Beijing Olympics in 2008, China’s architectural and engineering reputation soared. Both The National Stadium (known as the Bird’s Nest) by Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, and the National Aquatic Centre (known as the Water Cube) by the Australian Firm PTW Architects, surpassed all architectural expectations.

Increasingly, stadia have become the new cathedrals of our times. The dual cathedrals, The Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube, situated along the axis that was once the preserve of the Forbidden City and its associated buildings, inspired and awed visitors to the 2008 games. Today these buildings have become tourist attractions outliving their life expectancy as venues for the Olympic Games.

In the 15th century Beijing was symmetrically laid out on a north-south axis along which it’s most symbolic structures aligned with the Forbidden City at its centre. The Drum Tower and the Bell Tower (used for centuries to tell the time)  and Jingshan Park (originally the Imperial Gardens) all lie to the north. More recently the communist regime introduced Tiananmen Square and its Monument to the People’s Heroes and Mao Zedong’s Mausoleum to the south in 1958. Tiananmen Square, monument to self-sufficiency, now sits opposite the country’s symbol to its latest aspirations and global ambitions, the Olympic Green Precinct.

The two most notable contemporary additions at the northernmost end of the north-south axis are now the Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube. Their outstanding architectural structures push the boundaries of imagination, innovation and engineering while they continue to observe Chinese symbolism and yin yang balance. The Water Cube’s rectangular form represents the earth and compliments the circular shape of the adjacent Bird’s Nest, symbol of heaven. The bowl-shape of a giant bird’s nest, symbolising abundance, glows red at night representing the red phoenix for protection.

Since the 2008 Beijing Olympics the Powerhouse Museum has acquired the original model for the National Aquatic Centre developed by ARUP International. The sectioned construction model is an excellent representation of the outstanding structural and material engineering features that have made the Water Cube so unique. It shows the sectioned interior of the main foyer while accurately mimicking the building. In addition, one can clearly see the geometry adopted by the structural engineers and the specialised roof and wall cladding materials and design. Made for professional and promotional use, the model assisted ARUP engineers to model the Water Cube design in physical space and to visualise the unique cladding on the structural framework.

Water Cube Model, Powerhouse Museum

In the design and construction of the Water Cube, PTW worked with a consortium that included engineers from ARUP International engineering group, China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC ) and China Construction Design International (CCDI ) of Shanghai to achieve their vision. The Water Cube introduced a range of engineering and architectural innovations to make the building look like a cross-section of foam in the shape of a cube. It required new technologies and engineering solutions but it also needed to be functional and efficient in its use of water, energy and resistance to earthquakes. The end result is inspirational.

Conceptually, water in the form of foam, offered the best architectural solution which led to a structure made to look like a cluster of bubbles. To solve engineering issues designers and engineers at ARUP pursued the work of physicist Lord Kelvin who in the 1880s attempted to determine the least surface area of a volume and the space and surface area they occupy when packed closely together. At first Lord Kelvin’s work seemed to offer the right solution to achieve this however through digital reproduction at ARUP, engineers found they were unable to reproduce a convincing naturalistic pattern that mimicked foam effectively. It was found that Kelvin’s structure was too regular.

Engineers then turned to the research carried out by Denis Weaire and Robert Phelan in 1993 and found their structural solution used 0.3 percent less surface area than that of Kelvin. The structure was made up of two different shapes that when clustered, digitally reproduced cross-sectioned patterns that were more organic. One shape was a slightly irregular dodecahedron and the other was 14-sided shape with two opposite hexagonal faces and 12 pentagonal faces. The cross sections were reproducible, more naturalistic and produced a repetitive and buildable pattern. In fact the pattern repeated in such a way that was very difficult to detect.

Each bubble is outlined by steel beams and provides the weight bearing structure of the building. This structure is so strong that the entire building could be turned on its side without loosing structural strength. Buildings usually rely on triangles to provide stiffness. Without triangles the Water Cube is more flexible and more able to withstand earthquakes.

The bubbles are made of ETFE pillows. ETFE (or copolymer of ethylene and tetrafluoroethylene), has specific qualities such as translucency, high absorption of radiation and low UV absorption. Its flexibility makes it easily used for pneumatic cushion structures. It is also fire and heat resistant, deteriorates far less than other materials, possesses ductility and crushing resistance and is self cleaning as the friction coefficient of the material prevents dust collection.

The pillows are made of three layers; an outer, middle, and inner layer. The air inside is pressurised to 200pa and the pillows are placed in the polygonal openings created by the steel beams creating the roof and ceiling as well as the exterior and interior walls. The middle layer offers thermal and acoustic insulation and also protects from bird strikes and flying debris during typhoons. Superior in terms of lighting and thermal efficiency, ETFE also protects the steel structure from corrosion and it is estimated that it will help the building last 100 years.

By combining ETFE technology, comparing the Kelvin problem to Weaire-Phelan structures and the use of Chinese symbolism, Architects at PTW were able to provide a multifunctional aquatics centre that reduces energy consumption, incorporates new construction materials and methods that can withstand seismic activity. The Water Cube is now the largest ETFE structure in the world consisting of more than 4,000 bubbles, some as large as 9 metres in diameter. Today the Water Cube has been converted into an underwater themed water park with colourful air bubbles, sea weed, coral and jelly fish to extend the aqueous atmosphere of the building. Whether or not it is sophisticated enough to complement the geometry of the architecture will be the test of time.

The Apple company really took off with the Apple II in 1977. Compact, affordable and user friendly, the Apple II brought the capabilities of main frame computers into people’s homes. It was a mainstay of the personal computing market until the early 1980s, when Apple launched the Macintosh.

The Macintosh embodied much of Steve Jobs’ visionary approach to the design and marketing of computing technology. It was the first commercially successful personal computer to use a mouse and the graphical interface system known as WIMPS (Windows, Icons, Mouse and Pull-down menus), originally developed at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Centre. Steve Jobs became convinced WIMPS was the future of personal computing, despite widespread derision from across the industry.

