Table of contents for INDESIGN #79 - City Futures in INDESIGN

It has been a year of milestones for Indesign Media. In June we brought home our most successful INDE.Awards yet. With 430+ entries from more than 14 countries, the awards program has carved out a uniquely democratic platform for the Indo-Pacific region – something which no other awards program does. Design excellence is not dependent upon big budgets and slick imagery; weight is given to the role of design in respect to local culture, community, and user needs. Closely following the INDEs was Saturday Indesign, making its exciting comeback to Melbourne after a two-year hiatus. Its festival-like atmosphere creates an event dynamic as yet unmatched in our region. And the opportunities for connection and collaboration are plentiful. On the commercial design front, we staged the second annual FRONT.design at Barangaroo,…

It’s that first moment of arrival in a space that defines your direction – that transcendent moment of breaking through the threshold and soaking in the artistry, design and craftsmanship that is embedded within a building’s walls and ceilings. Yet powerful, considered and thoughtful design comes down to more than just aesthetics – it has the ability to make you feel good and positively affect your physical, mental and emotional state. Revolutionary architect, Luis Barragán once said: “Architecture is an art when one consciously or unconsciously creates aesthetic emotion in the atmosphere and when this environment produces wellbeing.” That shift towards health and wellbeing within the built environment continues to be paramount, and the ability to engender change through design comes in the most intelligent of forms. In search of…

In the early 1990s, I was covering a significant architect-designed home for a magazine. The distinctive house, with its curvaceous white walls and dramatic voids, was filled with the finest Italian designer furniture most could only dream about. With notepad in hand, I witnessed virtually the entire contents carried to the garage. Flimsy and inexpensive white soft vinyl furniture was brought in, not surprisingly, curved. The owner of this home looked on in despair while the photographer and stylists patted themselves on the back! Decades later, furniture that doesn’t quite ‘fit’ the theme of a photographic shoot continues to be shunned in favour of what’s perceived as the latest and greatest. Houses, along with apartments and even workspaces, become less authentic with the goal to creating generic images that are…

Multi-residential buildings are increasingly being designed in response to their local surroundings, in turn creating connectivity between urban design and architecture. What’s more, with a higher number of people choosing to live in apartments closer to their workplaces, multi-residential buildings are also being designed to reflect this lifestyle. Bringing into play the very best design brands in the business, The Landmark by New Hope Group and VIMG is a stunning example of the trend. A distinguished multi-residential structure that is all set to define the suburb of St. Leonards in North Sydney, The Landmark has teamed up with Zip Water, and equally prestigious design aficionados, to craft a lifestyle that offers beauty, comfort and quality – from the front door, right through to those essential living zones like the kitchen.…

McCorkell Brown Group offices, Melbourne by Ha Architecture Hoddle Street is one of Melbourne’s busiest thoroughfares, with traffic jams a regular occurrence during peak travel times. However inside the three-level offices of McCorkell Brown Group (situated on Hoddle Street between the main drags of Victoria Street and Wellington Parade), there’s a sense of calm, with double-glazing shielding most of the noise. “Hence, the form of the building, strategically following the Res Code guidelines,” says Ha Architecture principal Nick Harding, who inherited the task of transforming an old distribution warehouse thought to be from the 1940s. For Harding’s clients, moving from a warehouse-style office located close to the new location was paramount. “We wanted our staff (25 in number) not to be inconvenienced by the move. It’s also a stone’s throw…

“I am a resident in an aged care facility in Victoria, unable to perform the simplest acts to assist myself or even to adjust my position in the bed-style chair to which I am confined during my waking hours. If I become uncomfortable, thirsty or hungry I press the buzzer which is usually, but not always, placed close to my right hand.”Written submission by Bernard Cooney for the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety1 Design thinking invites architects and designers to engage in creative problem solving to achieve human-centred solutions. One would presume that a situation such as that documented in the recent Royal Commission by former Victorian senator, Bernard Cooney, who spent his final years in a residential aged care facility would provide designers with an inspiring…

As the title of this article suggests, dense doesn’t need to be a dirty word. The catch cry of increasing urbanisation often comes back to density, but is it a bad thing if the fabric holding it together brings something more valuable, like social cohesion? These key points came out of a round table discussion between Atelier Bow-Wow’s Yoshiharu Tsukamoto, and RMIT’s Graham Crist and John Doyle – co-curators of the RMIT Design Hub exhibition Super Tight (July - September 2019). Tightness is different to denseness Yoshiharu Tsukamoto: The idea of tightness is not just about size and density, there is a relational aspect that comes into play – how people and buildings can interact with one another. It raises questions like, how can architects design to facilitate relational qualities…

