BETTER BY DESIGN
Better By Design - Luxury Travel Magazine
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Better By Design | |||||
| By: Matthew Brace, Issue 25 – Summer 2006 | |||||
| (Marc Newson, Samsonite) | |||||
| A NEW AUSTRALIAN BREED OF BRIGHT, BRAVE AND BRASH DESIGNERS ARE TAKING THE WORLD BY STORM. | |||||
| Next time you dine in Shanghai, nightclub in Denmark, ski in Hokkaido, or cruise at 10,000m in your Business Class bubble, take an admiring look around you. There is a good chance an Australian designer has been at work. After years slaving in the shadows of the great design nations, Australians are finally becoming hot property, and there seems to be a shift of gears in relation to the Australian design movement. The demand covers the spectrum from fabrics, luggage, accessories and furniture to architecture, gardens, hotel interiors and industrial products. If you have flown International Business Class with Qantas you will know the feeling of comfort and adventure as you slide into a space-age SKYBED seat designed by Sydneyborn Marc Newson. It’s your personal, sky-high cocoon. In Copenhagen, Berlin and Budapest you can check into hotels with interiors by Sydney and Melbourne agency, SJB. And in America when you admire the contours of a Pontiac GTO you are really checking out a Monaro designed right here by the Holden team. The car won an Australian Design Award and is re-badged and re-branded in the US. The Australian design industry is rapidly gaining global notice because it is young, bold, not afraid to take risks, and provides a refreshing challenge to conservatism. Australian Design Awards Director, Brandon Gien, said Australia is, “only now seeing the emergence of its own design identity and culture. Australian designers push the limits of what can be done, to a much higher degree than in other parts of the world. One reason they get away with it is the freedom to experiment. We are also very much a multi-cultural mixing pot for design. Sensitivity regarding particular cultures is important in the design process and Australia has a very diverse culture, allowing designers to design products here for most world markets”. Sydney designer Mark Armstrong, from Blue Sky Creative, added that “the manufacturing demise that hit Australia initially that posed a threat to designers but soon that gave us incredible freedom. Also, crucially, our work ethic has changed. If Asia wants something tomorrow, we deliver. The days of ‘she’ll be right mate’ have long gone,” he said. The highest-profile pioneer is Marc Newson. Before he re-seated Qantas passengers he gave us furniture, including three delightful pieces: the Lockheed Lounge, the Felt Chair and the Orgone Lounge. He designed the interiors and furniture for Coast restaurant in London, Komed restaurant in Cologne, the Lever House Restaurant in New York; as well as the Rock doorstop, the Dish Doctor washing-up rack, and styling mobile phones. More recently he has designed a new luggage line for Samsonite. Now based in London, he is more global animal than Aussie abroad. “Being Australian probably affected my career in the early stages although it does not have any effect on what I do right now,” he said. “It seems that other people’s perception of what being Australian is affects their attitudes rather than our creativity. Personally, I feel more like a citizen of the world. Maybe that’s what being Australian is all about: the ability to go from one place to another seamlessly – maybe?” His next project is the complete concept for the new Qantas Airbus A380 super-jumbos, from lounges to cutlery. Ready for take-off April 2007. In Newson’s slipstream is coming a fleet of designers. From January 2006, savvy travellers can jet off with a revolutionary new wallet in their pockets. Designer Mark Armstrong said his super-flexible Dosh wallet is the ultimate traveling companion. “It is made entirely of rubberised plastic and has little compartments for your coins, keys and condoms. It’s utterly waterproof and indestructible – if you bury one it will be around until the next Ice Age,” he said. The world already knows Armstrong’s Blue Sky Creative company from its globetrotting Olympic Torch in 2000. Now the team is planning global domination of the world’s lawns with its newlook Victa mower – fast becoming a gardener’s must-have item in England and Asia-Pacific. Another outdoor essential is a Merlo-designed garden. Melbourne designer Jack Merlo shot to fame earlier this year when his ‘outdoor living room’ (complete with orange banana lounge and lap pool) won the coveted Gold Medal at the Chelsea Flower Show in London. It was the first Australian garden to do so. Keeping the floral theme alive, but inside this time, is Sydney-based Signature Prints, which has become a leader in textiles and wallpaper for interior design, contract prints textiles for high-end fashion, and limited-edition art. The company is best known for its Florence Broadhurst designs and has collaborated with designers such as Akira Isogawa. Signature Prints’ designs grace the walls of the California Bar in Shanghai and the hip new nightclub, Skovriderkroen, in Copenhagen. The owners, Helen and David Lennie, are busy building a loyal – but sadly secret – following among Hollywood’s elite, and include British fashion designer Stella McCartney in their fan-base. Keeping the momentum in Denmark is SJB Interiors, which is fitting out the Australian-owned Adina apartment hotel at Amerika Plads in Copenhagen, the hotel-mad city of the moment. The team is also working on Adinas in Berlin and Frankfurt, and has completed Medina hotels in Budapest, Berlin and (again) Copenhagen. SJB Interiors has gone global after completing a string of successful projects here in Australia, including fitting out Danny Minogue’s apartment in the iconic Chevron building in Melbourne’s St Kilda. The agency’s Director, Andrew Parr, reckons Australia’s design boom is partly thanks to geography. “I think isolation makes designers aspire to create unique solutions with a world perspective,” he said. “We are influenced by all cultures but environmental elements reinterpret to become uniquely Australian – intensity of colour, texture, light and shadow.” Some of that Australian light and texture is appearing in exclusive western-style apartments in a development called Youtei Tracks at the Niseko-Hirafu Ski village in Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido. Sydney outfit Ultra Group (run by American-born but Sydney-based designer, Lynn Malone), is teaming up with Australian furniture designers to bring Aussie minimalist chic to the slopes. A comforting blend of natural organic materials, soft timber tones and splashes of colour will warm the ice white landscape in time for the 2006 northern hemisphere ski season. Malone has A-list global art and design credentials, including sourcing art by Australian emerging artists for Sir Elton John’s personal collection. Her five years in Sydney has given her an unmistakably Australian edge. She has remodeled four of her own apartments and consulted on design and finishes for Lend Lease (at Jacksons Landing) and Winten Property Group. Another key element at the heart of this new Australian design movement is the combination of ingenuity with fun. Catalyst Design’s General Accoutrement Vest (GAV) ensures police officers are now among the best dressed people in town. The GAV is a stylish, protective, figure-hugging waistcoat carrying all the gadgets a copper could want including a planned holster for a video camera. Also, Electrolux Home Products in Sydney has teamed up with architect Jeppe Utzon (grandson of Jorn – Sydney Opera House) to create the functional, minimalist Utzon Barbecue. It combines Australia’s joint passions for hot outdoor lifestyle and modern cool design. Barbecues, living gardens, sports cars, doorstops and bionic waistcoats... they all indicate that “Designed in Australia” could become as iconic a label as “Made in Kong Kong". Welcome to the new frontier. | |||||
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