Hab#31 preview mag

# 31 living in design

Christopher Boots: design crystallised. The New Minimal – less is more.

Everyday design with Alessi. Modular living.

31 9 771836 055007 APRIL – JUNE | 2016 AUD$16.95 | NZ$16.95 | USD$17.95 CDN$18.95 | GBP£9.90 | SGD$11.95

# 31 Where to look for inspiration? It can be found all around us – in the things we have, the conversations we engage in and new ideas that spark a revolution.

24. DESIGN NEWS Discover the products we are inspired by: objects, lighting and furniture designed with minimalism in mind, clean lines and striking finishes on unobtrusive designs to enhance any contemporary home.

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34. BOOKS As urban populations continue to increase, so does the need for appropriate housing solutions.

To counteract the urban sprawl, a proliferation of high towers is the vision that is often presented. With the help of three recent books, Philip Drew discusses the future of densification.

A lightmaker, a landscapologist and the leader of a design brand with longevity. Meet our creative personalities that look at the world in a different way.

40. CHRISTOPHER BOOTS A childhood spent on the move in Melbourne’s outer east with constant access to nature paved the way for lighting designer Christopher Boots to feel at home in all sorts of places – sometimes simultaneously. Kath Dolan visits the light, airy, social Fitzroy showroom and workshop and the dark, calm, enclosed studio apartment he currently calls home to hear his story.

55. AMALIE WRIGHT Breathing new life into a tired-looking former lawyer’s office hidden away out of sight in Spring Hill, Brisbane, partners and architects Amalie Wright and Richard Buchanan transformed it into a shared design studio that is now home to Amalie’s practice: Landscapology.

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65. ALBERTO ALESSI Alessi – the kitchen utensil and accessories brand that can be found in almost every home. Managing Director Alberto Alessi chats to Stephen Todd about the extended ‘family’ of global designers… and that dysfunctional lemon squeezer.

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minimal 76. NEW MINIMAL Minimal doesn’t necessarily mean less – or denigrating the idea of more. It is simply asking us to live a life with more quality.

87. POCKET GEM A 27-square-metre apartment by Brad Swarz is as astonishing and impressive as it sounds.

97. EXPRESSIVE MINIMAL Size doesn’t limit us, Koichi Takada suggests, but instead encourages us to enliven the space.

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104. HANDMADE HOUSE A highly crafted interior called for a bespoke touch by Gary Galego. The result is like a timber jewellery box of times gone past.

People across the Region live in very different ways, but we all have something to learn from each other in an architectural and design sense.

114. INTERMODE It took Gillian Simon and Darren Kindrachuk the best part of a decade to find the perfect piece of land, but once they did, the design and build was relatively easy – thanks to the modular design they chose.

126. KURAU HOUSE Part architecture, part artwork, this redesigned terrace house in Kuala Lumpur is an eloquent ode to one studio’s philosophy. Studio Bikin shares their love of raw forms and unfinished surfaces.

137. EDWARDS & CO Behind the public façade of Sydney’s Edwards & Co. building is a private haven by Josephine Hurley that offers a relaxed and considered backdrop to life.

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152. WELLINGTON HOUSE Wellington designer Andrew Simpson creates a 50-square-metre house on a marginal site in Island Bay. Discover the genesis of the idea and its success as a small house model for living in New Zealand.

165. RIENZI PLACE The duo behind Singapore-based architecture studio A D Lab developed a sense of limitless, lush green space in their own narrow terraced home in Singapore’s east.

178. SAWMILL HOUSE This pared-back dwelling by Archier, bridging mid-century modernist architecture with industrial rural language, is a response to the owner’s mentality and intriguing lifestyle.

issue #31 habitusliving.com

2 . portrait

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Metamorphoses A childhood spent on the move in Melbourne’s outer east with constant access to nature paved the way for lighting designer Christopher boots to feel at home in all sorts of places – sometimes simultaneously. Kath Dolan visits the light, airy, social Fitzroy showroom and workshop and the dark, calm, enclosed studio apartment he currently calls home to hear his story.

