Saturday in Design

Saturday in Design took over Melbourne on the weekend... lanyard-wearing design industry professionals could be seen traipsing every footpath from St Kilda to Fitzroy, toting showbags, complimentary take-away coffee cups and bright red tulips!

SID is one of my favourite events on the design calender - it's such a simple idea, but it's so well organised, and visitors are so well looked after! The free shuttle buses between venues were fantastically prompt, and most venues took the opportunity to really encourage lingering and networking, with complimentary wine, soft drink, coffee, and delicious snacks on offer. If I were reviewing the catering - Poliform would win hands down this year... (catering by Damm Fine Food - check out the photos below)... mind you I couldn't indulge in much with a camera in one hand and a notebook in the other! It was an incredible spread - although I did get a bit worried as visitors reclined on $20,000 Poliform couches clutching plates piled with marinated olives and tomato salad! (Actually Living Edge was even serving beetroot - very brave!).

Anyway enough about the catering - the best thing about SID is the opportunity to get out and see all the latest furniture and design product all in one crazy day! It also offers a chance to have a good chat to suppliers about their product - each venue was teeming with worded-up staff, and the emphasis was certainly on product exposure and education, rather than making sales. All this results in a social, friendly event where showrooms that might otherwise feel a little intimidating become accessible even to design students and industry newcomers. (Plus every single showroom was happy for me to photograph their product - this is rare and very much appreciated!)

I didn't get along to every venue on the Saturday (surely one of these days SID will expand to include Sunday?), however I did see most of what Richmond and the City had to offer, as well as visiting the Meat Market and Launch Pad exhibition at the Melbourne Museum. My only disappointments were not getting a totebag from Rugs Carpet & Design in Richmond (they were such great looking bags I was really mad about that), not getting a bunch of Format's beautiful tulips (was a little weighed down by then), and completely forgetting to get my 3121 Design Precinct card stamped in all 3 areas because I was too distracted by taking notes and photos! Blah.

Highlights of the day below!

Space Furniture was abuzz with visitors. It was great to see a lot of new product on show, as well as the usual suspects. Top image above - B&B Italia's enormous foot (stool, chair?) made me chuckle. Bottom image - Nicole Aebischer's Joker ceramic range for B&B Italia, nicely lit by Moooi's stunning Cluster Lamp designed by Joel Degermark.


Space are finally showing some innovative outdoor furniture ('cos aren't we all getting a little tired of timber slatted tables and chairs?). These beauties are by the incredible Patricia Urquiola - they're part of B&B's Canasta outdoor range.

Space Furniture again. Can't get enough of Bertjan Pot's Random Lights for Moooi (top image). Also I do like Cassina's special anniversary limited edition LC3 Le Corbusier armchair. Love the upholstery colours and that grey powder coated frame is such a nice contemporary alternative to the classic chrome.

Mingling crowds at Space, and a rather bored-looking DJ! (Well, it was 11.00am at this stage... perhaps things cranked up later on...)

Poliform. Top image - Rina Menardi's set of 4 Nautilus bowls, bottom image - small Dama coffee tables in solid cedar.

Poliform knows how to look after its visitors! Incredible catering by Damm Fine Food.

Living Edge - Albi modular lounge and Lulu table by Norman + Quaine.

Living Edge commercial furniture - Sedus Four Connects table legs are cute modular desk legs designed and made in Germany, which Living Edge pairs with locally produced table tops. Adds a bit of quirky personality to the commercial range. Available in white or anthrazite(?) - sounds like an airborne disease but apparently it means grey.

Living Edge food. Cute kids waiting patiently while the grown-ups network.

Living Edge - crazy Calypso couch by Jon Goulder.

More Living Edge. Top image - kooky Miniature Chests by George Nelson for Herman Miller. Bottom image - nothing new but still a winner with the crowds ; Eames Eames and more Eames.

Melbourne's newest furniture designers/manufacturers Yellow Diva showed off their range of eyecatching chairs and chaises in their stunning Abbotsford showroom.

Format Furniture stole the show for me this year! The tulips were an absolute winner - they looked a little sad by the time I got into town, but still - they made such an impact against the grimy cobbled laneway... not to mention brightening up the SID trail all over town popping out of everyone's SID totebags! Simple, fabulous idea. NOTE also the stunning Format employee (bottom image above) who co-ordinated her wardrobe with the decor, wearing a beautiful bright tulip-printed skirt! Perfect!

Format - more tulips lining the laneway, and inside - a truly spectacular Alice in Wonderland-inspired indoor garden. I loved it! After a weary few hours pounding the pavement, Format's showroom was like a magical little oasis! Frivolous, fun, - but showcasing some seriously stunning product too.