The first Apple computer to use a graphical interface, the Lisa, failed because of its high retail cost. But the more competitively priced Macintosh soon followed and was a hit, particularly within the creative industries and universities. Under Steve Jobs’ direction, Apple’s marketing positioned the Mac as a partner in the creative process rather than a nerdy tool for calculation, with slogans like ‘skis for the mind’ and ‘computers for the rest of us’.

In the story of these few early Apple objects from the Museum’s collection, the genius of Steve Jobs – for communication as much as computing – is already apparent. His death in October 2011 sparked a wave of tributes around the world. In the words of US President Barack Obama, ‘By making computers personal and putting the internet in our pockets, he made the information revolution not only accessible, but intuitive and fun … The world has lost a visionary’.

First published in Powerline, December 2011

This is certainly true when you think of furniture. “Good joinery is the kind that you don’t really notice,” said Dr Paul Donnelly, the Powerhouse Museum’s Curator of Design and Society. Much Dutch and Scandinavian mid-twentieth Century furniture is revered for its beautiful joinery and how the pieces fit together almost seamlessly or even as though it is not joined at all. “For instance, Rietveld’s Red and Blue Chair looks like it defies logic,” said Donnelly. Meanwhile Rietveld’s Zig Zag Chair, appears to stand effortlessly despite it not having any legs.

In a nod to what is often overlooked by award presenters and praise givers, it was the join itself including the choice of material that was recognized at this year’s 2011 Bombay Sapphire Design Discovery Award. The honour was given to Sydney-based designer, Henry Wilson, for his ‘A-Joint’. According to Wilson, the A-joint is a sand-cast, strong, multi-use joinery system that makes it possible to unite standardised, multi-sized, pre-dimensional timber in up to four different configurations.

JH: Why are you interested in imitation and originality and how does this impact your design?

HW: I think this question refers to my work for the ‘Workshopped’ exhibition in August 2011. I repurposed a found, council clean up chair. It was a ‘replica’ of the famous Wassily chair so frequently copied and pumped into foyers and hotels around the world. The debate surrounding Matt Blatt was (and still is) in full swing and I wanted to comment on the situation by making something not just talking about it. I was trying to suggest that when you go and apply time, energy, skills and material into the refurbishment of a ‘fake’ what are you saying about the process of design and perceived value of this knock-off? I wanted to see if I could elevate something that was destined for the landfill and by doing so give it a playful, new Australian identity. Hence the dull blue from the ‘down-pipe guttering’ ‘wattle’ colour card, the saddle leather and the relaxed slung seating.

JH: You’re a graduate with first class honors from the Australian National University and hold a Masters in Man and Humanity from the prestigious Design Academy Eindhoven in The Netherlands. How has your education influenced or determined your design philosophy?

HW: At the ANU I learnt how to make. It is a Bauhaus based education focused around the studio practice of a discipline, this then leads to a natural design inquiry. I was lucky enough to be guided through these formative years (both as a young man and as a designer) by such a skilled and thoughtful man as Dr Rodney Hayward. He and the school slowed me down and made me think about the act of how things go together. I have found that the sensitivity needed to work a medium as challenging as wood is valuable; it translates well to other materials.

After this I went to study in the Netherlands where I was forced into a much higher pace of work, things had to be done quickly and the concept was paramount. It was a battle against my tutors, which is exactly what makes Dutch design so interesting. It’s the questions and angles people choose to resolve problems, which makes it such a leading society in design.

I like to think these two quite different educations, have combined in away to give me an understanding both of the industrial nature of design, whilst also capturing some of those hidden, social, gritty bits that bring the layers and hopefully a bit of poetry to the final object.

JH: What makes the A-Joint unique?

HW: I’m not sure the A-joint is quite that unique, it is an A-frame, which is as old as the hills. Where it differs is in the choice of materials and the dimensions it has been governed by. The A-joint will fit a variety of pre-dimensioned timber and hold it in a very strong way for long or short periods of time. It will not rust or deform under normal working conditions (timber will break before anything) and it can be recycled or repurposed endlessly.

I chose sand-casting because of its suitably to the form and its low-tech industrial process. I think that sand-cast objects hold a certain value, which is hard to pinpoint, I tend to feel humbled by their presence and inquisitive of their function. Basically I could never throw one out, which is exactly my intention when designing the A-Joint.

JH: You’ve described the A-Joint as a ‘celebration of standardisation’. What do you mean by this?

HW: It’s about making do with what we have. There is so much worldwide infrastructure going into making timber in certain standard dimensions. It’s usually made from cheap, strong, sustainably grown pine and used in construction. It tends to be forgotten that it is wood. Natural timber in any format is a beautiful resource; it is a challenge to get people to rethink its role in domestic furniture.

JH: How did you come up with the design? What was your design process? Did you research existing joints?

HW: I am pretty well always researching things, I have a very inquisitive mind and I am constantly drawing form my surroundings. I didn’t research joints in particular but I did get a lot of clues from the industrial sectors. I really like the way military and industry shape objects, it is always so honest and I take a lot from that.

JH: Is the A-Joint being manufactured?

HW: Yes they are being made in either bronze or aluminium just south of Sydney by a family run foundry.

JH: How would you describe the current state of the design field in Australia? How does it compare internationally?

HW: It’s a very difficult comparison to make; Australia is not a country of fabricators like so much of Europe, Japan or even the USA. Making is often where interesting ideas are resolved. I think this is why we follow the trends of the world so closely. In my opinion design should reflect the identity of the society it was born to service. We are a country full of tinkerers and innovators and our furniture or object designs often don’t communicate that.

JH: How would you describe your design aesthetic?

I try not to have a fixed aesthetic I am more guided by what is honest. I take this philosophy from designers such as Achille Castiligioni and the Bouroullec brothers. Their most complex and seemingly ornate designs are almost always resolved without tricks.

JH: If you were to drill down to what is most important to you as a designer, what would it be?

