Driven 0407

driven

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Lighting :: Light up your life : design for the 21st century Photography :: Digital imagery : pushing the boundaries Destination :: Grape expectations : Moondance Lodge WA

In a world where so much is recycled, copied or derivative, original ideas and innovation breathe life

into our simple existence

driven

is a magazine about innovation As an owner or potential owner of a Peugeot car, we understand that you are a person that seeks out places, people and products that are beyond the mainstream – that highlight an intelligent and unique approach to design and technology where ordinary is not an option.

In recognition of this Peugeot Automobiles Australia produce this quality magazine three times a year that covers the ideas, inspiration and creations that drive our society forward.

With a focus on the areas of design, art, food, wine, technology and travel, Driven tells the stories of the individuals and companies who continually strive to push the boundaries to create outstanding places, products or works of art.

Peugeot is one such example but there are passionate talented people from across the spectrum of society whose names are set to, or have already, become synonymous with innovative ideas, cutting-edge design and groundbreaking technology.

Discovering what drives these people, is what drives us.

And like Peugeot, Driven is not about to sit back and rest on its success. In an effort to ensure the magazine stays at the cutting edge we have instituted a major redesign for this issue which we hope continues to excite and inspire the driver in all of you. [ ]

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:: peugeot.com.au

SOMETHING YOU DON’T SEE EVERY DAY. The view offered by a panoramic glass roof, the luxury of a spacious interior… these pleasures are not commonplace. The dynamics of 17-inch alloys, the reassurance of eight airbags and a Euro-NCAP 5-star safety rating are not known by everyone. Automatic transmission as standard and a choice of two HDi diesel or two petrol engines are available to a discerning few. But from $47,190*, the extraordinary is available to a few more. The Peugeot 407 Touring. *RRP for Peugeot 407 ST Touring model, subject to change without notice. Excludes dealer delivery and statutory charges. Metallic paint as shown valued at $700 (optional). This is a manufacturer’s advertisement. Please contact your local dealer for exact dealer delivery and statutory charges which are additional to the RRP. PEU6138DRIVEN

Driven is published three times a year by Walrus Media for Peugeot Automobiles Australia Publisher Walrus Media PO Box 663 Elsternwick Victoria 3185 Sime Darby Automobiles Australia Pty Ltd t/as Peugeot Automobiles Australia 1 Hill Road Homebush Bay NSW 2140 www.peugeot.com.au Editorial Russell Williamson Walrus Media T 03 9503 5525 E walrusmedia@optusnet.com.au

Advertising Walrus Media T 03 9503 5525 E walrusmedia@optusnet.com.au Design Ping Creative E info@pingcreative.com.au Print Ajith Gomes Offset Alpine Printing T 03 9533 7077 E ajith.gomes@offsetalpine.com.au

Subscription Subscriptions are available for $33 inc GST for three issues. Email subscriptions@peugeot.com.au or log onto www.peugeot.com.au, print the form and fax it back to 02 8737 7950

Distribution Driven is distributed free to Peugeot owners whilst their car is under warranty and through boutique hotels and exclusive B&Bs selected from Beautiful Accommodation guides. www.beautifulaccommodation.com

All material in Driven is copyright and cannot be reproduced in any form without the written consent of the publisher. While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the content, the Publisher and Sime Darby Automobiles Australia accept no liability for any errors.

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cover flos 45 Designer : Tim derhaag image : euroluce lighting australia

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The Driver ::

Ignition ::

Design ::

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Asher Bilu : Artist

Innovations from Peugeot and other cutting edge companies and organisations

State of Flux : Peugeot Design Competition

Light up your life : technology and design for the 21st century

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Peugeot 207 ::

Photography ::

Wine ::

Destination ::

Tour de force : small car star

Digital imagery : pushing the boundaries of photo-art

Somme kind of service : sommeliers of substance

Designer profile :: Industrial artistry : Ashley Marsh-Croft

Grape expectations : Moondance Lodge Yallingup WA

contents :: IT’S NOT A PEUGEOT WITHOUT PEUGEOT GENUINE PARTS.

peugeot.com.au Some parts should never be seen on a Peugeot. With Peugeot Genuine Parts, the original integrity of your car is guaranteed. Whether it’s replacement parts, service parts or wear parts, the car will comply with Peugeot factory specifications and perform to the rigorous safety standards set. Ensure your parts fit right the first time, every time with Peugeot Genuine Parts.

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Landscape design ::

Interior design ::

Golf ::

In-gear ::

The Navigator ::

Hottest new products

Gardens Le Grande : ENSP Versailles

Inside line : innovative interiors

Driving straight and square : Callaway clubs

Dr Dan Wollmering : Sculptor

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:: t h e d r i v e r

inspiration : : ideas :: insight

Asher Bilu Artist To say that age shall not weary Asher Bilu is an understatement of cosmic proportions. For this prolific and highly regarded abstract artist, there is simply no such thing as slowing down. With a career that began in 1956 shortly after arriving from Israel, Asher has developed a unique place in the Australian art world through his innovative techniques and mystical, fascinating and always challenging works. These works, held in major public and private collections throughout Australia, blur the lines between painting, sculpture and installation and continue to grow in epic proportions as Asher’s ideas of the universe and his, and our, place in it, expand.

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‘The American artist Larry Rivers was asked to describe a day in his life – how he worked.

He said, ‘In the morning I get up, have breakfast with the family, read the papers; then I go off to the studio. I hop into bed and go to sleep’. Hopefully to dream.

How can you beat that for motivation?

What works best for me is working towards a goal – having a date and plenty of time to get there. Sometimes there is not enough time. Then the back is against the wall, the pressure is on, and when that happens, often the best comes out.

The hardest is to work when there is nothing to look forward to, no exhibition or commission, nowhere to show the work that lives inside me. What then? How do I get going? The question becomes broader – what am I living for? For me to be alive means that I must absorb and produce, no matter what.

Some artists are compulsive – they have to work every day of their life; maybe it is some sort of safeguard against drying up.

Who knows? Maybe I am also compulsive in that I find myself working even when I am not actively making my work. Living is work.

Absorbing what life has to offer is part of work. And then comes the doing.

I see myself as a worker without a boss, and if there is a boss, he is inside me. The inner boss is the driver and sometimes he can be relentless, sometimes not, but the need to do is always there.

And if I really want to get serious about all this, it is the sensation of achievement, the joy of giving, that makes me feel good as a human being.’ ww.asherbilu.com When not creating abstract artworks, Asher drives a 407 sedan

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: dire tribe

: bent into shape By virtue of its nature, wood has never been an overly flexible material for furniture designers to work with. It can of course be shaped and bent – first practised by the ancient Egyptians – but this is often an intense and arduous process and there are limitations. But now an innovative Italian firm has produced Bendywood, a patented hardwood material that can be bent by hand, shaped by clamping or twisted into myriad shapes and forms.

Produced according to a process that was first patented in 1917, the firm Candidus Prugger uses squared lengths of European deciduous trees including beech, ash, oak and maple that are steamed and compressed lengthwise to about 80 percent of their original length.

The dried blanks can then be bent in a cold dry state to a radius of about ten times the thickness of the blank, for example a 10mm thick blank could be bent to a radius of about 100mm.