Format's Folding Press installation by Universaldesignstudio (is that supposed to have gaps or no gaps?). Pages and pages of (I'm assuming) Indesign mag and Design Quarterly were delicated folded and layered along the entire length of Format's showroom wall. Beautiful.

Format still. The highly publicised Tea Towel Chair by Susie Stanford. (sorry this one's a little blurry).

More Format! I love the brave colours they've pulled together here.. also what a lovely idea to fill Jasper Morrison's Cork Bowl (Vitra) with tiny pots of brightly coloured flowers! I really like the way they've displayed these high-end pieces in such a fun, lighthearted way.

THE SHOWSTOPPER - I love love love Fontana Arte's Loop Lamp by Voon Wong and Benson Saw. Not sure if its clear here - but essentially its made up of 2 stainless steel shallow 'bowls', one on top of the other. The top 'bowl' contains a circular fluroescent tube. You can gently rotate the top 'bowl' by hand to control the amount of light emitted. AAggggghh. Utterly stunning.

Still at Format. Vitra's Slow Chair by the Bouroullec Brothers. I love the pink and green together, and the semi-translucent mesh.

Corporate Culture gathered the crowds with a their Fritz Hansen Egg Chair giveaway, valued at $12,000! Bottom image above - I really like the simple Loop clothes stand by Leif Jorgensen for Danish furniture company Hay.

More from Hay at Corporate Culture. Top image above - cute Don't Leave Me side tables by Thomas Bentzen. Bottom image above - beautiful hand-quilted throws also from Hay.

Corporate Culture's Pantop pendant lights by Verner Panton seem to have a personality all their own... they remind me of Yoshitomo Nara's kooky characters for some reason.

Stylecraft - an installation called 'Suspended Animation' by Geyer saw metres of bright pink polypropylene cord intertwine all through Stylecraft's city showroom... But Alexander Lotersztain's oversized patchwork bear/koala, created from recycled denim stole the show! This installation promotes Durlot's Restitch range of products including ottomans and soft furnishings, which use recycled denim in this way.

Stylecraft again. Geyer's pink polypropylene suspends a Derlot Plantation rocking chair high above the stairwell.

Stylecraft. the fun Zoe seating range from Verzelloni Italy. Designer - Lievore Alther Molina.

Stylecraft crowds mingle.

Last stop(!) - Launchpad at Melbourne Museum. Top image above - the gorgeous Xai side table by Denver Cramer and Liely Faulkner (DenverandLiely) looks like its about to scuttle away on those delicate little legs. Bottom image above - Freight Pouf by Dhiren Bhagwandas.

More Launchpad - top image above - Finn Light by Dhiren Bhagwandas. Bottom image - Woven Structure by John Quan.

Phew.

interview - Soren Luckins

Top image - the Buro North team (Soren in the centre), and below, a snapshot of their fantastic workspace in the CBD.

Buro North's Green Xmas Tree, which won a prestigious Premiers Design Award last month

The team at Buro North produced this cover image for Inside Magazine, responding to the theme of the issue - 'Creative Spaces'.

'Chiodo Splash' won the 2005 Melbourne Design Festival's 'Design Landscapes' competition. The concept was based on the idea of capturing a 'frozen moment', and was designed as an installation for the stairwell / window of the Chiodo men's clothing boutique in the CBD.

ING swirl public sculpture

Identity design for Eat Green Design - part of this year's State of Design Festival. I thought the 'egd' was made of illustrated vegies but no it's a photograph. Lovely, simple yet effective idea...There's a great little time lapse video here on the Buro North Blog about this one... check it out.

In only 4 short years, Melbourne-based multidisciplinary design company Büro North has come a very long way. Founded in 2004 by designer Soren Luckins, this young design house has gained a solid reputation for its innovative and meticulous work, and has won numerous awards both here and overseas. In the last 12 months, the business has grown from 2 employees to 10, and continues to develop with the challenges of every new project. They recently received a Premiers Design Award for their 'Green Xmas Tree', and this year Soren was also named one of the 'most exciting designers under 30' as part of the 'Young Guns Awards' by the New York Art Directors Club. Over achiever alert :)

Büro North's diverse folio includes signage and wayfinding, graphic design and branding/identity, industrial design, furniture design, publications... the list goes on. Their website and blog are well worth a browse for a dose of diverse, innovative local talent of a truly international standard. 

I am so inspired by Büro North's amazing success and impressive portfolio. I am also in awe of Soren's work ethic! (check out his answer to my 'typical work day' questions - makes me tired just thinking about it!). I've no doubt we'll be hearing a lot more about Büro North and Soren Luckins in the next few years.

A big thankyou to Soren and his team for this fantastic interview and the pre-formatted photos (love that!)

Tell me a little about your background - what did you study and what path led you to what you're doing now?

