D/zine Issue 2 by The Dub Designers

D/zine

ISSUE TWO

CONTENTS

Letter from the Editor Urban Apiaries 09 12

05 06

The Endless City

Street Food Australia Concrete Jungle-

Vertical Garden

Anupama Kundoo

Milan Design Week

Michael Candy Green Arch

D/installations

D/events

If you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to keep me, recycle me

CONTRIBUTORS 02 Editor Shahmen Suku Art Direction Alice Glenane Editorial Contributors Shahmen Suku Gabriella Avenia Jade Tane Den Taniora Printing Allclear Printing COVER PHOTO BY

HORST KIECHLE

contactthedub@gmail.com thedub.com.au

Born in Germany, Horst has lived in New Zealand, Australia and most recently, Singapore. Horst has a background in Fine Arts and Engineering. An established artist his work usually features architectural sculptures made of cardboard. His interest in Architecture is evident in his systematic photo documentation of Singaporeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s public housing used in this issue.

SSAF

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Hello Designers and admirers, We are back! Welcome to our second issue of D/zine, one of our many projects here at the Dub. The launch of our first issue at Winn Lane was such a hoot and the good response from our issue drove us to work harder this time around. Issue one focused on up-and-coming projects in Brisbane and some accomplished student work with a focus on laneways as well as art and design. This issue which we have dubbed the urban issue focuses on some interesting urban design ideas by looking at various viewspoints on the landscape in Brisbane and Queensland. Milan Design Week, though miles away, is accessible to us instantly via the Internet and even more so with the ease of a smart phone and its Instagram app. This accessibility has broadened the scope in which we have sourced some information in our articles. The Dub’s lecture series has also made a comeback with a strong programme. Series 03 of D/talks featured architects Anupama Kundoo, Peter Dawson and furniture designer David Shaw. We are pleased to acknowledge the growth of The Dub’s family with collaborative projects with the Institute of Modern Art (IMA), Landiland, Socksandsandals and Open House. This season we are also happy to launch our website, www.thedub.com.au. Here’s hoping for more collaborators and collaborations. I would also like to thank everyone who has made this issue possible and to you for picking us up. #thedub. Yours sincerely, Shahmen Suku, President, The Dub.

URBAN APIARIES One of the best ways to understand the urban landscape is to take an aerial view of the city. Nothing has that view better than bees, and the closest we could get to interviewing a bee is by talking to their keepers. Downtown Honey Bee Co. is run by Scott, Dave and David. Here is an interview with Scott. How did you become an urban bee keeper? I grew an interest in bees after spending some time in New Zealand about three years ago, and when I got back I asked two of my best friends that if I found a bee keeping course, would they do it? And they said yes and we did it. We did a month-long course with Guilfoyles, an Australian institution who are five generations of bee keepers. To be honest, our main aim in doing this is so we could spend time together. We’re three best mates doing it, and it was getting a bit hard to say to our partners that we were going down to the pub. There is also a lot of information on urban beekeeping which we researched and took bits of information to develop our own kind of beekeeping. We then approached a few people in June 2011 and asked if we could put a beehive on their roof – they were apprehensive

at first but after we answered their questions they were fine. Where are your hives? We have hives at New Farm, Paddington, Red Hill, Kangaroo Point and Woolloongabba. Mostly restaurants and a yoga studio. We are about to put our first hive in West End, at a new restaurant that is going in there called Depo by Alexander Lotersztain. We have a good relationship with local businesses, they usually just want to know if it is safe. They don’t want someone having a latte getting stung by a bee which has not happened. After harvesting we usually give the chefs a big jar and encourage them to use it in the menus or even cocktails. There is mention of ‘telling your bees your business’ on your website, what is that about? I think it is a pagan tradition that if you want to keep your bees happy when you go and tend to them, you tell them your business. For example my partner and I are having a baby, so every time I open the hive I tell them how she’s going with her pregnancy or I’ll tell them a story. Telling our bees our business was something my mother-in-law told us we had to do to keep them happy.

Interview by Shahmen Suku

THE DOWTOWN HONEY BEE CO

Photograph

Scott McCutcheon

Does it work? They don’t give us much trouble, every now then we get a sting but they are mostly happy.

to wait and see. When you go up on some of the rooftops you realise that there is so much potential for rooftop agriculture.

