Tabla de contenidos para Issue 78 March 2022 en Artichoke

As I put this issue together, it struck me just how palpably fun and joyful a time the designers must have had while creating the projects that are featured. At the offices of Johnson Partners (page 72), YSG has flipped the script on the conventional corporate highrise headquarters to create a workplace that looks like a James Bond set and feels like the inviting home of a discerning tastemaker. At Monash Robotics Lab by Studio Bright (page 48), what could easily have become a generic “high-tech” space is instead a striking, welcoming yet entirely functional workshop for both human and droid. Meanwhile, at community radio station, bar and restaurant Hope Street Radio (page 32), architect Peter Frederick Cole has let his inner child free. Cole and artist Alice McIntosh hand-drew…

Carbon range from Zetr The Zetr Carbon series of handcrafted and hand-finished metal flush fit faceplates is a response to the increasing desire to customize every element of an interior. Made and assembled in Australia, the Carbon series will now join Zetr’s core collection of power outlets and light switches. The full Carbon series includes seven key metal finishes including Aged Brass, pictured. Zetr— zetr.com.au Kokoro meeting system from James Richardson Embracing modularity and freedom are the inspiring basics of Kokoro, the meeting system designed by Federica Biasi. Meeting the needs of security, visual and acoustic privacy, Kokoro is designed to create a sense of intimacy, welcoming people inside, and at the same time offering design versatility thanks to a variety of compositions. Sculptured yet defined, the meeting system shifts…

Alliance Lane sits deep within the engineering precinct of Monash University’s sprawling Clayton campus, in Melbourne’s south east. Previously the domain of airconditioning units and piles of rusty steel pipes, it is now home to an ambitious robotics laboratory which stretches well beyond its walls to create a welcoming new environment for both humans and robots. The new facility brings together robotics researchers from different engineering departments to encourage collaboration and occupies the ground floor of a rational 1960s institutional block, typical of Monash’s sturdy “vernacular” architecture. Although originally planned around a generous courtyard, years of accretion and makeshift modifications had resulted in blocked views, hidden offices and inactive frontages. Detailed site analysis and clear diagrams convinced an engaged client that drastic change was required and Studio Bright proceeded to…

Working from home during the COVID pandemic showed many of us to be more adaptable and resilient then we ever had imagined. The comfort, familiarity and convenience that our domestic environments provide have made many people realize how poorly designed and inhumane their workplaces were. However, the lack of socialization and never-ending domestic disruptions also have some of us longing for face-to-face interaction with our colleagues and the focus provided by a closed-door meeting. Johnson Partners, a boutique recruitment agency, understood the importance of the physical workplace in attracting and retaining staff. In commissioning YSG to design its new Sydney headquarters, the key question the agency posed was, “What will make people want to come into the office?” YSG is known for its residential and hospitality work, with a big…

Deakin Law School Building by Woods Bagot Woods Bagot has completed the Deakin Law School Building, introducing a sculptural and coiled learning environment to reconcile a splintered campus. The building delivers five levels of flexible, active learning spaces that cut across the continuum of formality and informality, with students able to move seamlessly between modes of learning. Two levels are dedicated entirely to student support and health and wellbeing services, with spaces allocated for student retreat and contemplation on campus. The Wellness Garden features native plants, stones, a deconstructed creek and tiered seating, while the winter garden on level five provides a space high above the trees, with a vertical plant wall and floor-to-ceiling glass louvres. Three larger experimental Premier Learning Spaces challenge conventional learning typologies – a large, tiered…

For the Design Institute of Australia (DIA), design has been an evolving subject, which it explores through its people, collaborations, program, learning activities and identity. In November we celebrated 60 years since our first logo was designed and welcomed our new logo and integrated brand. Graphic design, one of the DIA membership disciplines, is the directing of communication through visuals, usually a combination of typography and illustration. Dating back to prehistoric times, the making and coding of meaning in the absence of the written word was seen through symbols and cave drawings. Promoting the provocative power, the DIA has, over the years, facilitated its own identity to represent its multidisciplinary thinking as seen through designers, its partnerships and community. Increasingly today, the DIA’s logo has been used as an authoritative…

Calum Hurley is putting the fun into his design practice. He crafts furniture and objects with a bold, playful and vibrant character, and he organizes and curates exhibitions for the Adelaide design community, wanting to create exciting and ambitious new opportunities for himself and his fellow artists and designers. Born in Adelaide, Hurley grew up on the west coast of Scotland in a home filled with creativity. His mother Carol Herbertson was a patternmaker and is now a weaver, and his grandfather was an engineer who enjoyed tinkering in the shed. Returning to Adelaide during high school, Hurley went on to study interior architecture at the University of South Australia, but found industrial design, and specifically the scale and tactility of furniture design, piqued his interest more. So, he enrolled…

Interior design professionals spend much of their time creating comfortable, nurturing environments that revolve around the needs of inhabitants. In many cases, these environments are workplaces, but not all interior design workplaces are as human-centric as this might imply. As we return to our workplaces post-pandemic, a re-evaluation of workplace dynamics is needed. Recent changes to our modes of working can catalyse a demand for more inclusive and safe work environments. New workplaces could offer new benefits including enhanced flexibility of hours, working from home arrangements, and support for health and wellbeing. The reward of creative practice comes from both the project outcomes and the collaborative in-studio experience of making them. A successful design team includes people with a variety of skills from a diverse set of life experiences. Employers…

Matthew Bird is an architect and artist practising across installation art, public art, moving image, interior design, architecture and site-specific interventions. His practice, Studiobird, introduces students to speculative design practices and engages with industry. Essay: Workplace culture (page 110) Thomas Daniell is a professor of architectural history, theory and criticism at Kyoto University, Japan. His most recent book is An Anatomy of Influence. The Upper (page 16) Ying-Lan Dann is a Naarm-based designer who practises between art and architecture. She is an RMIT School of Architecture and Urban Design PhD candidate and a lecturer in interior design. She directs a small architecture practice, Sertori Lau. Edge Training (page 90) Farrin Foster is a journalist by trade, writer by ambition, and occasional filmmaker by necessity. She lives and works on the…

For decades, Rigoni’s Bistro was an essential stop for Adelaide’s powerbrokers – a CBD restaurant where the influential would sit ostentatiously in the window, elevated a foot or so above street level, taking meetings that were meant to be seen. When Graham Charbonneau and Dave Bickmore of Studio Gram entered the building in 2020, it had fallen far. A six-pack of beer sat on the bar, menus and cutlery lay dusty on the tables. The restaurant had been abandoned. Taken over by new operators keen to install a completely fresh hospitality concept, the design brief came with historical baggage. The savvy client understood the need for a complete reinvention to help erase the decades-long cultural memory of Rigoni’s. They also recognized the potential of a re-enlivened long-lunch institution in this…

“We are obsessed with detail – and I think you can see that in this project,” says Architects EAT director Albert Mo. The project in question is Alfred Stables, a compact but hard-working conversion of a 150-year-old former industrial building at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne’s inner south-east. With a lower level in bluestone and two upper levels in red brick, the building began life as stables before becoming a workshop space for restoring hospital equipment. When the hospital sought to bring together its executive and administrative personnel into a single space, it saw the potential of this heritage structure attached to the main hospital building. “They wanted a more progressive workplace – an alternative to the usual office arrangement,” Mo says. “They contacted us because of Fitzroy Loft, a…