As a kid I had a habit of pulling things apart and never putting them together the same way. I always tried to remake my model cars, boats, planes and improve them with modifications. By 18, I was rebuilding a Volkswagen and I realized I could do this for the rest of my life (not rebuild Volkswagens, but create and play with objects and things)..

After studying at art/design school for one year to develop a folio, I completed a BA in Industrial Design at Swinburne University. I then headed off to Germany where I studied a combination of Graphic Design and Architecture. Whilst in Germany I worked for an multidisciplinary studio, and when arriving back in Melbourne I searched for a similarly diverse firm, only to realize that none existed. I then started freelancing at various firms until landing a large signage project that enabled me to fund the development of Büro North.

Büro North has come a long way since you first started in 2004. What goals did you initially have for your business, and how has the company evolved over the last 4 years?

For the first 2 years it was just me, freelancing wherever the jobs called, and working for other firms by day while working nights on Büro North projects.

The goals that motivated me to work all hours then still resound now. I wanted to develop a studio practice that was highly creative and exciting, while realizing client's briefs purely and honestly.

After 2 years I had enough regular project work to justify an employee and about a year later, things really took off. In the last 12 months we have grown from the 2 of us to the 10 people that are involved now. We have 6 or so designers, an Office Manager, Accounts and a part-time business advisor who coaches and assists with the development of the practice.

The studio has grown quite organically and we have managed our growth so that every client we have is a client who shares our design objectives, if our clients’goal is a high quality design outcome, then our roles and responsibilities are straightforward and the outcomes reflect this.

Distinctive wayfinding and signage at Falls Creek

Büro North has an incredibly varied portfolio - how is the company structured to facilitate such a variety of work?

We do have to manage our project typology very carefully. It’s really quite a trap to become renowned for a certain type of work, and then get stuck repeating that type of project. As the crew span from graphic to industrial design, we often create new collaborations that allow us to blur those traditional boundaries, which in turn promotes greater diversity in our folio.

Given our diverse project base, we like to maintain the balance between graphic print based work, environmental graphics, signage projects and product design.

We also enlist the help of many experts so that we are not confined by our own knowledge. We often work with way-finding experts ID LAB on complicated signage projects. We will call in the expertise of LCA (Life-Cycle Assessment) experts for projects where we can really push the sustainability and we also seek opportunities to work with interesting collaborators such as the VEIL innovation lab, where we get to build on their research and turn their ideas into professional concepts.

The VEIL solar-shade is a government-funded solar energy harvesting structure designed for Australian primary schools. This design was commissioned by the Victorian Eco-Innovation Lab.

When you approach a brief initially, where do you turn for inspiration - books, magazines, or the web? Do you pay attention to trends in the broader design world like fashion, film, architecture?

I tend to take in the brief and mull it over for a few days before we start discussing it in the studio. I usually end up coming up with a direction without even realising I was thinking about it, when eating, riding or doing something random…

We also invest a fair bit of time in the research phase, and this takes in everything from books, magazines, web to a host of other influences. My goal for Büro North is to output highly creative projects that are matched by functional and technical rigour, the pragmatics need as much attention as the creative expression. There is a host of work done around the world that is pragmatic and perhaps boring, and a host done that is highly creative yet functionally flawed, but the middle ground where the two compliment and are co-dependant is the hardest and most rare, and this is the space that I enjoy working, the challenge of both gives the best reward.

Graphic material designed for State of Design's recent Design Made Trade event. Buro North also collaborated with VISY in the design of the cardboard booths and exhibition layout. (some photos here and here)

Which designers, artists or creative people are you inspired by?

Thomas Heatherwick

Alex Trochut

2x4 New York

Rem Koolhaas

Robert Owen

Tronic Studio

What does a typical day at work involve for you?

Coffee, training, work, food and people, sort of in that order.

5am Short macchiato before kayak training on the Yarra River or running at the tan.

7am Get to work for 2 hours of great clear-headed time with a pot of fresh coffee & breakfast.

9am Day turns into a blur of calls, emails and design reviews, lunch at 3’ish at Slow.

7pm Home to my partner Kate for a late dinner and debrief our days.

12pm Call it a day and switch the brain off.

What are you most proud of professionally?

The studio. We have a really fantastic team, an amazing space and a strong network of creative and interesting people around us…

What's the best thing about your job?

Proposing a design direction to the crew, and seeing it develop and turn into something better than I had imagined would be possible.

And the worst?

Tax.

Singlehandedly the most boring and annoying part of my life.

What would be your dream project?

One where the challenges are plentiful, with tight parameters, a client that cares about innovation, good design and sustainability, with a budget to match the design tasks

that is set in an exotic location like St Petersburg or Oman... And upon successful completion, the client is ecstatic, has become our friends and we all high five afterwards…

What are you looking forward to?