What sort of bees do you care for? European bees – there are two types of bees in Brisbane. Our native ones, which are the stingless, do not produce as much honey, whereas the European bees produce more and quicker but sting you occasionally. They don’t compete with each other or attack each other though. There are both nests sitting next to each other in Jane Street community garden in West End and they get along fine.

Do you find that being an urban beekeeper you understand the city differently and navigate it differently? Yes, for sure, we do because we are at a stage where we are getting so many requests from so many people to put hives on rooftops, but we have to be picky. We cannot sustain them all as we all have fulltime jobs firstly, but we also do not know where to concentrate. Brisbane is a funny city, I think there not being any houses in city might have something to do with it. There is the city, the Valley and the dead spot in the middle, we need it all to join and flow into one so that it becomes a place to go to. It is a bit disjointed and is very obvious when you are up on these rooftops. At the moment suburban restaurants seems like a better choice cause there is a community around them, like Kettle and Tin on Given Terrace in Paddington, where you would want to go cause you know the honey in the restaurant is the honey from their rooftop, but if it is just on top of a random building it would not make a lot of sense.

Does putting these hives in an urban environment affect the taste of the honey they produce? It does; we find with our honey it depends what time of year it is and what flowers are in bloom. When there are jacarandas on the bloom in spring, our honey was so clear and had a really sweet taste. It was really popular. When the jacarandas stopped blooming and all the other flowers come in we get a bit of a mixture. Compared to farms, pesticides are not used as much in the city and it therefore is less contaminated. We also don’t heat treat our honey like the commercial ones do, which takes all the good bits out of it. Our honey comes out the top of the roof and right into the restaurant and onto your table. Do you think rooftop agriculture is becoming a trend in Brisbane? I think it is, we are a bit behind compared to other cities, we look at the other cities and then realised that we could do it here. We have got the best weather and it is such a young city. Whether it is a trendy thing or more sustainable is something we have

So what is your next step? We don’t know yet. We get a lot people asking if we could put a hive in their backyards but we haven’t got the time to maintain them all. We could sell them the hives we have but that would not be very responsible of us. Bees are just amazing, they are the hardest workers you will find, they only sting you if you are in their way, and it is a death sentence to them, so it is their last resort.

Words by Shahmen Suku

THE ENDLESS CITY THE URBAN ROMANCE Brisbane’s city centre and Fortitude Valley, despite their proximity, are distinctly different in their physical forms and layout as well as how we navigate through them. Their various uses, and the diversity of people who frequent them, create their own specific identities within our complex urban environment.

broken up into two-sentence sections. Each section is etched onto plywood strips and placed around laneways and in-between spaces in Fortitude Valley. Armed with the map you see below, we are able to manoeuvre through these various spaces and piece the story together.

There is a clear disjunction between Fortitude Valley and Brisbane City. The major roads that link them are wide, busy and unfriendly to pedestrians, restricting the easy flow of foot traffic. However, the surge of restaurants and cafes popping up in both Fortitude Valley and Brisbane City has increased this traffic in both areas and between them too. Laneways that cut across the city grid are often easier to walk through, as they create a sense of intimacy when we navigate them, and these are beginning to be utilised more and more across the city. With a background in urban design and a keen interest in writing, David started the ‘Endless City’ project in 2012. Responding to the way we communicate in the age of technology that has brought us text messages, Facebook and Twitter, diminishing our need to communicate in long, or even complete, sentences, he has written a story to be Photograph

Endless City

Walking is a mode we are all familiar with: it’s the way we first begin to explore the world around us. It is how we experience the city, and through walking we develop a sense of place while nurturing our relationship with an urban space. ‘Place-ballet’, as described by architectural theorist David Seamon, refers to walking as a rhythmic act that influences the tempo of urban places. Stopping to read even a short sentence shifts our momentum and gets us engaging with what we see. Walking is also a cartographic process, and the ‘Endless City’ project, in its small way, helps us to remap Brisbane. Romanticism is not dead. A story can be evocative and captivating, but with the added element of walking through it, it becomes an embodied experience.