HW: Really reflecting on what it is I am making and bringing into this world. There is that story of the IDEO founder going on holiday in the Bahamas and seeing a beach full of his tooth brushes, freaking out, going home, and totally restructuring his business and way of thinking about design. Now they are one of the most progressive companies in design.

JH: You have teamed up with Trent Jansen with your Pop-Up shop at The Rocks in Sydney. How did the public respond?

HW: They are still responding. Funny place the Rocks, we are very lucky to have access to the space and it’s a great platform to display and sell our work. I don’t think many Sydney siders make use of the area its our ‘old town’ in any other country it would be prime time.

JH: Have you designed with Trent Jansen? What does the future hold for Trent & Henry? How did this collaboration come to be?

HW: Trent and I have never actually designed anything together. We share a common point of view on sustainability and we feed off each other’s energy. Whether this will build into anything more I cannot say. Hopefully we get the chance to do something on a larger scale one day, a fit-out or something would be good to collaborate on.

JH: Can designing new furniture ever be sustainable or ethical?

HW: Yes. Absolutely. We just have to adjust a little bit to make a large impact, for instance stop buying throwaway furniture. Large chains like IKEA actually encourage the consumer to buy new instead of hiring movers to shift the stuff!

At the festival of dangerous ideas, Jonathan Safran Foer talked about his friend being a vegan before 5pm. Foer thought this was one worthwhile step in the right direction for sustainable eating, perhaps a similar concept can be adopted for consuming material goods.

‎”Decisions have always been revealed as a series of steps, too small for their significance to be apparent at the time. It’s only in retrospect that one realizes one has taken a stand.” – Evgenia Citkowitz

JH: Who are your design idols?

HW: Barber /Osgerby, Achille Castiglione, Bouroullec brothers, Dick Van Hoff, Aldo Bakker

JH: Who or what has influenced you?

HW: People and society, that’s what shapes my design solutions and me. I am just trying to make sense of things for myself. It is clear people don’t know what they want, it has always been the designers job to deliver solutions and value add to materials, this can either be thoughtfully done or lacking in consideration.

JH: What are your design aspirations for the future?

HW: I would like to continue and grow my studio practice in Australia and abroad, work on more collaborative projects with local companies in the Australasia region. I am also interested in design education.

Foster is the 2011 recipient of the Design NSW: Travelling Scholarship offered each year by the NSW Government, with the support of the Powerhouse Museum and the British Council. He used his $18,000 scholarship to help fund a year-long Type & Media Masters Degree at the prestigious Royal Academy of Art (KABK). Its teaching focuses on the processes needed to create fonts suitable for all mediums.

Under the piercing blue skies of Den Haag in The Netherlands, Foster’s studies range from designing fonts using open-source software to learning how to carve letters from stone. In this interview Joan-Maree Hargreaves talks with Foster about his experiences, achievements and challenges so far.

JM: How does studying in The Netherlands differ from studying in Australia?

DF: It’s hard to make a comparison between studying in Australia because I studied a degree in Australia but this a postgraduate course so the nature of it I think is quite different. However, my experience so far has been amazing. At times it can be stressful, and will continue to be this way but it’s a price that’s easy to justify when given such a great opportunity. For anyone interested in the details of my experience, they can visit my blog at http://kabk.davethedesigner.net. It’s important to also make the point that the knowledge about type just isn’t available in Australia. So there’d be no possibility for me to do it there. Without this chance to focus and be surrounded by people with such energy and determination I couldn’t improve at the pace I am, nor generate the volume of work I currently have or will create. The best part is that I feel my graphic design will improve from this too.

JH: What were your expectations of the course, the place and the art school itself and have they been met?

DF: My expectations were to be in an environment where I could focus on type and where I would be surrounded by classmates and teachers who shared my passion. The teachers especially have such a deep understanding and enthusiasm through practice but I’ve learnt almost just as much from my fellow students. They’re all very inspiring. I also had the expectation that the course is really about learning through practice. I have to say that I’m extremely happy and feel like what I expected has been exceeded. As far as other things go, I expected cold weather and to be riding my bike a lot. The weather hasn’t been as bad as I expected (yet) and I love riding my bike everywhere.

JH: What has been the biggest lesson or challenge so far?

DF: It’s very hard to say because I’ve learnt so much. But really there are a few major things. Learning how to evaluate shapes and proportion is an ongoing learning process. It’s one I think never really stops for any one designer. But if I was going to isolate a general philosophy that sits above all my subjects, it would be learning how to make mistakes faster.

JH: What has been your greatest achievement?

DF: Nothing really springs to my mind immediately. Mainly because the process of learning here is so steady (in a steep kind of way) that nothing spikes up as a dramatic achievement compared to anything else. But also by being here, you realise how little you really know, so it’s hard to see anything that I do as a great achievement. Out of all the things I never expected I could do before I began, designing a Greek typeface and learning scripting are the two that were at the top of that list. But I still have trouble believing I got this scholarship and that I’m here, doing what I love and being able to concentrate on it. So much time and effort was put into being accepted here, applying for the scholarship and moving my whole life over here. So I’d say the thing I’m most proud of is just being here.

JH: Tell me about some of the interesting people you’ve met?

DF: I’ve had the honour of meeting people I’ve respected since I began as a designer. Wim Crouwel is one in particular who has influenced my work and the work of many Australian designers whom I also admire. We will be designing the Gerrit Noordzij Prijs exhibition containing his work in the middle of next year. I have also met Matthew Carter, one of the most widely known and important contemporary type designers responsible for Verdana, Tahoma and Georgia among many. I also met Lida Cardozo of the Cardozo Kindersley stone carving workshop in Britain. But inevitably my classmates and teachers are the ones I’ve become the most acquainted with and they’re all interesting people that I feel lucky to be among.

JH: Tell me about some of the events you’ve attended?