The enormous flexibility of this chemicalfree product can enable furniture designers a freedom previously unavailable as is evident in the work of Toby Thomas, whose exhibition Bent is currently showing at Adelaide’s Jam Factory.

Thomas’ curved furniture designs have a lightness and spontaneity about them that is made possible through the use of Bendywood.

The material also allows him to design directly as he works using the wood and forming shapes and curves that inform the final work. [ ] www.jamfactory.com.au

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: excelle

Step inside Dusk Bar in the art deco Ritz Mansions building on Fitzroy Street in St Kilda and it may seem like you have accidentally stumbled upon a set from playschool or an imaginative play area in a daycare centre. But this Melbourne bar featuring oversized jigsaw flooring and giant spool seating is very much an adult’s playground and one that appealed immensely to the judges of this year’s annual Interior Design Awards.

Taking out the overall award for Interior Design Innovation and Excellence and the hospitality category, design firm Dire Tribe created Dusk as a dramatic departure from the typical minimalist cool that pervades much of the Melbourne bar scene.

In commenting on the qualities of the design the judges stated: ‘A witty and deliberate methodology has been employed to make clever use of the cast-offs of technology, resulting in a powerful and provocative space. Qualities of warmth, humour and scale combine to create an imaginative and unprecedented interior.’

The Interior Design Awards is a national program partnered by the Design Institute of Australia, designEX and Artichoke magazine and covers 16 categories and this year, more than 350 projects were entered.

In the residential section, the winner was IDC in collaboration with Alex Popov Architects for ‘The Hutt’ in NSW. The judges noted that the interior design reflected a strong connection and co-operation between the designer and architect.

‘Lighting is successfully embedded within the base building and the strength of form and clarity of material selection produces a warm ambience. The restrained outcome demonstrates the designer’s experience and control,’ the judges stated.

Victorian projects took out seven of the 12 national awards including Corporate Interior Design, won by Carr Design Group for its Transurban Operations interior; Public/ Institutional Interior Design, awarded to Cox Architects and Planners for Building G, Chisholm TAFE (Dandenong); Emerging Practice, which went to Russell Ryan for Left clothing boutique; and Environmentally Sustainable Design, won

by City of Melbourne in collaboration with DesignInc for CH2 – Council House 2. [ ] www.interiordesignawards.com.au

: star cars

Visitors to Melbourne’s international motor show in March were among the first in the world to see Peugeot’s hottest new stars in the metal with the show hosting the worldwide debut of the new 207 GTi and 207 CC. Both cars are due on sale locally in July and will round out the recently introduced 207 range.

As the new top of the range 207 model, the CC will be offered with a choice of 88kW/ 160Nm 1.6-litre four-cylinder engine mated to either a five-speed manual gearbox or four speed Tiptronic automatic transmission or the turbocharged 110kW/240Nm 1.6-litre engine driven through the five-speed manual gearbox.

Both engines feature the latest in direct injection technology and lightweight materials for superior performance and fuel economy and were developed in collaboration with BMW Group.

The 207 CC carries on a tradition of Peugeot folding hardtops that started way back in 1937 when the 402 Eclipse was unveiled at the Paris motor show. Since then the company has been the driving force behind coupe convertibles that offer the best of both worlds with the 207 CC’s predecessor, the iconic 206 CC having notched up 360,000 sales worldwide.

Peugeot has also long been a leader in the hot hatch department as well and that tradition is set to continue with the launch of the 207 GTi. Powered by a 1.6-litre THP (Turbo High Pressure) petrol engine that produces a maximum power of 128kW and peak torque of 240Nm – on tap from just 1600 rpm – the 207 GTi continues the line of sporting hatchbacks that featured in the previous 206 and 205 series.

The 207 GTi inspires driving sensations that will satisfy the enthusiast in everyone, but can still be enjoyed on an everyday basis. [ ] www.peugeot.com.au

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hand forged silver rings to create a completely integrated design that is practical, light, strong and beautiful.

Smart Works asks the question, ‘What does the term ‘handmade’ mean to you?’ If you still come up with wobbly teapots and chunky knitted scarves, visit the show or check out the book and think again. In Smart Works, talented designers use a hands on approach to produce sleek and stylish products.

Smart Works is on at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, until August 19. [ ] www.powerhousemuseum.com

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: adelaide

: perth

Feast your senses on some of Australia’s and world’s hottest cabaret acts as this recently rediscovered art form makes a welcome return at the Adelaide Cabaret

See the works of tomorrow’s contemporary art stars as the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art shows off the best graduate works from around the country in its annual Hatched 07 exhibition.

Running until June 24, Hatched showcases works by 64 of the best graduates from 21 tertiary art schools from around Australia whose practice covers painting, print making, ceramics, sculpture, installation, textiles, jewellery, animation, photography and video. [ ] www.pica.org.au

Festival running over 15 nights from June 8.

Over 300 artists will perform in 200 shows from the outrageous spectacle of The Burlesque Hour through a tribute to Judy Garland by French duo Isabelle Georges and Frederik Steenbrink to the wandering tales and accompanying edible delights of Moira Finucane’s sultry adventuress and diva Argentina Gina Catalina (below). [ ] www.adelaidecabaretfestival.com

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: queensland Wine and dine and learn from the masters of the art of food at the annual Great Barrier Feast running on Hamilton Island from June 8-11.

Hosted by Curtis Stone (above) of Surfing the Menu, chefs running master classes and cooking for guests include Toby Puttock from Fifteen, Jimmy Shu of the Hanuman restaurants and Frank Camorra from Melbourne’s Spanish treat Mo Vida. The weekend combines champagne and wine tastings, sumptuous feasts and cooking classes in one of the most glorious settings on the Great Barrier Reef. [ ] www.hamiltonisland.com.au

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debra howard : altered

jonathan baskett : caterpillar bowls

At first glance, design and the handmade seem like strange bedfellows.

Stereotypically, design is clean, slick, mass produced and fast, while handcrafted items are authentic, rustic, individual and slow. But as they say, opposites attract. The exhibition Smart Works: Design and the Handmade currently showing at Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum investigates their successful and complex relationship through the work of more than 40 innovative designers from Australia and New Zealand.

Smart Works showcases the work of both traditional and cutting edge makers across the broad spectrum of the design arena: from glassblowers, jewellers, ceramicists, silversmiths and weavers to designers in lighting, furniture, textiles and fashion. All of the designers are leaders in their fields and the extensive list includes such well known names as Dinosaur Designs, Akira Isogawa, Jon Goulder, Pru Venables, Benjamin Edols and Kathy Elliot and Vixen.

Each individual maker is asked to consider how they negotiate a balance between keeping a personal connection to the work and making the most of mass production possibilities, new technologies and global opportunities.

Using video interviews, photographs, drawings, text, prototypes and samples, Smart Works provides fascinating answers. The exhibition is a unique window into each designer’s philosophy, problem solving processes and final solutions.

Gilbert Riedelbauch’s RP Chain 2 Necklace (left) is a perfect example of a happy marriage between industrial technology and a hand made approach. The Canberra based jeweller uses CAD 3D modelling programs and a rapid prototyping machine to create a delicate, open lattice work link in white ABS plastic.

