Tag: design

First published in The Collective, June 2017 Woollahra, the neighbourhood that was once home to artists and writers such as Patrick White, Banjo Paterson, Dame Joan Sutherland and Margaret Olley, has helped shape Sydney’s legacy of culture, design and art. That’s why Hotel Centennial, a heritage building on a block that’s lined with plane trees, […]

First published in VICE Weekends, February 2017. There’s something universal about the motels of Wildwood, New Jersey. These squat midcentury buildings might have served as seaside playgrounds for working class American families for generations but their pastel facades and neon signs, which often wink to far-flung and exotic places, will be familiar to anyone who’s […]

First published in Broadsheet, February 2016.  For Smith and Carmody, design is less about grand gestures than it is about understated details. Cameron Krone finds inspiration in unlikely sources. The designer and co-founder of Smith and Carmody, the Sydney design studio responsible for some of the city’s most intimate and considered interior spaces, is less […]

First published on Semi-Permanent online, March 2016.  When you walk into NeueHouse, a private co-working space housed in a 50,000-square-foot building in Midtown Manhattan, it’s easy to feel like you’ve entered a clubhouse for the city’s aesthetes rather than a workspace designed to punch deadlines and strike deals. But for co-founder James O’Reilly, the five-storey […]

For architect Joe Snell, transforming the headquarters of the Mamamia publishing empire was a lesson the power of good design.  Joe Snell is a believer in the relationship between good design and positive energy. The award-winning architect, who studied at Copenhagen’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts and serves as a judge on home renovation show […]

First published in VAULT magazine, November 2015.   For Dutch fashion designer Pauline van Dongen, technology, science and form are irrevocably intertwined.  The digital age often miscasts the practical and the beautiful as polar opposites as if an accessory’s usefulness makes it intrinsically ugly or an object’s elegance confines it to your coffee table. Our […]

First published in Broadsheet, Spring print issue, September 2014  You may not know it, but if you’ve got even a passing interest in fashion in this country, you’ve experienced Kelvin Ho’s work. From Dion Lee’s first store in the Strand Arcade, to A.P.C.’s Melbourne outpost and dozens of spaces between, Ho has shaped the way […]

First published in Renegade Collective, March 2014  In a world that often equates work with drudgery, it’s easy to overlook the things that feel like play. But for Johnny Earle, the founder and CEO of Johnny Cupcakes – a left-field T-shirt empire that matches its obsession with pop culture with a reverence for baked goods […]

There are some parts of Melbourne that remain untouched by the tyranny of cool. High Street, Thornbury, with its mix of kebab outlets, tyre shops and non-ironic bikie bars, is one of these places. Sure, the odd café and vintage store nods at what might come, but the area still feels like it sits on […]

Erstwhile, an artful restorer of vintage maps, knows that design nous goes best with a pioneering spirit. For Dirk Baetzold, maps spark the power of imperfect beauty as much as our desire to explore. Late last year, the designer and founder of Erstwhile started scouring antique stores, libraries and historical archives for 1930s Australian topography, […]

Published in Scoop Homes & Art, Summer 2013/14 The search for quality Chinese pieces is growing harder, as collector interest reaches its peak  The London suburb of West Ruislip feels half a world away from South Kensington, home to fabled auction house Christie’s – the unofficial epicenter of the global art world. But in November […]

First published in Vault, November 2013 Known for his famed 100 Chairs in 100 Days project, Italian-born designer Martino Gamper broaches the collision of forms, the collusion function and the cultural symbolism of materials in his unique recasting of domestic furniture.  Martino Gamper trades in joyful collisions. In 2007, the London-based furniture designer spent 100 […]

The Sydney outpost of celebrated US design firm Blu Dot features elegant, considered furniture, minus the aspirational price tag. For Brett Conroy, a glimpse of a watermelon side table in the pages of Dwell magazine proved that you only need to see something once to know you need it in your life. “I saw this table and […]

There’s a faintly dystopian air to the part of Regent Street between Cleveland and Broadway. This pocket of Sydney is a postcard-perfect slice of urban decay, a strip of boarded-up facades and abandoned warehouses that hints that something subversive might be brewing just below the surface. It comes as little surprise that this stretch of […]

Published in Style Seekers, November 2012  Sibella Court’s endlessly inspiring interiors are a perfect blend of imagination, detail and story. Sometimes, our obsession with the perfect is precisely what holds us back. Too often, we cast aside flaws and rough surfaces in favour of a glossy reality that’s best left to the pages of a […]

Published in Broadsheet, Summer print issue December 2012 We visit the Mud Australia workshop to chat with owners Shelley Simpson and James Kirton about their impeccable ability to do one thing well. It’s common knowledge that a badly designed jug is guaranteed to make you spill. But for Shelley Simpson, the founder of celebrated ceramics […]

Good design strikes you when you see it. Whether you’re looking at the graphic colourbursts of a Marimekko cushion, a sculptural Le Klint lampshade or an artful pair of clogs, it sparks a lightning-bolt moment of recognition that’s impossible to forget. Carina Enstrom Gibb agrees. Enstrom Gibb is the founder of funkis, a lifestyle retailer […]

Published in Broadsheet Bosky is feeding our terrarium fixation with miniature worlds that blend horticulture and art. There’s something comforting about terrariums. The miniature greenhouses might represent a charming combination of horticulture and art, but they also offer a type of pleasure that’s a world away from the concrete thrills of city life. Maybe that’s […]

Published in Broadsheet  Global design critic Alice Rawsthorn from the International Herald Tribune will give the keynote speech at 7 Kinds of Happiness: Conversations on Design and Emotion, presented as part of DesignEx in Sydney next week. Like good design, good writing is effortless. A well-written piece of criticism can make an ambitious idea seem […]