Scoop Magazine

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AUTUMN 2012

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stunning room in the house.”

INTERIORS | DESIGN | ART | ANTIQUES AUTUMN 2012

“A patio can be the most

BASIC INSTINCT Go au naturale at home with wood, leather and feature fabrics

DÉCOR voyeur Inside the homes of Perth interiors experts

Another Jamie Durie Design Tip: “With careful design planning, a patio will become an integral extension of your lifestyle as well as an impressive feature of your house. The treatment of this transitional space, where the edge of architecture meets the outdoors, has become as important these days as a kitchen or a bathroom renovation. How you blur this boundary so it becomes a seamless transition from interior to exterior is crucial.

That’s why it’s important to select pavers with the right colour, texture, shape and size. The right choice can also help provide a smooth visual flow from the inside to the outside and make both spaces appear larger.

There’s a new range now available from Boral Bricks, so check them out and get inspired! ”

Boral Bricks

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To see our full range of products visit your nearest Boral Bricks Centre (formerly Midland Brick), log onto www.boral.com.au or call 13 15 40.

ART OR FAD? AUD $11.95

Martin Parr and Jeff Wall: why photography is still a fine-art

MONEY MATTERS

Why you need to invest in antiques, diamonds and art

HOLIDAY IN

A resort-style garden makeover to stay home for

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Global review

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Get the lowdown on the world’s trends, including everything from pop-up shops to musical museum pieces, retro and geometric furniture designs, and public art that graces the Austrian Alps, the German countryside and even British motorways.

Biscuit Box shelving units by Jonas Merian. See p60.

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homes & art SUMMER 2011 61

Global review Design watch | China

Shanghai-based Sharon Leece has written China Style, China Modern and China Living to showcase China’s design scene, plus is editor-at-large for the Architectural Digest China magazine.

China

In the first quarter of 2012, designers – and consumers – in China are looking more closely at everyday living, a dialogue between old and new, classic and modern.

In a society that not so long ago preferred to toss out the old without a care in the world, a renewed appreciation for designs of different styles and eras is good news indeed. Moreover, people are realising that they don’t have to make hard-lined distinctions – better to appreciate both old and new, and enjoy living in harmony with both. No more cookie-cutter interiors straight out of the pages of a catalogue.

View from the gallery

To celebrate the start of her ninth year in the art gallery business, Jules Lambe of Gaffer gallery is opening up in a new location in Hong Kong’s hip Western District. To mark the occasion, the works of six Melbourne artists will be on show, including Ruth McCallum-Howell’s large-format metallic bronze-encrusted glass swirls (right), Phil Stokes’s sculptural architectural glass installations and Jane Hall’s overlapping ink blocks on handmade paper, inspired by Asian and Japanese print-making techniques. gaffer.com.hk.

High five

Designer Lv Yongzhong is celebrating his award-winning furniture brand Banmoo’s fifth anniversary with a new collection of wooden pieces that showcase his signature simple, natural style. We are coveting the limited edition Green Snake, White Snake Seal chair, the sculptural Suzhou armchair, the Zen-like Breeze sofa (pictured) and the scholarly Huizhou desk and bookcase. banmoo.cn.

68 homes & art autumn 2012

Glowing report

New to Shanghai’s boutique hotel scene is the Andaz Hotel (the first of the brand in Asia-Pacific), located downtown right next to revamped historic neighbourhood Xintiandi.

The Andaz is all about personal style with a modern twist, evident in its retro, lattice-style exterior, slatted brushed-steel ‘Egg’ exterior sculpture, and in-room mood lights.

LED ceiling lighting allows guests to choose the colour and mood of the room while a transparent sink and bath can be programmed to glow in different colours. Collaborations with Chinese designers are key, with lots of locally sourced artworks dotted around, and staff uniforms designed by fashionistas Han Feng and Chris Chang. shanghai.andaz.hyatt.com. homes & art autumn 2012 69

Tin man Upcycling is starting to make it big in China, with design-savvy entrepreneurs leading the way. Take work by craftsman Jonas Merian, for example. He has been making news with his collections based around colourful old Chinese biscuit tins.

Check out his Biscuit Box shelving units, tables and benches, all using old tins married with reclaimed wood. He also does a fun accessory line of biscuit boxes turned into clocks, an iPod amplifier and speaker casings. We like. jonasdesign.net.

Strip away the years

Shanghai-based designers Thomas Dariel (above left) and Benoit Arfeuillere (above right) of Dariel & Arfeuillere embraced the heritage of a three-storey space in the city’s French Concession district when designing wine bar Kartel.

They restored the past by exposing the building’s concrete walls, stripping down pillars and ripping out anything that hid the original architecture. They then upped the glam with custom-made furniture and decked out the rooftop terrace to promote 360-degree views of the city. kartel.com.cn.

DeeM worthy

Native Australian designer Debra Little (inset) has added a new level of taste to Hong Kong’s design-centric Western district with the opening of her new store DeeM. With 20 years of experience living and working in Hong Kong, her uber-cool design and art space fuses edginess with design classics in a carefully curated collection of old and new furniture, lighting objects and art.