Photographs

Endless City

STREET FOOD AUSTRALIA Street Food Australia: where did it all come about? The beginnings? Street Food Australia came about while thinking about the opportunities for designers – not just stadium design, the big firms would grab them – but smaller opportunities for the younger designers like myself when the Commonwealth Games comes to the Gold Coast in 2018. I then thought about the crowds who would be moving across the Gold Coast not just on Cavilll Avenue, the main strip, but what about food and beverage in the many other zones on the Gold Coast that are going to be activated with sporting events. So I thought to mobilise this and go where the crowds go. A structure that travels with the people as opposed to temporary infrastructures, to create a supply which is moveable – to Sydney, to Melbourne or even split between different cities. I decided to try out my idea to gauge Brisbane’s openness to accept the concept of street food. I spoke to various groups of people to cover all of the issues of legislation and regulations surrounding the project. With feedback I returned to testing the idea further and with the right team

AN INTERVIEW WITH HELEN BIRD

got my idea moving. Our job is to help people who are interested into business, by giving them the possibility; trained in the right way, supported and being provided with services by our organization. We also created a little community hub for our vendors where they were offered the chance to form a support system. Operating in small groups, as opposed to individually is the ultimate aim, with the Hub making this more possible. Building a community ensures the sustainability of the idea. All of this while you are working? How do you do it? I just want it, I guess I’m just determined. How did you go about funding with the first prototype that you made? We had a Pozible campaign that was just 50 days of tweeting and harassing people on Facebook; pledge money, pledge money, pledge money! We ended up with just over $22000 to fund the design. I also have plenty of loans from willing friends and family. It is hard, I would however recommend getting money behind you first.

Interview by Jade Taniora

Photograph

Jade Taniora

Was the launch of SFA at the Institute of Modern Art (IMA)? Yes, the bike was there but not operational, we thought people should be able to sit on it and open the doors, and poke in and have a look. I wanted their interaction with it, otherwise their experience of their input would be lacking. We did use it the next night however at the BrisAsia Festival at Burnett Lane and at QUT for the O Week celebrations; so it is slowly getting out there. Were there any major problems through the process? One of the biggest challenges and learning curves for me is what a social enterprise is; what is it that we are doing? What proportion of our business gives back to society opposed to the proportion of our business that makes money? It is hard understanding those relationships. Writing a business plan and financial projections that represent the reality is one of the biggest challenge. We have a 48 page business plan and three years worth of financial projections on this business model based around the fact it has to make X amount of money in order help X amount of people doing X amount. You have to be quite candid with potential failures. What if the council pulled out? So the plans and projections had to be approved by the council? Council has taken us on as a pilot, they are interested urban space activation and looking at what kind of activities generate what kind of people and the usage of space- they engage with the fact that this model will work towards helping people be in those spaces. Our insurance, in case of council pulling the pin, is our offers for private events â&#x20AC;&#x201C; to get our business up and running and regain profit from the

70-100 grand invested we need to be making money. Where to from now? We are doing events and catering and getting two more bikes designed and built in Brisbane. We are hoping to have 6 bikes in Brisbane and to start looking at operations in Melbourne, Gold Coast and Sydney as an up and down the coast line kind of thing. It is really a daunting process but we are eager to get there.

Words by Shahmen Suku

CONCRETE JUNGLEVERTICAL GARDENS

TRAVELS TO SINGAPORE

Widely known as the ‘Garden City’, Singapore has gained a reputation for its clean, green, manicured landscape. Being a tropical island – almost on the Equator – plants thrive here, and they provide shelter from the relentless Singaporean heat. They are also important in Asian cultures, as they are said to bring health and prosperity. Singapore has also been closely studied for its successful public housing campaign. Public housing was first introduced in the 1920s during the British occupation of Singapore, due to the chronic housing conditions many people were living in. Housing was then concentrated in the city centre, along the Singapore River, consisting mainly of terraced shophouses, while housing in suburban areas was in the form of traditional Malay villages (kampongs), also known as attap houses.