DF: My trip began with a type festival here in Den Haag called ‘Now We’re Talking’. Shortly after beginning the course we went to the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and the Meermanno Museum here in Den Haag. I’ve been to Antwerp for ‘Integrated 2011’ design conference and while I was there we visited the Platin-Moretus Museum, one of the oldest archives of printing materials in the world. ‘Type Amsterdam’ conference at the University of Amsterdam was also really fun. I’m looking forward to May when we go to ‘TypoBerlin’, one of the most well know type conferences. But besides design related events the Dutch have big holidays here and it’s good to get into some stuff once in awhile. Since I’ve been here they’ve had Princes Day and also Sinterklass, which I travelled to Utrecht to see.

JM: Can you take me through some of the subjects you’re currently taking?

DF: My class schedule is currently Mondays with Paul van der Laan creating a revival of Caslon from a book series printed by Jan van Krimpen in 1925. On Tuesdays I start with stone carving, in the afternoons we are currently designing a Greek companion for an existing typeface with Peter Bilak, we also practice our public speaking in preparation for our graduation. On Wednesday mornings I have python programming and in the evenings we discuss a variety of subjects with Petr van Blokland, mainly based around workflows, the design process and the commercial side of things. Thursdays are one of the busiest days. We have Erik van Blokland in the mornings and Peter Verheul in the afternoon. Initially these subjects started with calligraphy but have now moved into drawing types based on those calligraphic principals. Fridays are spent planning the upcoming exhibition for Wim Crouwel or going on excursions to Museums.

The demise of Osama bin Laden is certainly the news story of 2011. Among the torrent of analysis, news stories and blogs this event has generated, bin Laden’s home of the past five or six years has attracted considerable comment.

Apparently part of the reason that this 3-storey concrete villa attracted the suspicion of the CIA was the building’s design, notably its tall surrounding walls and small number of windows. A White House spokesman was widely quoted: ‘Intelligence analysts concluded that this compound was custom-built to hide someone of significance.’

One doesn’t wish to query what is already received journalist wisdom, but my reaction on viewing photos of bin Laden’s hideout was admiration for its utter anonymity. Far from generating suspicion, it seems more likely that the generic character of bin Laden’s pile was a significant part of the reason that he could reside undetected in a Pakistan garrison town.

The building may have been larger than its neighbours, but similar ponderous villas can be found in great numbers across most of the world, especially its less prosperous parts. Concrete may appear non-domestic to Australian eyes, but it is the popular construction material of today’s world. Its materials are cheap and widely available, its labour intensive construction is not a problem in low-wage economies, and it is easy to add extra floors and rooms to concrete structures; the ends of reinforcing rods are often left exposed for this reason. Of course, it’s also easy to build very thick concrete walls.

Architectural flourish is seldom a feature of such residences but enclosure within a compound is, especially in areas where public space can be dangerous. Bin Laden’s mansion would not look out of place, for example, in the outskirts of Naples. To this one can add Pakistan’s highly patriarchal society, where domestic life is routinely hidden behind walls. There is no reason to disbelieve the spokeswoman for the Pakistani Foreign Minister, that such compounds are common in Pakistan.

Hideouts are an exotic sub-genre of architecture. Slate this week published a gallery of famous ones; bin Laden’s is modest compared to that of Pablo Escobar, the Colombian drug warlord assassinated in 1993. But the real Escobar showpiece is his Hacienca Los Napoles, a massive theme park and mansion constructed for his family featuring a zoo, lake and airport; it’s now a public park and tourist attraction.

Escobar’s Hacienca belongs to the architecture of power, as analysed by Deyan Sudjic in his book The Edifice Complex. Through violence and bribery, Escobar was able to humiliate Colombia’s civil authorities; the Hacienca was a means of flaunting both his wealth and immunity. Bin Laden never had this opportunity. He attempted to build a grand residence incorporating a mosque at Kandahar, Afghanistan. It was bombed before he could move in.

However bin Laden’s anonymous hideout shares features with the homes of the very rich. An ostentatious mansion was once a necessity for any self-respecting magnate, but the enclosed compound is now the favoured option. The main Sydney example is the Bellevue Hill compound of the Packer family, formed since the 1930s out of nine different properties. Examples elsewhere include the homes of Bill Gates, Michael Dell and George Lucas. The only available photos of such places are taken from prying helicopters. Fugitives aren’t the only people prepared to pay up for anonymity.

Sydney Design is an annual event produced by the Powerhouse Museum in association with more than 60 cultural institutions, organisations and individuals, featuring over 100 events in 2011. The events ran for two weeks (30 July - 14 August) at the Powerhouse Museum and across the city of Sydney, from Parramatta to Zetland and in between. This year the program included exhibitions, workshops, master classes, talks, installations and tours. It also ran in conjunction with Museum’s showcase Love Lace exhibition, which aptly captured the program’s theme: Is old new again?

When the team behind Sydney Design 2011 (SD11) posted the event’s theme ‘Is old new again?’ designers, makers, practitioners and the general public imagined the trafficking between past and present in varied and complex ways. It was no surprise that the outcome was a collision between tradition, innovation, heritage and experimentation. It certainly wasn’t an indulgence in nostalgia because many used the opportunity to merge old ideas with new solutions or ways of doing things in a contemporary context. For example, the Metalab Collective 2011 was a collaborative jewellery project, where traditional goldsmithing techniques were fused with modern technologies now available to the studio jeweller. The outcome was installed in an exhibition where visitors were encouraged to offer other objects in exchange for the artworks on display. ‘Old’ systems of trade (such as the barter system) were explored with the aid of ‘new’ technology, the online store.

Audience participation was the thumping heart of this program. For instance, running in conjunction with the Love Lace exhibition, were a series of public programs, which encouraged participants to share in an exchange of traditional and new techniques. A master class with weaver Mavis Ganambarr was a highlight of the program that offered an insight into the vibrant history and range of processes used by Aboriginal weavers on Elcho Island. According to Deborah Vaughan, Producer, Contemporary Programs at the Powerhouse Museum, Ganambarr’s calm presence in the master class was inspirational. “She brought pandanus leaves dyed the traditional way from Elcho Island, and taught participants how to weave in the traditional way,” said Vaughan. Audience participation also offered a new starting point for participants of Knitted and Looped, a series of interactive workshops where Museum visitors joined forces with London artist Shane Waltener to create a giant knitted and looped installation. Using yarn, string, paper and cloth participants immersed themselves in a growing lace sculpture. “Knitted and Looped provided Museum visitors with the opportunity to learn traditional craft skills such as crochet, knitting and macramé and how these skills can be used in the making of contemporary art,” explained Knitted and Looped Producer, Athalie Moedjoko. “The participants loved the sharing of knowledge and skills and being able to add their own personal touch to a large scale art installation.”