We chat about the inspirations behind the store.

Take a bao…

Rossana Hu of NHDRO (Neri & Hu Design and Research Office) was so taken by a trip to the Mongolian grasslands that she came up with a modern bench inspired by a traditional bao (tent) and saddle. Hu’s streamlined Mongolian Bao bench has a structure made of raw oak wood with layers of padded and upholstered foam (akin to that of a traditional tent) connected by a leather belt (an important saddle material). A firm pillow can either be strapped to one end for sleeping or attached in the middle to serve as a small tea table. nhdro.com.

70 homes & art autumn 2012

What makes DeeM different? We want visitors to browse through our selection and discover the unusual and the unexpected. We represent artists we love – from the contemporary to historic – with work that we feel has a real point of difference to what’s currently on the Hong Kong market.

Why now? In my interior work I’ve always designed products, sourced all aspects of interior furnishing and commissioned artists, so DeeM is a natural progression.

What’s in store? 20th century modern furnishings such as teak and rosewood credenzas and an original 1970s sofa from modern American designer Edward Wormley, with Jack Lenor Larsen velvet upholstery.

There are 1930s plaster busts from the New York sculptor Walter Rotan, a 1940s outdoor rocking chaise designed by Walter Lamb, and 1920s tub chairs, plus own design objects, light fittings and furniture custom-made from brass, wood, steel, resin, leather.

Do you stock other contemporary designers’ work? Yes. Bec Brittain’s striking brass molecular shaped chandeliers, hand-cut Indian glassware, finely crafted Australian furniture and Japanese ceramics, to name a few.

Do you prefer old or new pieces? I don’t make a distinction between old and new in a modern interior. To me, a matt-green glazed ceramic skull from the Arts & Crafts movement can look as contemporary as an object designed and made today. I appreciate a diverse range of styles and periods. deemlimited.com.

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Global review

Global review

Design watch | China

Design watch | UK & Europe

Let them eat cake

Style icon and restaurateur Bonnie Gokson has done it again with a sophisticated cafe-bar called C’est la B, dedicated to all things indulgent.

The stylishly sweet decorative palette features bold colours, a striped black-and-white floor and cute butterfly motifs as a backdrop to mouthwatering treats such as signature cakes Marie Antoinette’s Crave and Original Caramel Crunch. Now residents of chi chi neigbourhood Tai Hang can just pop round the corner for their sweet fix, rather than having to go into town (Bonnie also owns Sevva and Ms B’s Cakery). But be prepared to wait – there are usually queues out the door. msbscakery.hk.

UK & Europe

Perth ex-pat Emma Phillips has worked in the creative industries for more than 16 years. Based in London, she covers design for Scoop Homes & Art. It’s a great year to be British… well, ignoring the terminally gloomy economy, we have plenty of reasons to be cheerful. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee will give us royal pomp and ceremony (and two extra public holidays) just before Olympics fever takes hold. The Cultural Olympiad culminates with the London 2012 Festival and hundreds of arts events, with Damian Hirst headlining at Tate Modern and Lucien Freud at the National Portrait Gallery. And we are all eager to be the first to visit the nearly completed Shard, Renzo Piano’s masterful glass spire that rises 87 storeys into the sky, making it the tallest building in Europe.

Blaze of glory

London-based architect Ian McChesney has designed the public sculpture Blaze, a series of upright anodised aluminum staves alongside the A66 in Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire. Developed to provide an eye-catching vista for drivers, some 472 gold-fabricated, light-capturing batons, measuring 35m long, 35m wide and 4m tall, are arranged in rows to create a shape-shifting illusion for passersby. “Blaze is designed to catch the light in unusual ways, creating a bright sculptural form along the often dreary dual carriageway landscape,” McChesney has said of the project. mcchesney.co.uk.

Design winners

Song Tao (inset) with an example of his design work.

Heritage list

Designers and design-lovers flocked to Hong Kong’s recent Business of Design Week, Asia’s biggest annual industry gathering for design, innovation and branding. A key draw was the Heritage & Design session where top names such as bamboo specialists Jeff Shi from Taiwan and Freeman Lau from Hong Kong, jewellery designer Kai-Yin Lo from Hong Kong, and artists Song Tao and Shao Fan from China discussed ways to rejuvenate heritage through design. A passion for traditional ideas was clear, with the designers committed to China’s rich cultural values and keen to translate them into modern life. bodw.com.

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Hong Kong Design Centre’s Design For Asia Award (DFAA) acknowledges designs with the potential to enhance the quality and vibrancy of life in Asia. Out of 1000 entries, 2011 winners included Emmanuelle Moreaux Architecture + Design’s vibrant candy coloured Sugamo Shinkin Bank with layered facade (left); the stylish folding (yes, there is such a thing) Egretta bike by Aryen Motor Progressive Co; and architect Shigeru Ban’s collaboration with the Voluntary Architects Network’ to produce the Paper Partition System (made of cardboard tubes, plywood and white curtains) put in action after Japan’s devastating tsunami last year. dfaaward.com. homes & art autumn 2012 73