Riedelbauch ‘grows’ these structures around

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: sydney

Experience the visual and audio impressions of one of Tasmania’s pioneering video, sound and installation artists as the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery hosts a survey exhibition of the work of Leigh Hobba until June 17. Hobba was part of the first wave of Australian artists who explored the use of video and sound in the 1970s and this survey – running under the title The Space of Presence – offers an exploration of the Tasmanian landscape in sound and vision through works from 1980 to the present. [ ] www.tmag.tas.gov.au

: mirror lagoon 2

rob bamford : serpentine tray

events : exhibitions : performances

: hobart

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on tour

: melbourne Wrap yourself up in the world of scarves in the midst of a cold Victorian winter and join in the fun of the annual Melbourne Scarf Festival that runs from June 28 until July 7. The theme for this year is SPIN, whether it is in the creating or marketing of scarves, and visitors can get involved in ten days of workshops, forums and exhibitions or simply browse for the latest in neckwear – or any part of the body for that matter – at The Scarf Market [ ] www.craftvic.asn.au

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:w allaby plays for peugeot

Ever wondered what it would be like to step outside and peer down the edge of a skyscraper? Well now you can. With the opening of Melbourne’s Eureka Skydeck 88, visitors have the opportunity to go over the edge and stand inside a glass box staring down nearly 300 metres to the ground below.

Skydeck, on the 88th floor of the new Eureka Tower at Southbank is the highest public observation point in the southern hemisphere and features a range of attractions, not the least of which is the 360 degree views of Melbourne.

But after being whisked to the 88th floor in just 40 seconds courtesy of one of a pair of high-speed lifts, the undoubted star of this new tourist attraction is The Edge.

Stepping into the opaque glass box, all seems normal until it slides three metres out from the side of the building. After coming to rest, the 45mm thick glass floor clears followed by the walls and roof and you find yourself suspended high above City Road with only the glass and a steel frame between yourself and the microscopic activity going on at street level.

This innovative attraction can take up to 12 people at a time with the cycle lasting about five minutes and we are assured it has been designed to hold up to 10 tonnes so is suitable for people of all shapes and sizes.

The Eureka Skydeck 88 and The Edge operate seven days a week from 10am to 10pm providing spectacular views day and night. [ ] www.eurekalookout.com.au

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Peugeot has taken back-to-back wins in its 908 HDi diesel racecar in the first two rounds of the European Le Mans series. Proving that diesel power can be both extremely effective in performance terms and economical, the 908 took the chequered flag in the first race of the season at Monza in Italy in April with Nicolas Minassian and Marc Gené behind the wheel.

For the second race at Valencia in Spain in May, it was the second 908 that took victory, driven by Pedro Lamy and Stephane Sarrazin, giving the pair their second podium for the season after finishing third at Monza.

The two wins augur well for the Peugeot Total entrants whose next outing will be the historic Le Mans 24-hour race that takes place in June in France. Although the Le Mans race is not part of the European Le Mans series, this year’s race is certain to draw broad interest. Not only is it the race’s 75th anniversary but it will see two diesel race cars go head to head for the title as the Peugeot 908s take on last year’s winner the Audi R10.

After Le Mans, the two 908s will be back into the series for more 1000km races at Nurburgring (Germany), Spa (Belgium) and Silverstone (UK) with the final of the six race season being held at the Interlagos circuit in Brazil in November. [ ] www.lemans-series.com

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:d iesel dominates Le Mans

Peugeot has enlisted the help of Waratah’s player and Wallabies rugby star Lote Tuqiri to help promote locally its forthcoming sponsorship of Rugby World Cup 2007 that kicks off in Paris on September 7.

The Fijian-born union heavyweight will be driving a 407 SV HDi Touring as a Peugeot Ambassador and is proud to be associated with the car-maker that has a long history of involvement with Rugby Union.

Peugeot was a major sponsor of Rugby World Cup 2003 that was held here in Australia, and in France, the company has been the official partner of local team Stade Toulousain since 1996.

The tie up between Tuqiri and Peugeot seems a natural one with both partners firmly committed to rugby. For Peugeot’s part it is about helping develop and support the sport at all levels from the Uruguayan Peugeot Kids Cup through to the sport’s flagship World Cup event which this year will see 20 nations battle it out through 48 matches in nine French cities as well as Cardiff (Wales) and Edinburgh (Scotland).

For Tuqiri, his commitment to rugby on an international level is about being part of a winning World Cup team and avenging the shock defeat against England four years ago when Jonny Wilkinson’s field goal in the closing seconds of the final ended Australia’s hopes.

Tuqiri will be one of 15 players from around Australia, who will be out to make sure history isn’t repeated in France. [ ] www.rugbyworldcup.com

:u sed but not abused Buyers of pre-owned Peugeot cars can now have even more peace of mind, with Peugeot Automobiles Australia introducing a comprehensive Approved Used car program.

All Peugeot Approved Used cars come with a minimum of 2 years warranty from the date of delivery, as well as Peugeot Roadside Assistance, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

All cars that qualify for the scheme have undergone a 115 point inspection carried out by a factory trained technician.

In addition to visiting your local Peugeot Dealer, buyers can log into the Peugeot Automobiles Australia website – www. peugeot.com.au – and select from the many Approved Used Cars on-line. With an easy to use interface, you can search across Australia for your perfect used Peugeot, by model, price and of course location.

In conjunction with the Approved Used Car program, Peugeot is also giving buyers of new cars the opportunity to extend their manufacturer’s warranty, ensuring long-term peace of mind.

Four extended warranty products are available – with 12 month/20,000km, 24-month/40,000km, 36-month/60,000km and an ‘Extra-time’ five-year/100,000km, packages on offer.

Whether it is an extended warranty on a new car or a warranty on an Approved Used car, Peugeot is clearly backing with confidence the reliability of its products with customers, as always, being the big winners. www.peugeot.com.au :: d r i v e n 13

: allscape

: N Jooy

:: d e s i g n

Peugeot’s bi-annual global internet design competition has again highlighted the wealth of talent that exists across the globe with this year’s contest attracting over 4000 entries.

The eventual winner was a 20 year old student from Romania whose Flux concept, Peter Brewer writes, more than satisfied

S TATE O F :

A clever, compact and sassy little two-seater sports car will take pride of place on the Peugeot stand at the Frankfurt International Motor Show in September. But the little eco-friendly runabout isn’t the product of established hands within Peugeot’s design studios; it’s the work of a 20-year-old Romanian design student.

Flux, penned by Mihai Panaitescu, was the winning entry in one of the world’s most hotly-contested and innovative automotive design competitions.

Peugeot is the primary sponsor for the competition, which was established six years

were whittled down in a tough, three-stage process of elimination.

Entrants were asked to comply with a set of precise instructions: design a type of car to PLEASE (an acronym describing a concept which embodied the attributes of Pleasurable and Lively to drive; Efficient and Accessible to many; Simple and yet Ecologically-friendly).

Panaitescu, currently studying in Turin, is the youngest-ever winner of the competition.