An exchange of knowledge and skills were further precipitated by dynamic duo the Verhoeven brothers of Dutch Design House, Demarkersvan, who gave the keynote address at the Love Lace Symposium, foregrounding the renewal of an old craft. “The twin brother designers combined sassy attitude with ethical work practises,” said Vaughan.

Outside the Museum, the program opened up genuine opportunities for people to come together from all areas of design. While many festivals and public events privilege one medium over another, or established designers over emerging makers, Sydney Design remained an accessible, inclusive event in 2011. “We had designers from different platforms, industries, all creating at the same time towards one particular theme,” said Debbie Pryor, Citywide Producer for SD11. Ceramicists, textile artists, industrial designers, amateur knitters, architects, weavers, digital artists, paper engineers etc. all came together for the annual event. “I think Sydney Design festival is so important because it’s very inclusive,” said Pryor.

So, in the end, did SD11 answer its own question? Is old new again? The answer to this question appeared to be an overwhelming and resounding ‘yes’. The designers revealed how collaboration, technique, craft, process, artistry and the tangible object are still valued in a time where the image reigns supreme.

For more information visit www.sydneydesign.com.au/2011

There has been a flurry of Korean cultural activity in Sydney recently with 2011 being the official Year of Friendship between Australia and the Republic of Korea and the celebration of fifty years of bilateral relations. The Powerhouse Museum presents its own exhibition titled Spirit of Jang-in: Treasures of Korean Metal Craft. Highlighting a wealth of material covering the Korean Bronze Age to the present the exhibition displays the distinctive style of Korean design. Spirit of Jang-in will give Australian audiences insight into one of the world’s preeminent design cultures introducing a rich visual milieu.

Australian engagement with East Asia has been dominated by Japanese and Chinese material cultures for the better part of two centuries. Japanese culture and design strongly represented at nineteenth century International Exhibitions and Japonisme and Chinoiserie became popular in the interior design industry. Post-war globalisation of Japanese manufacturing, pop culture, and the recent boom in China’s creative industries ensured the spotlight presided over Korea’s closest neighbours. The aesthetic approaches of minimalism and naturalism have been traditionally framed by many influential design theorists like Bruno Munari as radiating from a Japanese epicentre. Japan and China shared the limelight while Korea quietly occupied the back seat.

Geo-politically the histories of Korea, Japan and China are intimately intertwined, and cultural and artistic fusion has been natural. There are many idiosyncrasies and overlaps, cuisine being only one of them. So what makes Korean material and visual culture distinct? What are its points of difference from the better-known aesthetic traditions China and Japan? Looking across a variety of design fields we see products that are distinguishable for their clarity of form and coherence, arrived through a unique combination of industry and a connection with nature.

Historically, metal is one of the most striking materials dominating design practice in Korea. According to Powerhouse Museum curator Min-Jung Kim, metal is used for telling stories of Korean history and culture. Metalwork can be understood as manifestations of the spirit of jang-in: an artisan’s self-consuming mastery of their craft. While some pre-modern metal craftsmanship was produced for Buddhist ritual practices and mirrored designs from China, Korean metalwork exhibits some unique qualities. Korean eating utensils made of metal are distinguishable from the porcelain spoons and wooden chopsticks found in China and Japan. The indigenous hammering technique of bangjja yugi was once used to craft copper alloy tableware: sets of non-decorative dishes that appeared in sets of three, five, seven or nine; a set of twelve was reserved only for the King.

Other metal artefacts are distinguishable for their decorative motifs. A silver-inlaid bottle currently in the Victoria and Albert Museum’s collection, that was once thought to be Chinese, has since been identified as originating from Korea in the twelfth or thirteenth centuries due to its waterfowl and willow motif. By the late Joeson period (1392–1910) fauna and flora of the Korean mountains increasingly displaced typically Chinese symbols such as the dragon and phoenix in many areas of artistic production. The ‘true-view’ approach to landscape painting came to prominence in the eighteenth century which, as its name suggests, favoured representations of local scenery and nature over more distant Chinese subjects.

Hangul—the Korean written script—is perhaps one of the most distinct elements of Korean culture. Developed in the fifteenth century in a move toward cultural and linguistic autonomy from classical Chinese, Hangul represents the world’s youngest phonographic script. Two style blocks of moveable Hangul metaltype are showcased in the Spirit of jang-in exhibition. Publishing in Hangul, a standardised script, was a key development in the movement toward mass literacy in the Joeson period. It was not until more recent times that the distinctive script was also embraced as a vocabulary of design. Pioneering typographer Ahn Sang-Soo was one of the first to break with the time-honoured traditional Hangul on realising the script’s aesthetic and artistic currency when it is transformed into multiple fonts. He explains ‘from the 90s we became aware of a Korean design identity. And this identity is anchored in our Hangul’.[1]

Across a number of design fields Korea’s creatives are leaving their mark. Big-names such as Lie Sang Bong and Zinoo Park in fashion design, Kim Baek-ki in architecture and industrial design, and furniture designers Chulan Kwak and Choi Byung-hoon are building a reputation for contemporary Korean design on the global stage. While designers today increasingly prescribe to the ‘design as art’ dictum, the minimalist, naturalist qualities of traditional crafts are reaffirmed in contemporary practice. The renowned furniture designer and artist Choi Byung-hoon expresses ideas of weight and balance through his work. Using materials such as wood and stone, Choi is able to emphasise the material’s natural curves and forms. Metalwork remains a strength of contemporary Korean design too. Jeweller Sim Hyun-seok, who exhibited at Studio 20/17 as part of Sydney Design 2011, creates flawless sculptures depicting everyday objects that are close to the wearer, such as doors and chairs.

