Tabla de contenidos para Issue 70 March 2020 en Artichoke

It often seems like everyone and everything is vying for our attention. News headlines are shouty, advertisements are pushy, social media feeds are deafening and inboxes are nagging. All of this noise can feel overwhelming. Short of surrendering completely to a life in overdrive, how can we find relief? And how do we find it in our interiors? At The Commons QV co-working space in Melbourne (page 102), quiet zones are essential. Foolscap Studio responded with a range of spaces, but one in particular, the sensory room, uses soft lighting and muted materiality to create a space for sleep, meditation, thinking or whatever your brand of personal intermission. For Aesop’s new Sydney store (page 60), Snøhetta designed the entrance as a “decompression zone,” inviting those entering from the clamour of…

There’s a contemporary style in spatial illustration that you can see in any design school or artisanal lifestyle magazine like Frankie or Monocle. It has a certain planar, crisp quality, full of personable occupants and appealing details that suggest attention to elevating the daily things of life. Walking into new bistro Part Time Lover, in the backblocks of Adelaide’s CBD, is a little like entering one of these images; and I’m reminded that its designer, Matiya Marovich of Sans-Arc Studio, was an early exponent of this style of digital representation as an architecture student only seven years ago at the University of South Australia. Apart from the pleasure of seeing a young alumnus’s career take off, it’s satisfying to see his funky representational hand transformed into reality. On an otherwise…

Landmark by Lexus by Koichi Takada Architects In 2019, Japanese luxury car brand Lexus’s presence at the Melbourne Cup Carnival evolved into Landmark by Lexus, a three-storey pavilion that invited guests to experience the company’s commitment to design and innovation. A week-long hospitality program paid homage to Australian design, underpinned by the Japanese value of omotenashi, meaning to wholeheartedly look after and anticipate guests’ needs. Design collaborators included architect Koichi Takada, who designed a bamboo, torii-like structure to envelop the Lexus RV hybrid as well as a voluminous ceiling installation in the dining room that was inspired by paperbark trees; and sustainable artist Joost Bakker, who created centrepieces from Australian native plants and biodegradable products. The ninety-seat restaurant – the largest seated dining room ever to have been hosted in…

Scandal wall sconce from Articolo Lighting design studio Articolo has created the Scandal wall sconce, featuring elegant mouthblown glass shades with barrel-like inlaid cuffs. Exquisite brass mesh or leather is inlaid into the design, creating a dramatic, sculptural lighting feature. Casting a slim and finely considered silhouette, Scandal is defined by elongated proportions capped end-to-end by rounded glass, subtly concealing the internal light source and exemplifying the quiet brilliance of artisanal glass and detailed metalwork. Bauhaus collection by Helen Kontouris for LEN Bold colours, rich textures and strong geometric forms create a striking impression in Bauhaus, a new seating collection designed by Helen Kontouris for LEN. Reminiscent of the timber building blocks Kontouris played with during her childhood, this sophisticated series allows for a variety of configurations of circles, squares…

The Artichoke Magazine Prize for design communication is awarded to one graduating student from each institution in Australia and New Zealand that offers interior design/ interior architecture degree courses, and which is a member of the Interior Design/Interior Architecture Educators Association (IDEA). Each institution’s prize-winning student is selected by its school head. 1 — Laychheng Lim of University of Technology Sydney “Millenial Farmers” addresses social issues of the post-industrial city by combining traditional farm-to-table practices with the formalism of factory interiors. Visitors experience food production and consumption in the three-layered interior, moving through farming and cooking environments and ending in the dining area. This visual performance creates a theatrical experience, encouraging visitors to develop healthier eating habits, closer community engagement and a greater awareness of sustainable farming practices in the…

A few years ago I arranged to meet a work colleague at my office. Through my window I watched him cross the small park opposite our building. He walked slowly but purposefully, circumventing a pair of bollards blocking the footpath, skirting a light pole and a drinking fountain. My friend is a disability consultant. He is also legally blind. During our discussion, he described the experience of navigating a world he can’t see.“The problem with a lot of design,” he said, “is that it caters for the 80 percent of people who have no physical limitations. But what about the 20 percent who have disabilities, no matter how minor? Blow your knee running and you’ll find out how hard it is to get down a badly designed staircase. Once your…

Sometimes the measure of an interior’s success is the deeply misleading appearance that the designers haven’t done much at all. With Gathered in Footscray, this is the case in the most positive possible sense. Ewert Leaf has taken a space with great “bones,” an industrial behemoth of a shell, made a few key moves, solved a tonne of logistical and functional problems (mostly invisibly) and created an interior that works on many levels. It operates on these multiple levels simultaneously, while calmly appearing to do very little at all. This is not a claim to minimalism. Gathered is intensely material and thoroughly materialized, from those aforementioned “bones” up. The heritage brick shell with which the design team and client began is part of a larger industrial structure with a fascinating…