His fuel cell-powered Flux was selected from thousands of rival designs to reach the top 30, then survived an on-line vote to decide the 10 favourites, before being scrutinised in lengthy

ago to challenge budding young designers to not just develop a viable concept, but to explain its function and how it fits the criteria.

The competitors – this year there were a record 4029 submissions – submitted their entries to a dedicated website where they

detail and finally receiving the nod from a panel of judges chaired by Frédéric Saint-Geours, the director general of Automobiles Peugeot.

The Flux design formula, says Panaitescu, focused on fun and versatility.

‘Its sportiness and the ability to use it in

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different environments are in my opinion some of the vehicle’s strong points,’ Panaitescu wrote in his submission. He describes his project as ‘an explorer of sandy beaches, sweeping mountain roads, or [for use] simply commuting in the city.

Its dynamic shape and open air cockpit make it lively and fun to drive as the occupants are always in contact with their surroundings.’

In naming the car Flux, he was inspired by ‘the continuous change and flow of our daily lives during work and play’. This flow is characterised by ‘transitions through hard and smooth lines, between straight and curved [lines], all of which are characteristics of Peugeot’.

Flux, which in its dimensions is slightly shorter than a Peugeot 206 but much the same width, strives for a light footprint through the use of a plastic bonnet and side panels, polyurethane for the seats and aluminium for the mechanical parts.

: flux

the judges and the P.L.E.A.S.E. innovate theme

To establish its eco-friendly credentials while encouraging well-balanced sports-like driving characteristics, Flux is designed to run on a slim, emission-free hydrogen powerplant mounted behind the passengers, with the fuel tank located up front beneath the tapered bonnet.

It’s a relatively simple and contemporary design formula, and a dramatic departure from the bizarre, futuristic concepts which have garnered the top prize in previous years.

Yet while Flux follows a well-trodden design path, in choosing the runners-up the judging panel was supportive of those which took a more dramatic turn of the pen.

Second place in the competition went to the N Jooy, created by 27-year-old Brazilian Wesley Saikawa. Inspired by old Formula One cars, N Jooy is a single-seater with a selfish intent.

‘There is only one seat, the pleasure is just for yourself, so enjoy it,’ Saikawa says.

‘With an organic shape,

The hard-cover panels on Allscape are

the car looks harmonic because of its soft lines and smooth surface, giving it a joyous, strong, fast and aggressive appearance.’

N Jooy is omnidirectional, with spheres rolling to any direction, and capable of turning in its length.

‘Each sphere is controlled by an independent engine connected to an intelligent system that recognises every movement. With this system the car can have a better grip, with less chance to have an accident,’ he added.

Third place went to the Allscape, a sports car hybrid offering what its 29-year-old Venezualan designer Gustavo Ferrero, described as an ‘extreme power-to-weight ratio’ through the use of a natural gas-powered V4 2.0-litre twin-turbo engine and four wheel drive.

‘independent, removable and interchangable… letting you change your car’s aerodynamics, colour and appearance, offering a wide range of shapes, colours, textures, and opaque transparent surfaces.’

If the 6000 euro cash prize and the coveted La Griffe trophy for first place isn’t satisfying enough, contest winner Panaitescu’s crowning achievement will be in seeing his car transformed from an idea on paper to a full scale concept on display before thousands of visitors at one of the world’s most prestigious automotive showcases. More importantly, it puts his concept under the noses of some of the automotive world’s most influential people.

For a 20-year-old with ambitions, it’s the dream start to what could be a very promising career… [ ] www.peugeot-concours-design.com

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used to consist of a simple incandescent

: house of the future – DJ Coalition

:: l i g h t i n g

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Lighting for your home

globe perhaps covered by an aftermarket shade. but as Tracey Clement discovers, such is the technology available today and the vast amount of firms diversifying into lighting design that you can now illuminate you home with lights that adjust for ambient conditions, use minimal energy and make a design statement all in one

Everyday, without fail, the sun rises and illuminates the earth, and each evening, as it dips below the horizon, its brilliance diminishes and slowly fades to black. We used to be bound by this daily cycle of light and dark. But now, light is ubiquitous; it is available everywhere, anytime.

In our privileged western existences, we simply flick a switch and the lights come on, no questions asked. For most of us light is utilitarian.

As long as we can see what we are doing we are satisfied; light is something we take for granted.

But those who work in the highly specialised field of lighting design know that it is mysterious, powerful and absolutely necessary.

André Tammes, managing director of Lighting Design Partnership (LDP), puts it succinctly by saying, ‘No light, no sight.’ But he is quick to point out that light does much more than just making the invisible visible; it effects everything that it touches. It alters perceptions and most other lighting designers would agree.

David Skelley, creative director of DJCoalition (DJC), acknowledges that with lighting ‘you can transform the ordinary into the extraordinary.’

Siobhan McNabb, Sydney-based senior architectural consultant for luminaire manufacturer Euroluce, adds that, ‘People don’t realise that light effects us on different levels: psychological, metaphysical. We communicate through light; it effects us mentally and emotionally.’

And these aren’t just wild theories. There is plenty of evidence that lighting actually does have a measurable effect on behaviour. LDP have undertaken numerous public lighting projects, including a master plan for the city of Adelaide, which anticipated a result of ‘decreased anti-social behaviour.’ Tammes has no doubt that this is possible. He summarises a late 1990s study conducted in the English town of Stoke-on-Trent by Dr Kate Painter and David P. Farrington, saying, ‘Optimum lighting reduces both actual crime and just as importantly, the fear of crime.’ :: d r i v e n 17

: this page above : the islington hotel – illuminated design top right : kelvin f Designer antonio Citterio – euroluce. right : herald sun apartments – Designer hassell – euroluce, Image shannon mcgrath opposite top left : beachfront mirage estate – Designer wolveridge architects – euroluce, image derek swalwell. top right : o luce cand-led – Designers m laudani and m romanelli – euroluce bottom : the islington hotel – illuminated design

Clearly light has a powerful effect on our psyches. We may not be fully aware of it, but most of us do know instinctively that lighting contributes to mood. Just compare the impact on a budding romance of a soft candlelit dinner versus a meal held under the harsh glare of food hall fluorescents, or the way the spirits can lift in spring after a long, dark winter. As McNabb points out, ‘Light is a really special element, it’s magical… It changes what it illuminates. It creates an atmosphere.’ Skelley concurs saying, ‘Light has a lot of energy in itself. It’s kind of magical, you can’t see it but you can feel it.’

Despite the fact that we have all experienced this 18 d r i v e n ::

first hand, at least subconsciously, we’ve been slow to let lighting work its magic in our homes.

According to LDP’s Tammes, up until quite recently it was absolutely the norm to have just one ceiling light per room. But times are changing. An increasingly design savvy Australian public is becoming familiar and comfortable with the catch phrases of lighting, words like: ambient, task, accent, scenic and decorative. More people are starting to consult lighting designers for their homes and adopt new technologies that allow total control over domestic lights, enabling them to get creative and enjoy the benefits of good lighting.

But what is good lighting?