South Eveleigh Axle – Building 1, Sydney Page 86 Interior Design Woods Bagot Collaborative Interior Design Partner Davenport Campbell & Partners Architecture, Base Building fjmt, Sissons Architects Developer, Main Contractor Mirvac Town Planning Ethos Urban Civil / Structural Engineer Enstruct Civil Engineer AT&L Building Services and Environmentally Sustainable Design (to tender design) Arup Building Services (construction) Fredon Air NSW Pty Ltd, Heyday5, Quick Plumbing, BSA, VAE Group Fit-out Building Services (construction) NDY, Arup Budget $1 billion Duration 27 months Woods Bagot woodsbagot.com.au Davenport Campbell davenport-campbell.com.au fjmt fjmtstudio.com Sissons Architects sissonsarchitects.com Mirvac mirvac.com Furniture ‘Mekdrive 3’ compactus units, Dexion Commercial. Walter Knoll ‘Bao Lounge Chair’ waiting armchair, Herman Miller ‘Aeron Chair’ task chairs and drafting height stools, Living Edge. Vitra ‘Physix’ meeting room chairs, Vitra ‘Hal’ armchair and studio chair for…

Annie Hensley Principal fjmt Annie is a principal at fjmtstudio leading fjmtcommunity, a discipline dedicated to reinforcing place specific design through consultation, placemaking and art integration. Much of her 17 years at fjmt has been dedicated to community, cultural and urban design projects. No matter the typology, Annie continues to reinforce the importance of the public as a primary stakeholder. Her contribution to fjmt’s distinct, site-specific response includes in-depth research into the locale and its community, engagement, place strategies and post occupancy evaluation. She continues her involvement in a number of completed projects to optimise their ongoing success, including Bunjil Place in Victoria. Bringing Back The Town Square Page 162 Stephen Crafti Architecture and design writer Stephen Crafti started writing on architecture and design in the early 1990s after purchasing…

Design has the power to create a feeling, to make you question the details and push the boundaries of innovation and creativity. It is a medium in which designers showcase their narrative and their personality – giving them an opportunity to define their own style. A pioneer, leader and boundary-pushing creator, Tom Dixon continuously brings exciting design propositions to areas of lighting, accessories and furniture. The Tom Dixon brand itself encapsulates a distinct nature and a joyous, quirky and rigorous of design. Breaking barriers in conventional shapes and textures of lighting and furniture, the meticulous and exuberant craftsmanship of Dixon’s pieces are celebrated within the new studio of The Coal Office by Design Research Studio (DRS). A restless innovator, Dixon established DRS in 2003 under his design direction as a…

“When I was a child,” says Sebastian Herkner, “I would travel around Europe with my parents. We would stop at a village, and often this village was dedicated to crafts. This one would be dedicated to ceramics, that one to gloves – and things like that. Even as a little child, I was always interested in the crafts of these places. I think that’s where it all started – my journey into the design world.” As far as journeys go, this one is fairly enviable. From boyhood reconnoitres of Europe’s company towns to, earlier this year, being awarded one of the design industry’s highest accolades – Maison&Objet’s 2019 Designer of the Year – Herkner’s career trajectory can only be summed up as preternatural. “He’s made it!” say some. And perhaps…

Commonwealth Bank at South Eveleigh Axle – Building 1, Sydney by Woods Bagot with Davenport Campbell (interior design), fjmt with Sissons Architects (base building), Mirvac (developer) The project is being undertaken by a consortium led by Mirvac and embodies the idea of a complex, once in the forefront of industrial innovation, now reborn as a hub of innovation in the high tech era. Not just that, it takes the idea of digital connection to a new dimension with a masterplan that aims to connect the precinct to the existing suburban fabric and the 7000-year inhabitation of the area by the Gadigal people. South Eveleigh will be a porous destination – and not just for the day workers who commute in and out, but for the local community. The complex offers…

The Gandel Wing at Cabrini Malvern, Melbourne by Bates Smart The New Clinical Building by Bates Smart in Malvern is anything but clinical. The seven-storey building (with an additional four levels below ground) could be mistaken for residential apartments with its timber-battened facade. Forming the new building is the Gandel Wing at Cabrini Malvern, responding as much to the latest changes in technology as it does to the surrounding leafy neighbourhood and its demographics. “We’ve been working on this hospital campus since the 1980s. This time, it was about strengthening connections to our previous centres (Medical Centres Two and Three) as well creating this new wing, including the provision of over 100 new beds,” says Mark Healey, studio director at Bates Smart. Replacing a two-storey concrete consulting wing from the…