Photograph

Horst Kiechle

World War II further exacerbated Singapore’s housing problems: in 1947, the British Housing Committee reported that Singapore had one of the worst slums in the world. Public housing only really gained momentum however after the People’s Action Party (PAP) led by Lee Kuan Yew gained power in 1959. One of the major factors in this push was the Bukit Ho Swee Fires in May 1961. These broke out in a cramped squatter settlement, and made thousands of Singaporeans homeless. The Housing and Development Board (HDB) was set up that year in a bid to resettle them. The HDB acquired the land and built the first five blocks of 768 flats in just nine months, and during the next four years, built over 8,000 flats. This was seen as the beginnings of the public housing boom in Singapore and has since changed the landscape of Singapore. Plants were highly valued by the Singapore government. When it acquired land from the landowners, monetary compensation was given for every tree they had on their land. Plants also had domestic uses in the new form of apartment living, in which common corridors were shared by about 10 flats. These communal areas of no real boundaries gave birth to the use of potted plants in marking one’s territory, blurring the lines between public and private space. This claiming of space often led to neighbourly disputes when it was seen to spill over.

In true Singapore style, competition between neighbours arose, and corridor gardens were the pride of many high rise apartment dwellers. Corridor gardens are sometimes frowned upon when they take over walkways blocking off fire escapes, and incidents when pot plants fell off balconies has led to restrictions, with regular inspections by authorities. This corridor planting can be seen as an evolution from kampong living, where one would have a garden which would be an area to interact with one’s neighbours. High rise planting could be seen as the beginnings of a trend toward vertical gardens in Singapore’s built environment. Among its many green policies, Singapore has placed an importance on including plants in every aspect of a building project. Recent projects include the School of the Arts, major shopping centres and the ‘Gardens by the Bay’ in Marina Bay. New HDB projects feature specific areas for potted plants in their design. Planting is also encouraged through various neighbourhood competitions. The approach to plants in highly urbanised Singapore could give us something to learn from: the harshness of this concrete jungle has been subdued with the help of greenery.

Photograph

Horst Kiechle

ANUPAMA KUNDOO The first session of D/talks 2013 featured Shahmen Suku in conversation with Dr. Anupama Kundoo. The presentation, titled Building Knowledge: An Approach to Architectural Exhibition, hosted in collaboration with the IMA, covered identity, intuition and the experience of architecture. It was an extremely successful beginning to the third series of D/talks, with a captivated audience who left with the understanding that anything is possible if you are willing to take risks and head into the unknown. Dr. Anupama Kundoo began practicing architecture in 1990, after completing her studies in Bombay. A city girl, on graduating she moved to rural India after receiving her first commission at the age of 23. In designing her first house, she undertook the adventurous task of making a terracotta roof structure stand without supports. Reflecting on an image showing her at this young age she laughed at how little she knew, a feeling she has kept with her throughout her career: â&#x20AC;&#x153;I never want to lose contact with the feeling of not knowing.â&#x20AC;? While undertaking her first commission in Auroville, India, Anupama built a hut in which she lived for the following decade. Constructed of basic, locally

sourced materials, the simple design afforded a great understanding of the climatic and environmental impact of architecture and the realisation that comfort can be achieved through modest means. Growing up and working in India, Anupama believes her understanding of poverty has shaped her conception of the importance of resources. Having no hesitation in supporting rural and local crafts and incorporating recycled objects structurally, she ensures that her environmentally aware architecture is sustainable and responsive to context â&#x20AC;&#x201C; philosophies informing the progression of her built work. Wall House, completed between 1997 and 2000, grew out of extensive research, experimentation and the search for innovative solutions in house design. Stone, terracotta pots and wood were brought together to form a building with a responsive skin; sensitive to climate, seasonal change and human needs. Here technology and material directed form, reducing energy and material waste while providing ultimate comfort through a seamless flow between inside and outside. The ingenious design of Wall House resulted in its exhibition at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2012.

Interview by Gabriella Avenia

AN INTERVIEW WITH

Photograph

Andreas Deffner

Anupama’s 1:1 scale exhibition grew from her philosophy of architecture as experience: “We have a large contemporary vernacular for architecture and ‘isms’ currently applied to design. We think we know architecture through reading, drawing and models even – we have lost the experiential perception of architecture.” Re-appropriating the design of Wall House to be inserted into the provided site in Venice, the aim of the exhibit was the habitation of architecture, providing visitors the experience of space, materials, textures, voids and densities.

