Evelyn Reynolds

This September, the Design Museum plays host to a global showcase of the next generation of design talent. Bringing together 20 emerging designers from 16 countries, Discovered presents a visionary group of young creatives from across Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia in an extraordinary showcase of furniture, objects and sculptural works in wood.
A collaboration between the American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC) and Wallpaper magazine, Discovered offers a series of personal reflections on the experience of the pandemic, while providing a platform for new creatives after a year in which the usual channels for exposure were inaccessible. The exhibition is therefore a much-needed opportunity for emerging designers to get their work out there in front of the public and the industry.
“This is a time when the next generation needs support more than ever, so we are honoured to partner with AHEC in launching Discovered – to ensure the designers of tomorrow have the platform they deserve,” said Sarah Douglas, editor-in-chief of Wallpaper.
Selected from Wallpaper’s annual Graduate Directories and through AHEC’s network, the designers have worked alongside design mentors and AHEC’s global manufacturing partners to each develop a new object made from their choice of four sustainable hardwoods: American red oak, cherry, and hard and soft maple.
Throughout the project, designers have been supported and mentored by Wallpaper editor-in-chief Sarah Douglas and AHEC directors David Venables and Rod Wiles, as well as a global group of designers including Tomoko Azumi, Maria Jeglinska-Adamczewska, Nathan Yong and Adam Markowitz.
“Discovered is a unique opportunity for us as we will be joining forces with the other AHEC regional offices in a creative project for the first time. Together with Wallpaper, we have selected an extremely exciting line-up of designers from 16 different countries – 3 of whom are from Australia. This project has enabled us to give them a valuable learning experience on product design and development with sustainable hardwood. We are also fortunate to have had input from designer-maker Adam Markowitz as a mentor for the Australian designers and also those from Korea and Japan. Added to this has been world-class manufacturing from Evostyle in Sydney. It’s a great opportunity to showcase the capability of Australian design on a global stage,” said Rod Wiles, director AHEC Oceania.
From 13 September to 10 October 2021, including the duration of London Design Festival, the 20 designers’ works will be on display at the Design Museum, taking over the ground-floor atrium to showcase the creativity of the group and the versatility of their chosen materials.
To develop their concepts, participants were invited to think freely about their experience of living and working in isolation, responding to themes of touch, reflection and strength, and to channel their own experiences into a piece that represents our functional and emotional connections to everyday objects. The designers have considered ideas such as identity and cultural heritage, family and social ritual, the pandemic-induced need to adapt, and the inherent comfort of touch.
This has resulted in a highly diverse selection of objects, ranging from functional furniture such as cabinets, tables and chairs to more abstract, sculptural works that inspire reflection. Taken as a whole, Discovered represents how the experience of isolation has inspired each designer’s personal and creative journeys, in what has been an extraordinary time for the individual, the industry and the world as a whole. More

Acclaimed French architect and architectural historian Jean-Louis Cohen has been appointed as the inaugural Penelope Visiting Professor in Architectural History at the University of Sydney. Cohen will lead a two-year program of research and public events in the Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning. The university said his appointment had been delayed due to […] More

Plans for a $200 million hotel and villa complex fronting a Darwin beach have sparked concerns about potential encroachment on local Indigenous sacred sites and the overdevelopment of the city’s foreshore.
Designed by architecture firm Hachem, the resort complex at 25 Gilruth Avenue, The Gardens would include a 168-room hotel, 53 serviced apartments and a 277-space parking lot.
It would occupy a site known as Little Mindil, between the Mindil Beach Casino and the Myilly Point Heritage Precinct, which includes the 1938 Burnett House designed by architect Beni Burnett.
Planning documents describe a “biophilic” design, centred around subtle layering of elements.
“This principle of cascading design reflects the textures of the ocean and the topography of the gentle grade of the site itself,” states Hachem.

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25 Gilruth Avenue, The Gardens by Hachem.