Independent lighting designer, Frederika Perey, who works under the name Illuminated Design says: ‘There is a saying that good lighting shouldn’t be noticed. You should just feel comfortable.’ Tammes says his firm has ‘always believed in the less is more principle; the judicious use of light is what it is all about.’ For Skelley, ‘Lighting must reinforce the natural mood of an activity and create a sense of well being.’

Initially trained as an architect, Skelley also emphasises the importance of considering the whole environment. As he says with a certain wry humour, ‘Light is not like a coat of paint that

is added at the end of a project.’ For him, tight collaboration with the architect and interior designer is critical. This is where the specialised skills of the lighting designer come into play.

As Perey points out, unlike an engineer or electrician, a lighting designer brings both practicality and aesthetic sensibilities to a job.

A lighting designer will make a plan for each room that takes into consideration its use, the desired mood, the architectural features and surfaces and the final furnishings.

For Perey, who studied fine arts before specialising in lighting design, a lighting plan ‘is a composition, much like a painting.’ Once

a plan is devised and the fixtures are selected ‘You have a palette of light fittings that you want to be able to control… It’s entirely about creating mood and atmosphere in a space that you can then light in lots of different ways.’

And this is where things start to get really interesting. Technology now exists that allows specific lighting combinations to be programmed for each room in the house, and changed at the touch of a button. All of your home’s entertainment and environmental controls, including stereo, TV, air conditioning and lighting can be streamlined into one touch screen panel, or accessed through a remote control. And for

those who fancy a bit of sci-fi style automation, it is possible to dial ahead and turn on the lights from your mobile phone, or fit a sensor to the car that will open the garage door, call the lift for your apartment and turn on appropriate lighting for you, depending on the time of day and ambient light levels, before you arrive.

At a more down to earth level, these sophisticated controls allow lighting levels to be precisely and sensitively adjusted to create completely different atmospheres for any occasion. As an example, Perey points out that in a dinning room, the usual desire is to create a feeling of warmth and intimacy, but within the :: d r i v e n 19

framework of this theme, the lights can also be set for different purposes. There can be one lighting scene for family breakfast and another for dinner, a mood scene for cocktail parties, or bright lights for doing household chores and pathway lights for late night security.

The frequent use of the word scene by lighting designers points both forward towards the field’s potential, and back to its history.

Many lighting designers, including one of its 1950s pioneers, the American Richard Kelly, have theatrical backgrounds. Andre Tammes, who prefers to be called a visual planner, began his career in the UK, in the theatre, where he says lighting design first came into its own.

Perhaps this should come as no surprise. From spectacular sunsets, to night time sporting events and the blinding flash of the paparazzi, lighting has long been associated with drama.

Euroluce’s Siobhan McNabb, who also trained as an architect, has worked as an independent lighting designer in Hong Kong and was co-editor of Switch, a specialist lighting magazine, is keen for Australians to embrace the dramatic aspects of lighting in their own homes.

She encourages people to use lighting as ‘a tool to sculpt the space; to be more theatrical.’

McNabb advocates playful experimentation with colour and intensity saying, ‘The thing

with light is don’t be afraid; it’s not permanent… you can change it!’ But she is also aware that working with light can be a bit daunting for the uninitiated and her advice is don’t be afraid to ask for specialised help.

Of course, the reality is that most people are reluctant to spend money on getting a professional to design a lighting plan and presently, at least, most lighting design firms spend the bulk of their time on hotels, commercial or urban projects. But according to Tammes the cost difference between optimum and bare bones lighting is not that much and knowing how critical lighting is to generating a sense of well being, it could be money well spent. In fact, as he points out, a lighting designer could actually save you money, by finding you need less lighting than you thought, or by being aware of the latest developments in energy efficient technologies.

The winning combination of saving money, while saving the planet, appeals to most Australians and lighting in the home is a good place to start. Recent building code legislation dictates the maximum allowable wattage per square metre in commercial premises. While these regulations don’t yet apply to domestic dwellings, new developments in lighting technology mean that the home user can now cut energy use and

this page left : yamagiwa tofu – Designer tokujin yoshioka – euroluce right : flos superarchimoon outdoor – Designer philippe stark – euroluce opposite left : the islington hotel – illuminated design right : sahara star hotel – LDP

20 d r i v e n ::

costs, without sacrificing quality of light.

Compact fluorescent lamps (CFL) are now readily available in supermarkets. According to the Australian Government’s Greenhouse Office website, an average CFL will run for 10,000 hours, compared to an incandescent’s 1000, and will reduce running costs and greenhouse emissions by 75 per cent. Perey acknowledges that most of the population are still suspicious of fluros in the home, and see them as a ‘no, no’ for creating mood lighting. But these days, they come in a range of warm colours that mimic daylight, and even more importantly, many of them can now be dimmed, allowing for total control over lighting atmosphere, as well as heightened energy efficiency.

The other major development in lighting technology is the improvement of light emitting diodes (LED). After years of just being available as tiny winking lights in red, green and blue, LEDs are starting to come on the market in a range of whites. These lights are both very powerful and very small, making them incredibly versatile. They also have the potential to last up to 50,000 hours and use very little energy. Most lighting designers agree that it will be some time before LEDs are consistent enough to light a whole home, but the technology is improving rapidly and promises to revolutionise the industry.

It is easiest to incorporate good lighting into your home if you are starting from scratch or undertaking a major renovation. Lighting should be considered from the beginning as an integral part of the whole design, enabling fittings and controls to be placed appropriately and discreetly.

But if you aren’t ready to undertake an extensive building project, don’t despair. There is a wide range of dimmers and control systems that can be retro fitted to your existing lighting. And even though nothing can replace the expertise of a professional, there are also some really simple ways to improve the lighting in your home.

André Tammes suggests considering the walls and ceiling of a room as an ‘envelope’, and then using these enclosing planes as reflectors. He emphasises the psychology of lighting and asks people to realise that they will feel happier if the light is reflected at them from the surfaces that contain them.

David Skelley strongly recommends getting rid of down-lighting (ceiling lights). As he says with a smile, ‘They give you bags under your eyes! Need I say more?’ Keep them in the kitchen and bathroom and replace the rest with lamps. He also suggests the logical step of putting each light on a separate switch. Then lighting levels and mood can be controlled simply by turning lamps on and off.

Frederika Perey agrees that, ‘Down-lighting is a bit useless. It’s much better to up-light the

ceiling for ambient light and add task lighting as needed.’ She also adds, ‘Basically glare is the enemy and should be avoided at all costs.’

Think about the height and position of lamps and hide the light globes.

Working at the coal face of Australian retail, Siobhan McNabb has noticed a consumer trend towards ornate decoration combined with an interest in iconic design classics that have withstood the test of time. Just one bold feature lamp can change the atmosphere in a room and make a big statement. As McNabb says, ‘There is more to lights than just on and off. Lighting is like wearing clothes and makeup, it shows who you are.’ So don’t be shy, let there be light! [ ] www.ldpi.net www.djcoalition.com www.euroluce.com.au

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:: d r i v e n 21

22 d r i v e n ::

logging up more than 5.5 million sales worldwide. Now it is time for its successor, the 207, to impress upon the world the company’s outstanding design and technology prowess as it goes on sale around the globe.