TexT KaTh Dolan | PhoTograPhy MarK roPer

W

ork and home are inextricably linked for Christopher Boots.

Well before he decided to move into the tiny loft overlooking his voluminous, light-filled Gore Street showroom to work crazy hours creating an installation for the 2014 Christmas windows of Hermès’ New York flagship store on Madison Avenue, Boots had transformed the asbestosriddled interior into an inviting ‘anti-showroom’ to put his customers at ease. “We wanted to make the space feel domestic regardless, as a business proposition, so when people walk in they’re immediately comfortable and it doesn’t come across as some disjointed showroom which is selling you something,” he says. “It’s more like ‘Ah, I feel kind of at home, and at peace, and that light peace feels right’.”

Indeed it does. Despite its location just off buzzing Johnston Street, Boots’ showroom feels remarkably serene, thanks in large part to its bright white floor, corner kitchen, masses of healthy green plants (including a creeper that’s gradually annexing the exposed brick walls), four-to-six metre-tall ceilings, and a saw-toothed roof with south-facing clerestory windows that bathe the entire space in glorious, ever-changing light. “The quality of light coming in is amazing,” Boots enthuses. “In summertime you get the western light as it sets

opposite | Boots BegAn collecting fossils, rocks And the crystAls thAt inspire so mAny designs At the BeAch And on BushwAlks. ABoVe | Boots’ crystAl triptyx is left over from A commission - the designer Admits he never hAs enough lighting At home.

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New Minimalism —

MiniMal doesn’t necessarily mean less – or denigrating the idea of more. Here, as DaviD Harrison suggests, it is simply asking us to live a life with more quality.

TexT DaviD Harrison | pHoTograpHY various

minimal

T

he word ‘Minimalism’ conjures up glass and chrome architecture and uncomfortable but chic furniture from the 1990s. While it is fair to say that much of what was once called ‘minimalist’ was an example of ‘less is less’, there were protagonists of this genre who understood that you could provide less while delivering a quality of existence that offered a whole lot more. I’m speaking of course of architects such as John Pawson and designers like Jasper Morrison.

They managed to walk that tightrope between minimal and unliveable because they appreciated the importance of materials and proportion in raising the human spirit. If you are going to offer less it better be nigh-on perfect – and in their hands, it was.

Fast forward 25 years and there looks like a resurgence of interest in minimalism, spurred by a desire for well-being rather than the stock market and ego-driven aesthetic depicted in films of the 90s, where success always seemed to be defined by a glass office with black and leather furniture. In the same way that the trend for Nouvelle Cuisine which, in the hands of chefs such as Michel Guerard was an art-form, became a convenient excuse for tiny, unsatisfying servings in the hands of others, the 90s version of minimalism in design and architecture was an ideal that only delivered when executed and maintained to perfection.

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habitus #31

minimal

Handmade house —

MiniMal doesn’t necessarily mean less – or denigrating the idea of more. Here, as DaviD Harrison suggests, it is simply asking us to live a life with more quality.

TexT & sTyling DaviD Harrison | pHoTograpHy Craig Wall

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issue #31 habitusliving.com

3 . on location

Mod Con: modular conscious TexT Nicky Lobo | PhoTograPhy JusTiN aLexaNder

It took Gillian Simon and Darren KinDrachuK the best part of a decade to find the perfect piece of land in the Southern hiGhlanDS of NSW, but once they did, the design and build was relatively easy – thanks to the intermoDe modular design they chose.

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issue #31 habitusliving.com

3 . on location

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Living art Part architecture, part artwork, this redesigned terrace house in Kuala lumpur is an eloquent ode to one architect’s personal creative journey.

Farah azizan of Studio BiKin shares her love of raw forms and unfinished surfaces with adele ChonG. TexT Adele Chong | PhoTogrAPhy TiAn xing

issue #31 habitusliving.com

3 . on location

Japanese origins Wellington designer AndreW SimpSon creates a 50-squaremetre house on a marginal site in Island Bay. AndreA StevenS discusses the genesis of the idea and its success as a small house model for New Zealand.

TexT AndreA STevenS | PhoTogrAPhy Simon deviTT

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