The complex would be planned around four integrated components – the hotel, foreshore villas and serviced apartments, lagoon villas and garden villas, offering views to Little Mindil Beach, Little Mindil Creek (also known as Casino Creek) and the southern escarpment. The buildings would include green roofs and
“It is our primary goal to maximize the natural gifts of this special tract of land,” Hachem notes. “Through considered design, we will create a luxury haven that provides guests with their own private outlook, inviting them to bask in these unique and glorious surroundings.”
However, the beachfront is a registered sacred site that may have been used for burial purposes, and Larrakia Development Corporation chief executive Nigel Browne has told local media that despite consultation with traditional owners the plans appeared to encroach on sacred sites.
“Now we’ve gone back and looked at what they’ve actually submitted to the planning authority and the concern is that the provisions for ensuring the integrity of the sacred site areas within that lot and the sacred site that runs the length and breadth of the Mindil beachfront have not been adequately addressed,” he said.
An archaeological survey of the proposed hotel site completed as part of the development application found no surface finds, but historical assessment of the site indicates that “the entire length of Mindil Beach may have been used for burial purposes.”
The project’s developers Arthur Winston Investment and Kita Group plan to instigate an archaeological monitoring program in case prehistoric burials still exist at the site, and they say they are committed to ongoing consultation with traditional owners.
The development application is currently on public exhibition. More

Welsh and Major has designed a “bold” extension to a community centre in inner-city Sydney.
Located on the site of the former Pyrmont Public School, the Pyrmont Community Centre will be expanded with new facilities, universal access and a larger gym.
The historic building on the site, which opened in 1884, is a locally listed heritage item designed by William Kemp. Pyrmont Public School closed in 1934 and the building was then used as a hostel for unemployed men until 1948, when it became a facility for Sydney Technical School. City of Sydney extensively refurbished the building to designs by Jones Brewster Regan in 1993.
Welsh and Major described the design for the new extension as “elegant, minimal and gentle […] humane in scale, bold in scope and deliberately quiet.”
“The new Mount St Entry will pragmatically and symbolically open the site up to the varied community groups to utilise and enjoy the rejuvenated community centre,” the practice said in a design statement.
“We propose a symbolic street window as a key part of the Centre’s presentation to the street. It is perhaps more important as a symbol than programatically, acting as a connection between the public and ‘private’ realm.
“The bold gesture that is the new building, and the way it connects with the existing spaces and structures with a series of architectural stitches and splints, assembles all the building fabric built across a timeline of over 100 years into a cohesive Pyrmont Community Centre.”
The major upgrade will also include a new 60-square-metre community room, a new, bigger gym, converting the existing gym cardio room into a community space, and refurbishment of the main community hall, library link and community room on the first floor.
The new building will be capped with clerestory window and finished in textured and smooth-faced concrete along the street facade with light coloured powdercoated steel columns, shade awnings and street window. Rough cast render to the rear will unify the new and old.
“The new Pyrmont Community Centre is an assembly of materials and spaces that creates a flexible and vibrant community hub that should serve the local community well for the next 50 years and beyond,” Welsh and Major said. More

What are the biggest challenges when recruiting recent graduates of architecture school? Are students well-prepared for BIM workflows and integrated design? What does the ideal job candidate look like? Creativity or software skills? Engineering or digital mindset? These are some of the questions that Graphisoft asks in its Global Recruitment Survey – Hiring the Next […] More

The Artex kitchen is a timeless feature of the home, designed around a central island bench offering a communal work and gathering space. With a contemporary feel and a natural aesthetic, the Artex kitchen boasts ample surfaces and rigorous lines, which highlight the quality of the materials.
Owner Bill Plastiras was busy managing a successful career in construction when his love affair with Poliform began back in 2003. Now it continues to the present day: in his own home that he shares with lawyer wife Maryanne, and the homes of his extended family.
The sun-filled house shows his strong appreciation for classical elements, functionality and high-performance design.
“We chose Poliform and the Artex kitchen because it’s very elegant and it matches the other quality brand products that we own,” owner Bill explains.
“The kitchen is the centrepiece of our home. The layout not only suits our family activities, but we can have casual drinks and nibbles around the island bench with our guests as well,” he says.
Style is important to Bill in all that he does, as is the the functionality of the products he lives with. On weekends and during holidays, his family love to celebrate and cook together. Leisure time often sees them entertaining in the kitchen, living and dining space alongside their beautiful garden and pool deck.
“I like the detail around the doors and the interface with the bench top in the kitchen. The location and dimension of the kickboard make the cabinets float. I appreciate the attention to detail and the superior quality in Poliform. It’s all very precise details. Other kitchen brands try to copy, but they are not the same.
“Our previous kitchen was a dark veneer, so to lighten it up we went for mainly white cabinets this time. But we do like the Spessart oak veneer and the contrast it gives with the white benches. The Gaggenau oven and microwave oven are also better highlighted in this setting.”
A true lover of design, Bill Plastiras has now even extended his Poliform crush to his son’s home. When his son wed recently, he and Maryanne gave them a Poliform bedroom suite to mark their nuptials. More