Student participation has been central to her practice, perceiving teaching and learning as inseparable. Occurring simultaneously, “they are never on opposite sides of the spectrum”. Experimentation and risk are central to her work with students, both in the classroom and on a project. Understanding that knowledge lies in the unknown, Anupama pushes herself and her students to find solutions through innovation and continuous inquiry. Working together with students when facing a new problem, a common language is reached through discovery.

With the intention of showing construction and structural elements Anupama exhibited her building as unfinished architecture, where spatial experience was kept intact. Moving through the building visitors simultaneously understood the philosophies governing its construction and the intended experience of occupation. The environmental and social implications of the Wall House are recognised as universally relevant – achieving less with more through the use of local resources. Anupama’s exhibit contributed to the Common Ground theme of the Biennale through finding commonality between her project and the Venetian space: “it was about integration, not confrontation. A common ground.”

Discussing her teaching techniques, Anupama touches on a variety of points central to her philosophy of learning and the search for knowledge. Pushing her students to think differently, she engages them in a constant renewal: “I don’t want my students to conform. I want them to be supple, flexible, to find their own way and process of doing things. As architects you need to find out who you are, what you want to do, and what you want to say.”

Teaching informally through her research-oriented practice, Anupama easily transitioned into formal education. Currently based at the University of Queensland, she has lectured across some of the finest design universities in Europe and America, including the University of Technology, Berlin, the AA School in London and Parsons New School of Design, New York.

Constraints – real and perceived – are also central to her studios. Removing typical constraints of site, context, and climate, her students discover where they restrict themselves, simultaneously finding and facing their own limits. Materials used in 1:1 scale present a realistic opportunity to grasp actual constraints, acting as a focal point for Anupama’s teaching. Hands also feature prominently, defined by Anupama as the integration between thinking and making; intuitively they manipulate materials and form, giving expression to thought. In response to Shahmen’s questioning as to when she trusts her instinct, Anupama fervently responded with

“always.” “Give me one reason why I should trust anyone else… Who can I trust but myself?” This audacity gives a sense of the wisdom she has gained through her constant questioning and pursuit of knowledge: “I have to trust myself. I have to be convinced by what I am doing if I wish to solve my problem on site, or in the studio, at the end of the day.”

Photograph

Andreas Deffner

MILAN DESIGN WEEK HASHTAG INSTAGRAM Instagram is probably the most popular smartphone application on the market today. Free and easy to use, it transforms photos by using filters and framing effects before sharing them online – everyone is an artist with Instagram. We are all familiar with Instagram, we all use it and as easily as a double tap we show our appreciation for a #shamelessselfie or #cat image (there are 4, 104, 871 #cat photos on Instagram…). Where Instagram plays an interesting role is in the realm of design. Debates regarding issues of re-appropriation and re-representation through the application of filters and framing, and questions of artistic property and integrity are continually considered. However, where Instagram has been widely embraced is for its ability to increase the circulation and accessibility of design works. A particular example of this is the Salone Internazionale del Mobile 2013 – more commonly known as the Milano Design Week. Formally the largest trade fair of international furniture, lighting and interior design, the Salone Mobile is also a display of the leading residential designers.

Design Week in Milan is not bound to the Rho Fiera showgrounds where the trade fair is located. The entirety of Milan embraces the week with pop-up exhibits and temporary pavilions emerging around the city – from gardens of old palazzos, to cobblestone side alleys and vacant shells of innercity buildings and industrial warehouses. #Salondelmobile2013 and #Milandesignweek2013 have grouped together to bring to the palms of our hands many of the innovative and up-and-coming installations lighting up the grey Milanese streets. It is during this week when Milan is most alive and designers and design students make their pilgrimages, seeking inspiration and contemporary ideas. Instagram gives us, from our hometown of Brisbane, access to the discoveries of our designer peers and fellow admirers, enabling us the same satisfaction and stimulation by broadening our horizons and creative outlook. Recurring images of a particular light installation demonstrate to us its successful reception and the changing angles and filters of representation give us an idea of the differing

Words by Gabriella Avenia

interpretations of and interactions with the piece. Instagram users are not only artists but also critics – through our choice of image, or our likes, it is here we can voice our personal tastes and delights. A pop-up exhibit featuring prominently in the Milano Design Week was Karl Lagerfeld’s Little Black Jacket. A wellknown, well sought-after exhibition, Little Black Jacket is being constantly revived by the master Lagerfeld and shown across Europe and the USA. It is yet to come to Australia, but we on Instagram are accessing the installation from numerous perspectives. Instagram enables and celebrates the coming together of all design forms. It praises known artists and shares budding designers with the public. Instagram offers a creative and critical voice to every individual – and we are all too ready to share our individual expressions.