Imagine asking the Australian car industry to design a modern mini-bus. You’d probably get a stretch limousine, based on a Commodore or a Falcon, all V8 and disco lights. Ask transport experts and you’d get a highly efficient, autonomously guided, electric- or hydrogen-powered 20-seater: safe, accessible and comfortable. Australia has pursued the same approach in the drive for urban density. A country singularly obsessed with the one-family house makes apartments by jamming units together in a rack-stack-and-pack approach akin to the extra wheels and seats in the limo. Whilst they hold more people than a row of single houses, they come with all the downsides of suburbia, and little of the upside of urban living. We need to rethink what an apartment block might be to make a liveable city.…

Subscribe to Indesign and receive 5 issues for the price of 4, AUS$55. indesignlive.com/subscribe Indesign is for creative professionals who are hungry to continue the ideas and thought leadership that inform the best projects, products and practices in the Indo-Pacific region. Indesign looks for the point and purpose of everything in design, exploring what we do, how we do it and why. Here within you’ll find clever, provocative and insightful conversations with the design industry.…

“If the world was a different place I would love to be a fashion designer… To me fashion really reflects what’s happening socially.” Quizzed about whether the success of his partnership with Kirsten Stanisich is because they are similar or different, Jonathan Richards comments that they are quite different. “I didn’t ever go to Kirsten and say, ‘Hey do you want to start a partnership?’ We just found ourselves together. It’s like an arranged marriage. A company just joined us and said, ‘You guys will work well together’.” He says they are good friends and with an equally good working relationship. “We have lunch all the time, we hang out together – it’s a very easy conversation and throwing up of ideas.” But Stanisich quips that “it’s like having a…

Tūranga, Christchurch, New Zealand by Architectus in association with Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects It is elegantly woven into the urban realm of Cathedral Square… encouraging pedestrians to flow inside and through to, blend with the city itself. The Christchurch earthquakes of 2010 and 2011 destroyed most of the major civic, commercial, retail and council properties in the CBD with the associated dispersal of the local business community. Nine years on from one of the world’s most expensive natural disasters, the city has now rebuilt a number of strategic sites and precincts to create a more peopled, connected and sustainable urban centre. Tūranga central library is a major piece of the rebuild puzzle. This carefully planned revitalisation project on Whitireia/Cathedral Square – the civic and cultural heart of Christchurch – is…

The purity of mathematical forms may not be the most obvious source of inspiration for beauty, but Louis Poulsen is no ordinary design house. It was this appreciation for splendorous mathematical forms that lead to the creation of the new OE Quasi Light. Designed in collaboration with the revered Danish-Icelandic artist, Olafur Eliasson, OE Quasi Light was unveiled at the 2019 Salone del Mobile and is a masterful realisation of the interplay between form and function, and art and design. “Light has been central to my artistic practice for over 25 years,” says Olafur Eliasson of the creative partnership with Louis Poulsen. “Light shapes everything; it determines what we do and how we do it. Quality lighting is essential to our lives. A concern for the emotional and physical effects…

Today, more than half the world’s population lives in cities, and it is estimated that by 2050, that number will grow to 6.7 billion – or about 68 per cent of the global population. By that time, the number of people aged 80 or over is projected to triple. So, as people live longer, cities across the world will not only be faced with general growth but the specific challenges of an ageing population, particularly when it comes to the way designers and urban planners think about transport systems. “As designers, instead of thinking of these new requirements as limiting the creative process, embrace them and see what benefit it can bring to the whole community,” suggests Paul Priestman. In these near-future “silver cities” (as they are often dubbed), the…

Chances are we’ve all felt lonely at one point or another and for many of us, the feeling is a recurring one. It’s easy to blame the rise of digitalisation, especially in these social media obsessed times when people seem more connected to their devices than each other. But is it really Instagram’s fault? People can feel lonely in a marriage or in a crowded room and often it’s the extrovert at the party who feels the most disconnected. Loneliness is such a subjective experience and that’s why it’s near impossible to define the root of the cause. What’s for certain though, is we could very well have an epidemic on our hands. So much so, the UK government recently appointed a minister for loneliness and closer to home, the…

Rapid population growth and migration have been the subject of intense media interest of late, focusing on congestion and infrastructure. Less is made of the parallel and almost intangible impact of growth on communities and their places. Australian cities face significant challenges not only to provide essential infrastructure but also to maintain social fabric and sense of identity. The lion’s share of Australia’s population growth is shared between its capital cities, primarily Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. A million new residents will call Melbourne home by 2029, with high-density urban infill and traditional urban sprawl continuing to reflect this growth. These are not places of collective memory evolving over generations. Full suburbs emerge in a matter of years out of industrial zones and farmland. It is these areas which are particularly…