Russell Williamson was there at the Australian launch Designing a new model to succeed the 206 – a car whose benchmark qualities ensured it became an icon – was never going to be an easy task. Ever since the first 201 was launched at the Paris motor show in 1929, Peugeot’s small car has helped define the French maker’s central theme of innovation. That first 20 series model featured among other things automatic windscreen wipers and became the world’s first mass produced small car with an independent front suspension.

Now nearly 80 years on such items have become the norm, so it was going to take a lot more design and technological innovation in the 207 for it to stand out from the crowd.

And Peugeot has certainly delivered with features and technology that are normally the preserve of much more expensive cars.

From the new generation of petrol engines – developed in conjunction with BMW – that feature direct injection and twin-scroll turbocharging technology through to driver

aids such as tyre pressure sensors, rear parking assistance and directional lighting and comfort features including the fragrance diffuser, the 207 bristles with functional innovations.

From the minute you lay eyes on the new 207, it offers an aesthetic distinction that can only belong to a Peugeot. Designed in-house by the Peugeot Style Centre, the 207 has an expressive and powerful shape that creates a sense of movement and mirrors the new design language that was introduced on the larger 407.

But even in the four-model lineup that will initially comprise three-door and five-door hatches there is a distinctive difference in the visuals.

The entry-level XR three and five door models feature softer lines for an elegant appearance that Peugeot designates its ‘Classic’ styling.

With a deeper front grille incorporating fog lights in chrome surrounds and a visible chrome plated exhaust pipe at the rear, the rest of the range including the five-door XT and XE models

and three-door GT offer Sports styling with a more dynamic visual appeal.

As the next generation in the 20 series model line, the new 207 builds significantly upon the 206 in all areas including size. Overall it is substantially bigger than the car it replaces and is of a similar size to the 306.

At just over 4 metres long, the 207 adds 200mm to the 206’s length – nearly half of which is in the wheelbase – 65mm in width and 56mm in height.

This increased size becomes immediately apparent as you slip into the comfortable and supportive driver’s seat. There is a multitude of adjustments for the seat and steering column to ensure you get just the right driving position and ample room for passengers up front and in the rear.

Like the exterior, the interior has been designed with a keen eye for both form and function with a stylishly laid out dash with all controls for the audio, heating and ventilation all within easy reach in logical positions.

Images : Peter Whyte

:: p e u g e o t 2 0 7

tour de force

Peugeot’s venerable small 206 was its most popular model ever

tour de force

In providing the ideal interior conditions, Peugeot again demonstrates its ability to find innovative solutions. An in-depth study was carried out on the circulation of air (or its recirculation) within the 207 and on how to heat and cool it. This research led to the creation of special air ducts under the front seats.

A system of air outlet ducts throughout the cabin diffuses air from outside while its quality is regulated by a filter that retains pollen and other airborne particles. Two levels of air conditioning are offered with a fully automatic dual zone climate control system on XE and GT models.

24 d r i v e n ::

This system incorporates clever ideas such as automatically closing the exterior air inlet when the windscreen washers are activated to prevent

models respectively – has already proven itself an economical and reliable unit in the 206 but for 207, it gains a number of improvements including

delivers superb fuel economy with a listed consumption of 4.8l/100km.

In order to ensure these eminently driveable

the odour from the windscreen washer additive from entering the cabin.

To ensure the smell inside the cabin is a pleasant one, these two models also feature the aforementioned fragrance diffuser that delivers a variety of scents on demand selected from a choice of seven fragrances that were developed in conjunction with a French perfume specialist.

While the top spec XE and GT models obviously benefit from the highest level of features such as the climate control and the full length glass panoramic roof, even the entry level XR remains especially good value with the 1.4-litre three and five-door manual-only models priced at $19,990 and $21,490 respectively.

Standard equipment includes air conditioning, remote locking, power windows and mirrors and a single slot CD audio system.

Moving up a grade to the five-door XT comes more choice on the engine front with a 1.6-litre petrol motor – offered with a choice of fivespeed manual or four-speed tiptronic automatic transmissions priced from $24,990 and $27,190 respectively – or a manual 1.6-litre turbo diesel HDi which hits the showroom starting at $27,990.

The current sports star of the 207 range is the three-door manual GT that uses a turbocharged version of the 1.6-litre petrol engine and is priced from $31,490 while the top of the range XE automatic-only 1.6-litre non turbo petrol model is priced from $32,490.

As is evident, it is largely body styles and drivetrains that differentiate the 207 model lineup and in the latter, Peugeot again demonstrates its desire to push innovation to the limits to deliver engines that are powerful, efficient and reduce their impact on the environment.

In the XR, the 1.4-litre engine – offered in two states of tune with 55kW/120Nm and 65kW/133Nm for the three and five-door

variable valve timing on the 65kW version.

But it is the all-new 1.6-litre petrol engines that will ensure the 207 continues to be renown as a driver’s car.

In the GT, the turbo 1.6-litre engine generates a maximum output of 110kW and peak torque of 240Nm. However, the numbers certainly don’t tell the whole story. Through the use of direct injection and twin scroll turbocharging – which helps reduce traditional turbo lag – the full engine torque is available from as low as 1400rpm with an astonishing 150Nm on tap at just 1000rpm or just off idle. At 5000rpm, the engine is still producing 220Nm while peak power is reached at a high 5800rpm resulting in an engine that is incredibly flexible and responsive at all engine speeds. At the same time, the official fuel consumption of this compact lightweight engine is just 7.0l/100km.

The second of the new engines is a non turbo version of the 1.6-litre unit that still develops 88kW and 160Nm and thanks to the fitment of continuously variable valve timing for all 16 inlet and exhaust valves, it sips petrol at the rate of just 6.1l/100km on the official combined cycle. This engine is mated to a new four-speed automatic transmission that uses the Porsche Tiptronic System. This electronically controlled system allows the driver to select and hold gears by slipping the gearshift lever into a secondary gate and ‘tipping’ the lever fore or aft.

The third 1.6-litre engine in the 207 range is Peugeot’s acclaimed second generation common rail HDi turbodiesel that is presently doing service in the 307. Fitted with a Peugeot innovation – the diesel particulate filter – as standard, the HDi engine generates 80kW and 240Nm – the latter available from as low as 1750rpm. As you would expect from a world leader in diesel engines, the 207 HDi also

engines deliver what is expected, Peugeot has developed a new rear torsion beam suspension to maximise road holding and improve the dynamic character of the car. Combined with the front MacPherson strut arrangement and longer wheelbase and wider track, the 207 delivers a supremely stable, confident and composed ride and handling compromise. For the sports driver, the GT sits on a lowered firmer development of the same system while the electrically-assisted steering – that is standard across the range – is tuned to deliver an appropriate response for enthusiastic driving.

With Peugeot’s development process always having an eye on the environment, the 207 offers 85 percent recyclability with the rate of material recycling nearly 96 percent. The company has also produced disassembly

manuals to optimise the recycling of materials and all plastic and rubber parts are marked precisely to facilitate sorting by category.