Spirit of jang-in features pieces from his camera series: minimal structures notable for their technical precision and geometric clarity. Also feature in Spirit of Jang-in is Melbourne-based jeweller Jin-Ah Jo. Jo explores the idea of knowledge rearrangement in the bi-cultural experience through her pendants: bulging half-spheres bound together to create hybrid forms. She also designs pendants in the shape of Hangul characters, an ode to her Korean design identity.

The city of Seoul is the centre of contemporary Korean design production and exhibition, infiltrating all aspects of popular and public culture. The city itself has some remarkable design features that challenge earlier associations of the capital as a ‘grey’ urban centre dominated by monolithic housing structures. Seoul was named the World Design Capital 2010, a title awarded to a city that has executed visions for economic and cultural development through the use of design. This program has seen the dissemination of an official Seoul colour palette and seven new Hangul typefaces. Measures such as these are intended to create visual harmony for Seoul’s public spaces. Currently under construction in the heart of the city is the Zaha Hadid-designed Dongdaemun Design Plaza. The concept behind the structure is ‘metonymic landscape’, or the return of the city to nature. The much anticipated completion of the Dongdaemun Design Plaza will no doubt confirm Seoul’s pending status as a global Mecca for design.

Considering the wealth of Korean material and visual cultures today, it is clear that an important facet of the ‘Korean Wave’ is indeed Korean design. From metalwork to furniture, design concepts and products stamped ‘Korea’ should continue to appear in Australia’s museums and galleries well after the Year of Friendship has concluded; and appreciation of the distinctiveness of Korean design will no doubt continue to grow.

[1] Michael Fitzpatrick, (2008) “Typography is the trunk of the tree”: The emergence of Korean design.” Creative Review 28(7), p. 40.

Always looking to go against the grain, Thé has steered clear of off the shelf ready-made generic products that most café goers accept as the norm, or even, the only, instead investing in ingenuity and craftsmanship by engaging emerging local designers and manufacturers through a collaboration with the dynamic Sydney-based design studio, &Company.

Providing creative opportunities for emerging designers through exhibitions and developing product ranges, &Company’s, director Anna Lise De Lorenzo, says meeting Thé at a function where the renowned chef was giving a talk on food and design was a natural starting point for the partnership. When talk turned to the inevitable, a new collaboration was born.

“We first met Chris when he came to give a talk about food and design at an exhibition that we held at Gaffa and it was fantastic hearing about his love of that process of being creative in the kitchen and sharing that with people. That began a really beautiful relationship,” said De Lorenzo.

&company’s endeavour to give emerging designers the opportunity to build their design experience within a creative community by working with local craftspeople and manufacturing sat well with Black Star Pastry’s own mission: ‘Good honest slow cooking enlivened with fresh experimentation.’

Both De Lorenzo and Thé shared a commitment to ensure there will be no disconnect between what you eat and the way and the how that you eat it. “It all had to fit with our aesthetic which is very loose but even though things are very different they all need to look as though they’ve come from the one mind,” says Thé.

The highly customised and unusual designs are the work of four designers who were selected for not sticking to the brief. For instance, Glen Baghurst designed a boulder stool weighing more than 50 kilos, as well as a range of platters that are based on cloud forms. Meanwhile, Soumali Chitdamrongre claimed hardwood palettes and transformed them into outdoor stools, while ceramicist, Naomi Taplin, created a range of plates for cakes and pies and developed these into a platter series. A hybrid ‘spork,’ a meshing of a spoon and a fork, is also on its way to the café, thanks to jeweller and inner west local Sonya Scott, who has also designed a series of cake slides and tongs to be used by the café staff.

The pastry chef recently received prototypes back from the designers and said it was quite a nerve-wracking time. “We’re finding sometimes things just differ slightly from the concept and you’re wondering is it actually going to make it in the end?” he pondered.

However, Thé quickly and easily draws parallels to one of his own creative processes: the art of making a wedding cake. “The picture you draw on a piece of paper is often quiet different to the three-dimensional reality. Often it has an element of ‘out-of-proportion-ness’ or almost like the cake is a little bit grotesque in a way. But I suppose that’s what prototyping is for. The second time around you know how to amend,” he reflects.

The BSP&Company collection is expected to launch in November joining the growing food&Company range.

For more information visit www.andcompany.com.au
and www.blackstarpastry.com.au

The second in our Craft Punk program in October, Bike BeSpoke was themed in response to growth of the bicycling community in our carbon conscious times. After doing some intensive research into what kind of accoutrements could be made for bicycling I was struck by how limited the range was: bike baskets have not developed beyond the simple wicker or mass produced metal varieties.

Our three designers came up with some splendidly clever designs. None had designed for bike riding before: they were chosen for how well their current body of work and techniques could be adapted to the constraints of the project. We also dove-tailed the creative projects with bike maintenance, offered over the weekend by the Cycle-Re-Cycle Club.

Desperate to find a person who was able to design a bike basket with a punk twist, I stumbled upon Liesl Hazelton’s web site and noticed she had made a beautiful woven chair from electrical leads for the Italian Furniture Show in Milan. Liesl was up for the challenge and came back to me a few days later with the innovative idea of using wire lamp-shade frames (spied at the local tip) which she modified for the frame of the basket.

With her bower-bird resourcefulness, Liesl found all the electrical cords at building sites and these were used to weave the sides of the basket. Discarded bicycle inner tubing made the basket base. This kind of DIY attitude is the essence of what Craft Punk is about: ‘making do’ with what you have at hand and shaping something beautiful from limited resources. The baskets proved to be a knock-out! Most people who did the workshop modified the design to suit their own needs and inclinations – some even transformed the basket into very cool free-form woven lampshades.