Despite being described as a waterfront suburb, Sandy Bay – just outside Hobart’s CBD – has a retail centre that defies this reference. An eclectic range of retail, hospitality and other service providers cluster around one main road, with little to define the place beyond the proximity between traders. Sisterhood, designed by Melbourne practice Biasol, carves a slightly newer path for this area and reclaims a waterfront feel in a large cafe just off the main shopping strip. Fresh from a trip to Tulum, on the coast of Mexico, Jean-Pierre Biasol felt that the relaxed and charming interiors he had experienced on his holiday could be inspiration for this eatery, just a few minutes walk from a beach and marina. This aesthetic was a match with the business owner’s brief…

When Australian entrepreneur and mother Janine Allis embarked on the design and build of her five-bedroom home she turned to Penny del Castillo of In Design International to help her realize her dream house. Understanding that Allis’s family lives a modern lifestyle, del Castillo chose materials and textures to reflect the personality of the family in order to design an oasis they can call home. Importantly, the interior needed to offer a sense of natural luxury coupled with hardwearing finishes that would withstand the active lifestyles of Allis’s busy household. The natural tones, seen in Dekton’s industrial range from Cosentino made it an easy choice for this stylish home thanks to their peaceful and nurturing aesthetic coupled with excellent performance. Made from a sophisticated mixture of the raw materials used…

Skin specialist and founder of Seen Skin, Jazmin Camilleri, approached Golden with a clear understanding of her brand’s values and philosophy and her client’s needs. She turned to Golden to use this vision to create a new flagship space, located within an existing Prahran retail tenancy. Seen Skin is passionate about celebrating healthy but “real” skin. Staff generally don’t wear make-up and they avoid using airbrushed imagery in any of their promotional material. They honour the imperfections of real, human skin to promote realistic goals. While Camilleri wanted the space to similarly embrace imperfection, it also needed to feel slightly sterile. She wanted customers to feel confident that their experience at the clinic would be clean and hygienic. In response to this, Golden’s approach to the space is restrained and…

There are few commercial projects that better encapsulate the power of a “big idea” than Byres Street, an office building in Brisbane designed by Cavill Architects in association with Hogg and Lamb. The concept manifests physically in the form of a remarkable, four-storey barrel-vaulted atrium enclosing a monumental staircase that brings a sense of civic scale and generosity to an otherwise unassuming commercial development. Beyond the grand gesture, a deeper philosophical approach is it play. It speaks of the value of embedding a sense of community in the workplace. The Byres Street building is a striking anomaly in a Brisbane neighbourhood defined by light industry and commercial warehouse buildings. Approximately half a kilometre south of Byres Street, the Gasworks precinct has evolved to become a thriving, highly-serviced centre but despite…

Judith Abell is a writer, designer and artist, consistently working at the intersections between these disciplines. Judith currently works for the City of Hobart as a public art coordinator, while maintaining her sculptural art practice and her freelance writing work. Michelle Bailey is an architecture and design writer based in Brisbane. Since her move from architectural practice to architectural writing six years ago, she has visited almost 200 projects in Queensland and has written about these for magazines such as Artichoke and Houses. Gavin Campbell is the national president at the Design Institute of Australia. His strong passion for design and its value to our culture has motivated him to work to promote the values of good design across the whole community. Willem-Dirk du Toit is a Melbourne-based photographer who…

The design of Via Porta has been approached as an urban exercise, an attempt to construct experiences reminiscent of the density and complexity of narrow Italian alleyways in a distinctly different setting. The project also demonstrates a detailed understanding of hospitality, employing design skills to support and value the processes and rituals inherent in preparing and sharing food. The site in suburban Mont Albert didn’t immediately suggest a Mediterranean connection. An anonymous aluminium shopfront, previously home to a manufacturer of trophies, sat behind a small asphalt forecourt alongside a few similarly uninspiring neighbours, adrift from any established retail centre. Although lacking in apparent character from the street, the building did have several appealing attributes: convenient access for loading and deliveries via the rear lane, an unexpected complexity in section (including…

Based in the remote Ahuriri Valley in Otago, New Zealand, the award-winning Lindis Lodge has all the features of a five-star resort, with beautifully stylish bedrooms and living spaces, a private chef and a grand billiard room. Though the real drawcard is the landscape. Designed by Architecture Workshop and built by Brosnan Construction, the local environment was without a doubt the key inspiration for the project where pure elegance is combined with the peacefully serene but striking surrounds that span 2,700 hectares. In keeping with the location’s natural beauty and the project’s sustainability objectives, Big River Group’s plywood and flooring products were chosen due to their hard-wearing durability and natural, warm tones that provided a beautifully aesthetic interior. The company’s quality Armourpanel Spotted Gum was used for the bathroom cabinetry,…

Joybird by Studio Gram Joybird is your familiar neighbourhood chicken shop reimagined; a fancy fast-food restaurant brimming with 1970s nostalgia. This unapologetic celebration of the suburban fast-food joint accommodates a two-hundred-seat, diner-style restaurant. At the street frontage, banquette seating wraps the perimeter to give the venue a strong street presence. A long kitchen is the centrepiece of the restaurant, functioning as a bar inside and a service window at the street. A warm colour palette of timber and vibrant yellows is expressed in materials such as vinyl upholstery and floor tiles, and timber wall panelling, in keeping with the retro vibe. Their use also ensured that the fitout delivered a big design impact within a modest budget of $1250 per square metre. This project required a strong collaboration between brand,…