My wedding in November, the honeymoon, not taking my laptop.

Melbourne Questions -

What / where was the last great meal you ate in Melbourne?

Dining Room 321 – A surprise from my partner for winning the Premiers Design Awards last week. Was the most incredible meal I can remember eating.

Where do you shop in Melbourne for the tools / necessities of your trade? (ie sketching / rendering tools, computer equipment, sculpting tools and materials for creating prototypes?)

Actually. Almost everything is done on a trusty Mac. We design everything and output 3D files or artwork. We are specialists in designing, and in curating the process with our team and collaborators, and we prefer to engage specialist manufacturers, prototype companies, artists etc for their skills when we need them.

I strongly abide by the idea that if something is worth committing to, then its worth committing 100% and really the only way to ensure incredible outcomes is to put the right people together with the right tasks, and that often means we have to find and seek out the right collaborators for new ideas, a process that can be both rewarding and frustrating!

Where would we find you on a typical Saturday morning?

Either riding my mountain bike in the Otways, surfing down the coast, or cursing my 1951 BMW motorbike for breaking down again…

Melbourne's best kept secret?

James Cameron boutique

Axel Peemoeller

I really like Axel Peemoeller's website.

He's a graphic designer / art director from Germany, but he also completed his masters here in Melbourne so some of his work will be recognisable to Melbourne people... like his kooky and playful 'wayfinding system' for the Eureka Tower carpark. The oversized text is distorted, and can only be read from certain angles. Apparently it won several international awards.


Lots to look at on his site... it's a slick, well-designed site, but with a few cute quirks to keep ya guessing. I love the simple page layout - minimal navigation required.

(Also I like how he calls photoshoots 'photoshootings').

Open House - Plaza Ballroom

The Regent Theatre's Plaza Ballroom in Collins st

Another 'better late than never' post I'm afraid! These shots are from the Regent Theatre's Plaza Ballroom, also on show as part of the recent Open House event in Melbourne's CBD.

The ballroom, built in 1929, is lavishly decorated in ornate Spanish Colonial style - features include an indoor fountain, curved 'Juliet' balconies, bronze chandeliers, highly decorative faux windows (backlit to simulate moonlight!) and ornate handpainted ceilings (pictured below). A little kitsch, but utterly breathtaking.

Incredibly, the Plaza Ballroom as it stands today is a complete restoration of the original, which was destroyed by fire in 1945.

I just discovered another lovely photo of the Ballroom, and a collection of very sneaky photos of the Open House Capitol Theatre tour on a blog called the grapevine. Read the text too - very funny!

ornate detailing with a Spanish influence

Intricate decorative patterns on the ceiling (top image) and even in the carpet! (bottom image). Apparently parquetry flooring is laid over the top of this carpet when required. Big job!

Gargoyles guard the exit

Measure by The Foundry

I briefly mentioned these lovely new products by Melbourne design studio Foundry last week after seeing them at Design:Made:Trade. Such a great execution of a simple, clever idea... I thought I should show you more of the collection.

Measure is a range of paper products that provide useful household information in a slick graphic, easy to access format. The range includes 'Produce in Season' - showing seasonal produce not only here but the Northern hemisphere too (and in both English and Italian), 'Everyday' for all those important conversions like kilos to ounces, Celsius to Fahrenheit and centimetres to inches... (and all in 5 languages....!), and 'Lunar Phases' (hey, these things are important.)





The Measure range also includes a height measurement chart, yearly calender and wine booklet (very handy to translate those baffling descriptions on the side of wine bottles). The range is the creation of Melbourne graphic designer Jessie Fairweather, who brings to her business a wealth of experience from years spent overseas - including a stint at the prestigious Fabrica research centre in Italy (yeah, the one Jaime Hayon came from!).

Prices range from a very reasonable AU$14.95 - AU$24.95. Not sure currently where these will be stocked as they have only just been released - I'll be sure to keep you posted! Potential stockists can email info@thefoundry.com.au

Zip Zip USB Memory Brick

Thought I would mention some more excellent Australian product design whilst on the topic.

I found myself sitting next to a lovely young chap called Edmund (I hope the spelling it correct) at the Design Capital event just over a week ago. We got chatting whilst the grown-up designers 'networked'... and he mentioned this cute USB memory stick he designs and manufactures.

It's called the Zip Zip USB Memory Brick - it comes in 1 GB (US$35), 2 GB (US$50) and 4 GB $US75). It is NOT affiliated with Lego, and just between you and me, I think they are slightly peeved that they didn't think of it first.

Anyway... I made Edmund give one to Nendo's Oki Sato after the lecture... hope he liked it!

Buy your own here.