Riding at night can be hazardous: anything that improves visibility is a plus. Unfortunately there is little attempt at aesthetics when it comes to designing safety apparel. Cecilie Knowles is a fine crochet artist and graphic designer who creates detailed jewellery that is sold at Gaffa gallery and at the Collect shop at Object gallery. I asked Cecilie if she could come up with an idea for a wearable piece that was easy to make and highly visible at night. Cecilie found some beautiful reflective Paracord used for caving, which she then designed into a bracelet and a neckband.

I have been aware of the Miss Fee blog for some time. Fiona Donovan, the woman behind the blog, is a designer in the television industry by day and at night she knits a profusion of gorgeous garments. She uses highly intricate patterns. Fiona took to the project with zeal and created several pattern ideas for knitted bike accoutrements. The little musette bike bag pattern you can download (  Musette bag instructions by Fiona Donovan PDF)

The workshops on offer at Craft Punk: Bike BeSpoke were inspiring starting points: the makers took away learnt skills that they could adapted to suit their own bicycling or other creative needs.

The local industry has already taken big steps in acknowledging the importance of a collective design identity, and all over the country there is evidence of the emergence of a uniquely Australian character. Organisational bodies, including galleries, museums, events and publications all have their own idea of what constitutes Australian design, and are pursuing design that reflect this. Meanwhile, numerous designers are comprehending what it means to be an Australian designer, and are making a considerable contribution to this local identity. So what is it that makes Australian design different’

Australian design can be defined by a sincere love of making by hand, and a distinct make-do and can-do attitude towards this approach, an attitude which could be attributed to our early settlers. And it still resonates with many designers today. The 2006 Smart works: design and the handmade exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum focused on the practice of local designers working within a small and distant market with limited manufacturing capabilities, and demonstrated the Australian penchant for design that embraces handmade craftsmanship and skill. Rex Heathcote Furniture and Bison Australia are exceptional examples of design studios that rely completely on the learned expertise of their staff, the work produced at Bison is ‘of world quality but still produced on an intimate and personal level’. Meanwhile, jeweller and metalsmith Oliver Smith’s approach encompasses the ‘best of craft and industry’. While Smith’s passion is for making, he understands the importance of manufacturing to produce multiples. Nevertheless, he keeps production within our shores, in order to be able to monitor the results and hand-finish many pieces. Australian designers seem to relish being a part of the production process, acknowledging the importance of a product’s development, and insisting on maintaining a connection to their design. In turn, this makes the connection with the consumer much more viable, knowing that the product has come directly from the designer’s hands.

The make-do and can-do attitude resonates for many studios, with design problems solved according to the materials, skills and manufacturing processes known, or that can be learnt, or accessed close to home. Andrew Simpson of Vert Design describes Australian designers as ‘tough’ in their ability to make do with what is at hand, a trait exemplified by metalsmith Rohan Nicol. Looking for ways in which his regional community can contribute to the design industry, Nicol uses manufacturing processes from the most left of field industries including a refrigerator factory and a cast-iron foundry. Furniture designer Ross Didier has incredulously sourced the material for his Tiller Chair range from local ‘waste’, using the pelts of legally culled kangaroos. This sustainable sourcing of materials adds to the confronting nature of his work, but demonstrates the lengths Australian designers will go in order to make do with what is available to them.

Australian designers have also exhibited a distinctive way of working collaboratively, rather than independently. Local studios have demonstrated the dynamic results of bringing designers together under one name, not only to make a collective contribution to particular ideas, but also to provide a supportive environment for independent design that offers constructive critique, fresh ideas and alternative skills and knowledge. F!NK and Co has embraced numerous jewellers and metalsmiths, including Oliver Smith, providing a credible company name for the independent designers to work under, and offering ‘a meeting of [my] production and tooling experience without which some of the designs would not be viable’. Smith has gone on to collaborate in a different way, working with skilled people from backgrounds far removed from design, including a specialist in the physics of musical instrument for the development of a series of bells. Studios like Rex Heathcote Furniture and Vert Design also encourage this collaborative approach while working with the client (who is often the designer), and thus allow for a talented unit of ideas, resources, knowledge and skill to contribute to a design.

Bred from this enthusiasm for collaboration is a unique system of mentoring and nurturing. Our small design community is tightly woven and very well connected, and encourages emerging designers and their design ideas. Rex Heathcote and Brian Tunks from Bison Australia focus on training and developing designers and makers, taking on graduates and locals and nurturing them into fine craftspeople. Heathcote is particularly keen on training people from his local community in Launceston, Tasmania in order to keep the highest quality industry on his doorstep, questioning, ‘Are we going to end up as a non-manufacturing country ‘ where we buy all this smart furniture but there’s no one locally who knows how to make it’ It comes down to promoting a skill base in a regional area’ I like making something like this work in a small town’. Similarly, Tunks does not look for people who already know the trade, instead seeking out people ‘who will be happy being skilled’. This system not only benefits the up-and-coming designer, but also provides established designers with new blood, fresh ideas and exciting opportunities for new collaborations.

All of these distinguishing features demonstrate just a small part of what makes our local industry so unique, but they are features that present emerging designers with an opportunity to learn and grow alongside their peers and predecessors, and to work toward an Australian design identity. Designers must recognise that in this global marketplace, the distinctly Australian, intangible features of their work ‘ the stories of production, the source of the materials, the history and narratives behind a product’s designers and development ‘ are as important to our design identity as the tangible qualities.

Of course, it is never going to be easy, if at all possible, to illustrate the essence of Australian design in one paragraph. The beauty of Australia and our designers is our eclectic background, our varying cultures, our diverse landscape. Our design identity should be equally diverse and fluid. Nevertheless, we are all designing within the same borders ‘ a vast, yet defining boundary that offers so much encouragement, meeting of minds, exceptional material and incomparable skill. The real essence of Australian design is not that we are this one distinctive idea, but instead a beautiful and organic collaboration of people, places, expertise and inspiration, ripe for showing the world what makes us stand out from the rest.

ARTERRA offers two distinct spaces, a house with communal spaces and kitchen facilities, and the “creation yard” providing different work places, ateliers, sound and image studio, blackbox, resources center, peaceful gardens, and animals.

