Hasta La Ideas

Prison, wooden spikes and bedrock in an Australian design collective’s first history-based collection

When it came time for a concept to drive new design consortium Broached Commissions, rather than turn to exotic, far-flung influences, the firm looked to much more provincial sources—literally their backyard. Founded by Creative Director Lou Weis, the Melbourne-based collective includes three permanent designers, Trent Jansen, Adam Goodrum and Charles Wilson, who collaborate with an annually rotating cast of contributors on products related to Australian history. For this year’s project, Broached focused their sights on the Australian industrial revolution spanning 1788-1840.

Broached Colonial, as it’s called, draws on the expertise of curator John McPhee, chosen to guide the group, offering insight on how the time period’s “make do” sensibility remains a vital part of Australian design today. McPhee’s extensive knowledge, coupled with the designers’ two years of research and development, led to a five-piece collection that elegantly interprets this tumultuous moment.

One of the more striking pieces from the collection, Lucy McRae’s Prickly Light takes on the country’s infamous prisons. A “body architect,” McRae studies textures to create “skins.” After investigating the living conditions of female convicts at Parramatta Female Factory, she come up with the idea of an armor of wooden spikes to ward off potential predators, painstakingly dying each wooden piece before attaching it to the tripod and light.

Cool Hunting favorite Max Lamb developed a beautifully polished furniture collection made of sandstone from Sydney’s Gosford Quarry, an area explored by Governor Arthur Phillip during the first year of settlement. Not only is the Hawkesbury Sandstone Collection made from the country’s bedrock, but the stools are similar to what people would sit on in colonial period paintings, while the tables reference the exposed sandstone rock faces found along the shoreline of Sydney Bay.

With four detachable shades, Lucy Chen’s glowing Dream Lantern (at top) nicely rounds out the other designers’ works. Chen tapped Australian graphic design studio Coöp to complete the pattern work, inspired by Mary Bryant and her famous escape from an Australian penal colony. The cordless light works as both hanging and table lamp.

Goodrum’s Birdsmouth Table, Jansen’s Briggs Family Tea Service set and Wilson’s Tall Boy table complete the collection. The Melbourne-based practice will exhibit the pieces through pop-up galleries and all are available for purchase. Broached Colonial will be on display through 5 November in Melbourne before moving on to Sydney, where it will remain through 17 November 2011. Check the Broached Commissions site for location details.

Tuomas Toivonen’s creative take on “embedding design in life”

Created by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design, the World Design Capital biennial recognizes various cities around the globe for their successful efforts in urban revitalization, primarily accomplished through innovative design. The 2012 distinction goes to Helsinki—a city Monocle magazine dubbed “most liveable” in 2011—for its continued ability to tap the creative sector as a way of stimulating economic growth. The yearlong celebration will include more than 300 events and programs both in the capital and surrounding cities, including Espoo, Vantaa, Lahti and Kauniainen.

Numerous designers and leaders from Finland’s creative community will take part in the activities, which officially begins on New Year’s Eve with a celebration in Helsinki’s Senate Square before traveling to Milan, Berlin, London, Taipei, Tokyo and St. Petersburg. Offering a glimpse of what’s to come, NYC’s Museum of Arts and Design and Fab will each host a pop-up shop beginning today, stocking a fresh supply of classics and newly-developed Finnish designs. MAD shoppers will only have one week to pick up their favorite items, while the Fab sale will run through 21 November 2011.

One of the bright young minds that WDC Helsinki will highlight is that of Tuomas Toivonen, an architect and musician known for conceptual writings and spatial installations. Toivonen, along with his Now Office co-founder Nene Tsuboi, will build a public sauna to champion Alvar Aalto’s 1925 manifesto on the need to revive sauna culture in Finland. Launching May 2012, the sauna is actually a self-initiated project they will not only design, but also construct, finance and run. On the blog chronicling its development, the duo explains that they imagine Kultuurisauna “as special social and architectural space, a combination of baths with a public space enabling cultural activity, production and exchange.”

For those who won’t be able to make it to Finland to take part in the public sauna, Toivonen has also designed a limited edition T-shirt for the Fab pop-up ($36), which references Le Corbusier’s polemic take on modernist architecture and the importance for his contemporaries to see what surrounds them in order to truly solve a design problem. The simplified graphic was created specifically for the WDC, and perfectly sums up this year’s theme of “embedding design in life.”

London’s expert craftsman releases limited-edition globes with exquisite hand-painted detailing

A young operation, Peter Bellerby’s globe-making concern resurrects an ancient art form. During our studio visit early last year in London’s Stoke Newington neighborhood, Bellerby intimated he’s one of those perfectionist types. If he’s not satisfied with what’s on offer, he sets out to do it himself. Such is the story behind Bellerby Globes. When the designer couldn’t find a high-quality orb for his father’s 80th birthday, he simply made his own, catching the eye of Cool Hunting and the luxury lifestyle media.

This month, Bellerby unveils the limited-edition Desk Globe, a smaller, nine-inch version of his handcrafted Plaster of Paris masterpieces. The desk model weighs 2.5 kilos (5.5 pounds), and uses a contemporary scheme with a matte finish on blue oceans and yellow ochre continents. Bellerby, who confided he’s loathe to part with a piece he feels is less than perfect, says he’s pleased with the result. “The prototype is sitting on my desk and I think everyone thinks I’m going a little crazy as I sit here spinning it constantly,” he writes.

There are three bases available: the standard model, with a stand hewn from American black walnut (£590 or $920); the 1951, made using a 12-foot piece of Japanese oak sourced from a closing London lumber yard; and the W Edition, featuring a base crafted from the inner trunks of walnut trees used for luxury automobile veneers in the 1960s. The globes are being released in a limited run of 250 and only 10 to 15 each of the 1951 and W Edition styles (each £990 or $1,536) will be made. All models ship in a flight case and delivery cost is included for the 1951 and W Edition globes.

To see what’s got Bellerby so transfixed, there’s an eight-second demo reel of the prototype spinning on its axis.