Ensuring the broader protection of the environment is important, but so is the protection of the car’s occupants and other road users. And here the 207, through its high level of active and passive safety features and inherent design, has again delivered, achieving the maximum five-star occupant protection, fourstar child occupant protection and three-star pedestrian protection ratings in the EuroNCAP independent crash test program.

Across the range, anti-lock brakes, dual front airbags and five three-point seatbelts with pretensioners on the front are standard. All models apart from the XR also benefit from front side airbags and full-length curtain airbags to help reduce injuries in a side impact while the GT and XE models gain the active safety feature of stability and traction control.

Whether it is for safety, performance, comfort or aesthetics, the level of innovative design and technology in the new 207 should ensure, that this model is more than a worthy successor to the iconic 206. [ ] www.peugeot.com.au

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:: d r i v e n 25

:: p h o t o g r a p h y

Digital Imagery The digital age has brought about a vast range of challenges and possibilities for photographers with constantly evolving computer technology and techniques enabling artists to create images that were not previously possible. Using the computer for far more than retouching and manipulation, Robert McFarlane discovers a new generation of photo artists that are combining their digital skills with the essence of traditional

marine microorganism 13 : stephanie valentin

photography to create works that push boundaries of artistic imagination

26 d r i v e n ::

robyn stacey These are extraordinary times in Australian photography. Not only has a new generation of photojournalists such as Trent Parke revived documentary photography in this country but photo-artists are emerging in the computer era to redefine the camera’s relationship with truth. Putting it simply, today’s photo-artists show little interest in the camera’s assumed fidelity for witnessing events and recording history, either public or personal.

Instead, this new wave of photo-artists start with an image produced by a camera (sometimes but not always created digitally) and with the aid of computer software, create startling new forms of visual beauty and layered meaning.

Perhaps the defining pioneer of these photographic fantasies is 54-year old Sydney artist Robyn Stacey. Starting from a background using traditional black and white photography, Stacey evolved from initially hand-colouring her images to designing complex, carefully layered 28 d r i v e n ::

images that sometimes defy both gravity and literal interpretation.

‘Computers just enabled me to do more,’ explains Stacey. ‘With analogue photography there’s a limit to how many images you can combine whereas on the computer it is virtually unlimited.’

In Fruit and Sky, Stacey presents a ‘hand’ of bananas set against a blue sky, apparently suspended in space. The photo-artist then populates the surface of the fruit with a butterfly and one rather lean, sinister spider.

While clearly an ominous vision, this brightly coloured image is leavened

by Stacey’s seamless command of digital manipulation. The bananas suggest an image of a wild, floral asteroid in which, suggests Stacey, we may observe something of the life cycle of both spider and butterfly.

Stacey is also capable of moments of simple, elegant lyricism as in her tour de force montage, Ice from the 1989 series Redline 7000. Here the face of a luminous, contemplative woman wearing bright crimson lipstick

right canvas : far right forced observation

Far left ice : left fruit and sky

jeremy park

floats above a generic, high-rise city skyline. With its colourful echo of film noir lighting, this image does little but ask questions and evoke intrigue.

‘This (picture) is based on the dramatic lighting from Film Noir,’ asserts Stacey, ‘when women were first seen (in films) as ambitious, driven and not necessarily the girl next door.’

‘It was the first time when women could be more than the stern mothering figure. And they had wit and funny lines. I see this picture as showing a woman as triumphant, rather than as a victim.’

Sydney advertising photographer Jeremy Park, 33, recently exhibited a series of subtly coloured photographs that instantly evoked memories of Surrealist painter Rene Magritte (1898-1967). With consummate digital skill and a certain generosity of spirit, Park freely references the visual style and melancholy moods of the Belgian artist.

Homage to Magritte was made for two reasons’, declares Park, ‘I was

starting to work as an advertising photographer and wanted to acknowledge Magritte’s lead in visual juxtaposition and illusions ... which are the precursors to many (modern) advertising campaigns. I also wanted to illustrate that digital photography could be beautiful and pixels and film grains weren’t necessarily adversaries. The ideas in the series are based on Magritte’s own work and were devised freely…as his work lends itself to reinterpretation well.’

Jeremy Park’s nocturnal vistas radiate a gentle eroticism with subtle, almost monochromatic colour and an occasionally manipulated perspective. The redeeming features of these gentle images are their luminous clarity and the clear evidence that Park chose to be inspired

by Magritte, rather than simply mimic the legendary painter.

Melbourne photo-artist Samantha Everton, 34, displays similarly accomplished skills in computer manipulation for her searching selfportrait, Charade. In this subtly coloured image a nude woman stands :: d r i v e n 29

formally before an open wardrobe, contemplating both her own form and several differing sculptural renditions of her face suspended within.

It is an image that instantly appears greater than the sum of its parts, suggesting both introspection and dreamlike vulnerability for the woman.

Discovering that the figure in the photograph is Everton herself adds a personal dimension to what is already a challenging portrait. Once again, the artist’s command of computer manipulation appears seamless and the viewer easily accepts the image’s complexity.

Like Jeremy Park, Everton admits to Surrealism’s influence. ‘I was fascinated with Salvador Dali’s imagery as a child. However, as a photographer my first influence was the American photographer Jerry Uelsmann, who montaged his images in a darkroom. Phenomenal.’

‘My images are theatrically staged,’ explains Everton, ‘which I then capture using traditional methods – I use a medium format camera and 30 d r i v e n ::

transparency film. The (processed) film is then scanned, montaged and manipulated through Photoshop.’

‘The key is to use digital techniques subtly and not over use them. It is a fine balance. With Breaking Out I actually made the suit. Using Photoshop would have been possible but the effect would have been completely different. It is important to me to control every aspect of the image. It is the finer detail that can make or break an image.’

Sydney photo-artist Stephanie Valentin, 45, works primarily in black and white and uses computer manipulation only sparingly in making photographs that still challenge the limits of our vision. For her 2002 series Pollinate, Valentin employs an electron microscope to photograph subjects that lie far beneath the level of normal vision. This artist’s photographs of objects as small as a grain of pollen or tiny marine micro-organisms reveal hidden worlds of astonishing, sculptural beauty.

In aster species 1 Valentin captures a grain of pollen at a 6500 times magnification, revealing an object possessing the elegant, geometric form of an aircraft freight container. Then, in an extraordinary leap into the nano world, Valentin, with scientific assistance, etches the word ‘touch’ on the central facet of the pollen grain. This seemed like an appropriate artistic inversion of NASA’s Voyager mission that once carried words and photographs beyond the solar system.

Valentin also challenges normal perspective with her 2004 photograph of Marine Microorganism 13. In this picture, amazingly, we discover a sphere resembling a mock planet, complete with what appears to be two spiral walkways winding around its equator. Stephanie Valentin’s great gift, from the first works I encountered in 1989, to her latest modified photomicrographs, remains her ability to divine mysteries within the commonplace. In these latest works, Valentin takes us to new levels of discovery.

Far left microorganism 14 : left aster species 1

stephanie valentin

: breaking out

30 d r i v e n : : p h o t o g r a p h y

samantha everton

Computer manipulation is now an accepted part of the palette of fine art photography worldwide. However, it is worth noting that while artists such as Stacey, Everton, Valentin and Park prosper from their freely applied creativity, documentary photographers using digital cameras are subject to ever more stringent guidelines in making their pictures.