To apply send your CV and proposal to arterra.geral@gmail.com

Please include:

- Portfolio, videos, photos …
- Description of the project to be undertaken ARTERRA out, including the project’s objectives, needs and expectations of residence and all the details necessary to understanding the proposal
- Dates and duration of residence
- Details (need for meals, work characteristics, number of persons, additional information relevant to the work process)

www.arterra.weebly.com/
www.arterra-residencias.blogspot.com/

Awarded by the British Council and LQRA, Big Green Idea is an annual competition that provides winning participants with up to $20,000 in seed funding plus access to the expansive British Council and LRQA networks and expertise to turn these projects into tangible products.

‘We were astounded by the quality of the projects and the sheer number of entries submitted. The judges had an impossible job trying to select a winner,’ said Nick Marchand, British Council Director. ‘That said, Big Green Idea is about rewarding eco-innovation, and the four winners stood out with their entrepreneurial thinking and practical solutions that will have a defining impact on countless lives around the world. Ultimately, that’s what this programme is all about.’

‘LRQA is pleased to be associated with these projects and we look forward to fostering them through our expertise, experience and networks to help make them a success globally.’ said LRQA’s Australasian Business Centre Manager, Maurice Laratro.

The four winning applicants are:

Fashion – Nerida Lennon, Melbourne
Nerida is shaking-up the Australian fashion industry to become sustainable. Nerida will work alongside a high profile Australian designer to explore how to create a ‘sustainable’ garment. Documenting the entire process ‘ warts and all ‘ the garment and film will debut at Melbourne Spring Fashion Week in 2012.

Food Farming – Stephen Mushin, Melbourne
The Micro Farmers Food Hub Project aims to kick-start urban food production by providing communities with a modular farming and composting system ‘ ‘food hub’. Rolled out from a modified shipping container, the design combines fish, fruit and vegetable production at commercial scales. It provides an economically viable system for local food production for local communities and its modular nature lends itself for roll out in developing countries or those experiencing food security issues, such those in the Pacific islands that face rising seawater tables.

Transport – Will Wansey, Sydney
There are currently 22,000 decommissioned Australia Post ‘postie’ bikes. Will’s project involves converting these recycled Honda CT110 motorcycles into electric vehicles by replacing the petrol motor with an electric drive train. His idea enables electric vehicles to be produced at a reasonable cost so that students and professionals who have short daily commutes have a more sustainable alternative to petrol driven vehicles. Will is also using virtual networks of designers and enthusiasts to further develop concepts explore broader applications of the idea.

Medical Technology – Michael O’Brien, Tasmania
Michael’s idea is the field testing, manufacture and distribution of a solar-powered medical light specifically designed for rural/bush clinics and other isolated medical facilities. The project will enable the feasibility of using renewable technologies to power community health facilities that usually rely on petrol generators.

To find out more about our Big Green Idea winners and their projects, go to wwww.biggreenidea.com.au

The ninth edition of the annual competition challenged industrial design students across the globe to consider ‘Intelligent Mobility’ within home appliances.

Kocak’s innovative product is ‘Ribbon’, a multi-purpose heater and cooler for portable use. Its unique shape and flexibility allows for wrapping around a vessel containing food or drink for heating or chilling. The black side provides heat, whereas the white cools. You can curl it up, take it with you, fold out and even puzzle together to use as a hotplate. Controls placed on the side facilitate easy use. The chargeable thermoelectric cell battery can also reverse the charging process’ whilst not in use the cells convert excess heat back into electricity.

To view the Kocak’s Ribbon click here.

To view the designs of the seven other finalists click here.

‘There are few people around like David and his work should be celebrated now and into the future,’ said Stephanie Pemberton, Judge Chair of the 2011 Scholarship.

Foster intends to use the $18,000 scholarship to assist with the costs associated with studying at the highly respected Royal Academy of Art located in Den Haag, The Netherlands in 2012. The Academy is one of the few institutions in the world that offers a highly specialised typography program.

‘By learning how to make fonts properly and sharing the knowledge with young designers I hope to solidify my own understanding and also encourage a potentially burgeoning local type scene,’ said Foster.

‘A love of letters consumes my life. I want to become one of a handful of people in this country, to create high-quality, versatile and legible fonts that can tell our stories as Australians, in any media,’ Foster said. ‘Having had the opportunity to teach has made me realise this is my calling, not just a job.’

Foster applied for the one year, full-time post-graduate Masters at the Academy, and in May 2011 he was one of only 10 students offered a place from a pool of more than 200, taking only those with the most motivation and potential.

However, even on a modest budget the total cost of living, fees, travel and equipment were to prove prohibitive to Foster accepting the offer. The Design NSW Travelling Scholarship will allow Foster to take up this rare opportunity whilst also ensuring he returns to Australia to share his knowledge and experience as well as help to cultivate and nurture the local typography community.

‘This scholarship offers me the chance to make my dream come true,’ said Foster. ‘This dream is to gain knowledge which I can share with other Australians by publishing a blog, articles and lecturing on my return in August 2012.’

Pemberton said Foster presented ‘brilliant, professional, focused, resolved work’ and commended him on his commitment to education.

‘The judges were impressed with David’s appreciation for the craft of typography and his total dedication to this career path,’ she said. ‘David is destined to be one of Australia’s foremost typographers and will become a household name within the design community.’

Foster’s work has featured in various publications including The Sydney Morning Herald, Design Quarterly and Desktop Magazine and has also been exhibited at a range of galleries and festivals including Imagine at Lo-fi, Eyesaw at Omnibus Lane and Go Font Yourself at Peer Gallery.

The Design NSW Travelling Scholarship, now in its fifth year, is presented by the Powerhouse Museum and Arts NSW in partnership with the British Council. The scholarship is an initiative of Arts NSW and is funded through the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, a partnership between the Australian and New South Wales Governments aimed at building and supporting a strong, sustainable and dynamic contemporary visual art, craft and design sector.

Watch a video of David, moments after winning the award.

View the slideshow below for details on the nine Finalists.