Photographs

Instagram

MICHAEL CANDY DECONSTRUCTING CANDY What is the main essence of your work? And how did it all start? As a kid I took a lot of things apart, I wanted to know how everything worked and I am still very much a hands-on person. That led me into developing ideas about mechanics and electronics that I wanted to explore. I was inspired by early robotics but as I grew older I realised the implications and the hindrance behind it. It was a design thing, more just functional, boring mathematical things. I am terrible at math. When I went to university I did a bit of industrial design and because I already did a few art subjects, I did not want to just create consumable products. I prefer exploring new ideas in a way that is unique, for it to be more of an experience than a product. Why did you decide on doing art initially? Firstly I had a terrible OP score and secondly when I finished high school I took a year off and I didn’t really do anything. I was unemployed, lived at home and got really good at sleeping and meditation. After a good six months of being useless I wanted to revert to something I was good at and enjoyed doing - that was creating small objects with my hands. I started making art during this year

and thought I should go study this. I then thought I should do industrial as it would be quite applicable and some of the units do cross over with my practice. Like manufacturing technology and computer-aided design (CAD) are useful tools for me, but I don’t see myself becoming an industrial designer – I like art much more. What’s the difference between some of your works like the Universal Traveller and the camera Frank with something consumable? Because it could be mass-produced if you wanted. It is not something I would personally mass-produce, items like that I would like to think of as unique. What I find really interesting at the moment, and am getting more involved in, is the open-source community and 3D printing. I do use a 3D printer with my practice with a corn-based resin called polylactic acid (PLA). It helps me rapidly produce components, especially when there are things that need to be repeated with exact precision. I do have some ideas for works that are almost products but in the sense that they are not a made object, I want it to be something you can go online, download and put it together yourself. Then you can have something I designed but it is an artwork rather

Interview by Shahmen Suku

than a product. A 3D printer camera is something I have been developing with a 35mm film which I am thinking about doing in this manner. Part of art is sharing but most of the time you cannot afford to buy it. I don’t want to commodify myself just making Michael Candy products. I’d prefer it if it is a free thing I am giving you that you choose to have. But I might end up making products because I am poor. And what are you working on at the moment? Tell me about Frank and the photos at the QUT Art Museum Exhibition, for the ‘Foundation’s edge: artists and technology’ show. Frank was the first work I made at QUT in 2010. Some of the photos were taken that year and some were taken three days before the exhibition. It took me two weeks to put the camera

together; I have taken enough of them apart to put one together. I have got a few shows in Sydney in June as part of the International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA2013), I have got an residency in Yogyakarta, Indonesia in June called the ‘Instrument Builders Project: New Noises’ too. I am also in a collective for Next Wave in Melbourne, our collective’s title is ‘Golden Solution’. There was one political angle you took with Bitter Brisbane – is that something you would like to focus your work on? Yes, that was very political. That was a collaborative work for ‘Seven with another’ with someone who had a strong political mind. I really like to ‘stick it to the man’ every now and then.