In August 2021 Vola launched the RS11 hands-free sanitizer and soap dispenser for commercial spaces. The classic cylinder makes its debut in reception spaces around the world.
The offer of hand sanitizer on arrival at offices, retail and hospitality venues is now a global norm. With the Vola RS11, this experience has been given a stylish new enhancement, featuring Vola’s distinctive aesthetic and discrete elegance.
The starting point for the design was a simple but challenging question, according to architect and designer Torben Madsen, who is also design manager at Link Arkitecktur. “The question we asked ourselves was how do you make a hand sanitizer as invitingly delicious as, say, a bunch of delicately fragrant roses or a crisp bouquet of tulips?”
The RS11 is available in three configurations – freestanding, wall-mounted and table-mounted – to suit any environment, including reception areas, offices and bathrooms. It is adaptable for dispensing hand sanitizer gel and foam soap, and each configuration uses the same sized, well-proportioned cylinder with a one-litre capacity. In line with the Vola design philosophy, all mechanisms are hidden, to give a seamlessly subtle design; wall fixtures are also discrete, to create the slimmest possible cylindrical form.
Explaining the mechanism itself, Torben Madsen points out: “We compressed Vola’s classic, cylindrical shape into as slim and light a design as possible. That allows the cylinder to contain the mechanism that dispenses the contents in atomized form. It also means that it can contain at least one litre, so it doesn’t have to be refilled as often.”
The reservoir references the Vola round-head shower and is designed with the same commitment to durability and continuity, and produced with the same high quality materials. It is easy to clean and refill, helping to prevent accidential damage, and the extruded aluminium cylinder, available in black or white, is resistant to finger marks.
Each configuration of the RS11 is available in the full range of 27 Vola colours, including the eight special finishes from the Exclusive Colour and is powered by four AAA rechargeable batteries. Parts are easy to replace if necessary as they are held in stock by Vola to ensure many years of use. More

Bates Smart’s expressionist design for an office tower in Sydney’s Green Square has been submitted for planning assessment.
Proposed for the intersection of Botany Road and O’Riordan Street, the 17-storey building will become a key focal point of the urban renewal area with its striking form offering a contemporary reinterpretation of the area’s industrial saw-tooth geometry.
The tower will sit atop a solid masonry base with arched openings, recalling the brick arches of industrial buildings. The building form will be split down the middle to create a covered north-south link between Transport Place and the Green Square Railway Station and a pocket park to the south. Retail tenancies and corner cafes will help to activate this link and the surrounding public domain.
Bates Smart describes in planning documents how a “naturally ventilated social heart” constructed of timber will sit between the two distinct workplace volumes, visually suspended above the through-site link.
For the facade of the tower proper, vertical and horizontal shading fins in striking red oxide again recall the area’s industrial past.

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Green Square office tower by Bates Smart.

“We have reinterpreted the masonry [of the old factory buildings] into a contemporary masonry material, GRC,” state the architects. “The glazing is protected from solar gain by a brise soleil of 600 mm horizontal and vertical members at 1.8m centres. Their regular repetition visually links to the utilitarian character of the industrial buildings, without resorting to mimicking the form and details.”
Landscaped roof terraces from level 10 to 16 will create biophilic connections to nature for the office workers. The project’s landscape architect Turf Design Studio notes that the proposed planting incorporates a strong cascading theme that will soften the top corner edges of the building.
“Flashes of red are incorporated to reflect the microclimatic condition of hotter drier conditions toward the top of the building,” the landscape architecture firm notes. “Grey green / glaucas foliage is also utilised to further reflect microclimatic conditions.”
Bates Smart won a City of Sydney Design Excellence competition for the project earlier in the year.

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A model of the Bates Smart’s Green Square office tower.

The practice’s director Philip Vivian noted at the time the potential of the project to become a landmark in a changing suburb.
“The city fringe location, alongside the connection to Green Square’s train station, provides a unique opportunity to create a fringe precinct that invigorates its context and sets the precedent for the workplace of the future,” he said.
Developed by Toga Group, the $141 million project will deliver 28,751 square metres of office and retail space, along with end-of-trip facilities. The development application is on public exhibit until 17 Septemebr. More