Photographs

Michael Candy

I don’t really care about people though, that’s probably a reason why I am not good for design. I am much more interested in nature and looking at biology as opposed to political structures, celebrities, hierarchies and social normalities which are major components of art and design too, but it is not something I don’t need to care about and of course they should interplay. In what direction do you see you work heading into? World domination! I don’t know, that is becoming more pressing because there are terms that get thrown around a lot like I am an emerging artist but how do you define that? I am not really sure, because I see myself in shows with people who are much more established than me, yet the funding is the same. I have been doing shows for the last three years but only started being paid and getting funded in the last year. This is the first stage of my career where I feel I can actually produce work without a loss, because before I was privately paying for everything myself and renting exhibition spaces. Now I am getting offers and totally selling out. It’s great! I am now being able to make more elaborate work which I would not have been able to otherwise. So I am not sure if this is the pinnacle or if there is something more than this. Of course there is still the high art, like exhibitions at QAGOMA. Do you think doing these shows is forcing you to do make more work? Do you think it has changed the way you work from just making work at home and now having to think about what you would put in a gallery? After 3 years of doing nothing, I now just want to show what I am capable of. There is a lot to do with

installation works and things that I need to assemble in the space that can really complicate the process and that is where my design ethic really comes to designing for the gallery: if it needs to be packed into road cases or if it needs to be so the gallery can assemble it with an instruction manual. Some of my older works are defunct, you cannot apply them to that sort of thing, but I do keep a catalogue of all my work so when I am done with it I just put them in a labelled box and that is the installation that could be pulled out when someone requests it – not that anyone ever does. And finally what are you working on now? I am in the process of designing a Lego Kit. It will be a kit you purchase and assemble with instructions and in the end it is an artwork. So I can order individual Lego parts and it will be in a box that I have designed like a Lego marijuana rolling machine, so it chops and rolls joints for you mechanically. The whole idea behind it is that it is a kid’s toy but Lego robotics is much more of an adult’s toy. I am putting a play on that and making it a strictly adult device.

GREEN ARCH IES LIGHTING DESIGN The ‘Better Light, Better Life’ competition from The Lighting Society (IES) brief was to design a luminarie for residential, commercial or personal purposes by exploring human factors in lighting design and centre on the theme of ‘better light, better life’. QUT Industrial Design students, Aiden Thomlinson, Angus Shaw and Bridget Reardon were awarded the FREND Student Luminarie Design Competition 2012 for Outstanding Creative Merit for their design, Green Arch.

The design intends to further promote human activity within Brisbane cities Burnett Lane during the day and night. The lighting fixture creates a corridor of light that visually cues people to walk within the space of the laneway Nature was incorporated into the design in a reaction to the non-existent element in the CBD. The texture of foliage creates a sense of fun and playfulness within the industrial space. The Dub would like to congratulate the team on this award.

Photograph

Bridget Reardon

D/installations The Dub’s installation ‘Folds and Shadows’ has now had seven different iterations. ‘Folds and Shadows’ started in early 2012 as part of the Indesign Up Late Brisbane festival. This took the form of a collaborative installation with a fashion designer that incorporated lighting and fashion. ‘Folds and Shadows’ has grown from a concept that explored light, shadows and movement with fabric to an ongoing collaboration with furniture designer Fukutoshi Ueno. In various pop-up spaces around the James Street Precinct, we have created a range of installations around his furniture, to enhance his elegant, spare designs. We reflected on Toshi’s use of plywood, Perspex, and intricate joints, and his interest in Japanese traditions such as origami, which led us to using everyday materials like butchers paper and paper clips to create simple folded forms. The success of these installations led to the invitation to create a sitespecific installation at Superwhatnot bar in Burnett Lane in Brisbane’s CBD in December 2012. Our previous experimentation with fabrics gave us a deeper understanding on how they worked, and led us to using strips of cotton to transform the dark ceiling of the bar with layers of graduated

colour. It augmented the celebratory atmosphere of the bar during the festive season, and added depth to the experience of the space. The most recent installation with Fukutoshi Ueno, in James Lane in Fortitude Valley, was our most elaborate to date, involving a painstaking process of intricate folding. It demonstrated how much our installations have evolved over time, responding to our collaborations with different practitioners as well as the elements of each space.

Words by Shahmen Suku

FOLD AND SHADOWS Our experience of handling and experimenting with paper and fabric have revealed to us their properties as well as their constraints, and we are now able to exploit the varied effects that simple materials like paper and fabric can create. Thank you to all our collaborators â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hoping for more.

Photographs / The Dub

From top: ‘Folds & Shadows’ Series, 04, 05, 06, 07

D/events

D/talks, Anupama Kundoo

O week

D/talks, Peter Dawson

D/zine launch, Issue One l

O week

Photographs

The Dub

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