A photojournalist from the Los Angeles Times newspaper recently combined two consecutively taken pictures from the conflict in Iraq in an attempt to exploit the best elements of each picture. When computer manipulation used in the final picture was detected, the photojournalist was dismissed from his newspaper. Public truth and private artistry are necessarily two very different paradigms. [ ] www.stillsgallery.com.au www.jeremypark.com.au www.samanthaeverton.com

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:: d r i v e n 31

:: w i n e

Red wine with red meat, white wine with white meat based accepted rationale for matching food and wine.

But, as Jeni Port explains, with such a vast array of wine varieties and ever more complex foods, working out what wine will drink best with what food can be a challenge. Enter the new age Aussie Sommelier – no longer the pretentious know-it-all with attitude but a knowledgeable, personable and professional wine waiter that can help you navigate the ever-increasing

Somme

diversity and choice of the modern wine list

created ‘Fifteen’ program.

Skinner uses words like ‘the bomb’ and ‘awesome’ to describe wines, but that was cool with his new boss. Oliver liked the laidback Aussie charm of Matt Skinner and his ‘extraordinary ability to connect with people without being pretentious or patronising.’

That, in a nutshell, best sums up the new age Aussie sommelier.

Oliver saw the future of wine waiting and it was about giving customers what they want without the jargon or the attitude. And he wasn’t the only one.

‘It’s easy to make people feel ignorant,’ says Sophie Carbonneau, a French-Canadian born sommelier working at Taxi Dining Room in Melbourne ‘but to me, it’s really important to make people feel comfortable, to offer them something they are going to like rather than something I like.’

If you sense that the axis of the traditional wine waiter’s world has shifted just a little, you’d be right. Today’s sommelier is rarely

dan sims – fifteen : Images – gary Gross

:

– right? That has traditionally been the very broad

Sometime during the 1990s the Aussie wine waiter lost the black suit, the snooty attitude and the silly silver tastevin around his neck and morphed into the modern dynamic sommelier.

Sommelier is simply French for wine waiter but the observant restaurant goer was soon noticing changes, apart from the name that is.

The sommelier was getting younger, his hair was longer, he smiled for heaven’s sake, he wasn’t always recommending the most expensive wine on the list and he was increasingly being joined by lady sommeliers (called lady sommes for short).

Rather than just peddling wine, he and she were also becoming important wine buyers for their respective restaurants and wine bars.

This was pretty revolutionary stuff and then it really took off. In 2002, British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver plucked a shaggy-looking Melbourne sommelier with long brown hair and a skater’s wardrobe to teach wine to a bunch of unemployed London kids having a crack at turning their lives around under Oliver’s newly

kind of service 32 d r i v e n ::

:: d r i v e n 33

34 d r i v e n ::

: melt

: the glass brasserie

an unemployed actor waiting for Steven Spielberg’s call or a guy holding down three jobs. No, being a sommelier is now a proper profession run by people who take their training very seriously indeed. Many are members of the Australian Sommeliers Association, set up in 1994 to bring some cohesiveness and standards where there were none before. The group, 550 strong and growing, helps train sommeliers with wine education programs and hopefully one day it will lead to a professional qualification ratified by the Court of Master Sommeliers in Britain.

Sommeliers now employ wine waiters (who one day hope to be sommeliers) as their assistants, so a tier of wine management is now in place in many restaurants. That’s how far wine waiting has come.

But above all, the new age Aussie sommelier is there to help you. Just don’t be surprised if they also take you on a little taste adventure.

At Ezards, winner of The Age 2007 Good Food Guide Wine List of the Year there’s no easy recognition of many of the listed wines and there’s definitely no Penfolds or big Aussie brands represented. Your drinking fate is in the hands of the excellent sommelier staff.

At the new Melbourne arm of Fifteen, head sommelier Dan Sims (ex-Taxi Dining Room) gets a real buzz leading people in the direction of a great food and wine match, especially with wines they may not usually go for.

‘We did a match of 1997 Mt. Pleasant Museum Elizabeth semillon with gnocchi filled

Service with substance Driven takes a quick trip through hospitality heaven and uncovers some of the country’s best sommeliers

with zucchini pesto, goats curd with a zucchini flower and green sauce. I love using Aussie icon wines, especially with age,’ he says.

‘Getting people to drink a semillon in Melbourne is virtually impossible but this was a great little match.’

The rise of the mono-themed restaurant where the wine list follows the nationality of the food offered whether it be Melbourne’s Libertine (French-only food and wine) or the European (European-only food and wine) really brings the role of the sommelier to the fore.

With a wine list that is 70 per cent French, Libertine owner/sommelier Zoe Ladyman knows she has to work harder to offer her customers a wine they will like. ‘There’s actually not a lot of safe options on the list,’ she says.

At the European, which offers no Australian wine whatsoever and absolutely no New Zealand sauvignon blanc (the current darling of the restaurant wine list), most customers have to rely totally on the wine staff. With France, Spain and Italy as the mainstays of both food and wine served at the European, it’s no great chore believe me, but the wine list can be a minefield for the uninitiated or the timid.

It seems we rush to try different food, yet are far more conservative when it comes to wine, particularly food and wine matching. Perhaps it’s the high level of complexity in many of today’s dishes or the fusion of East-meets-West in cooking which can throw us off centre or just the reliance on an age-old and very safe approach

to wine and food that goes something like ‘red wine with red meat…‘ It is sommeliers we must largely thank for our wine education in recent years, messengers of good taste who introduced us to muscat or an Italian-style lightly fizzy moscato with our dessert instead of the usual ‘sticky’ botrytised sweet white, or a glass of spicy Alsatian pinot gris or the rich and textural and very Rhone-ish viognier with roast pork instead of a heavy red.

And sometimes sommeliers take the meaning of ‘wine’ quite literally too. Before she left for the excellent Punch Lane Wine Bar to ply her trade, sommelier Stacey-Lee Edwards set up one of the biggest and most impressive ranges of Japanese sake rice wines in Australia to go with the fresh Asian-leaning cuisine at Taxi Dining Room. She even found a sake to go with Wagu beef. Not a bad accomplishment.

Lak Quach at Donovan’s can give you a very detailed account of the chardonnay and pinot noir made at Curly Flat in the Macedon Ranges because he often works vintage there. That’s how close some Australian sommeliers now get to their work. The best sommeliers can easily overcome any uneasiness you might be feeling by offering ‘pours’ of wine, anywhere from 60mls to 80mls. If you like it, you can buy a glass or a bottle. The choice seems less intimidating when there’s a sommelier at hand to help.

And if he or she happens to use language like ‘the bomb’ to describe a wine, order it. [ ] www.sommeliers.com.au

.

New South Wales John Clancy The Glass Brasserie Hilton Hotel Sydney www.glassbrasserie.com.au

Queensland Jason Rowbottom Nu Nu Palm Cove www.nunu.com.au

South Australia Simon Kardachi The Melting Pot Hyde Park www.themeltingpot.com.au

How long a sommelier: 16 years

How long a sommelier: 10 years

How long a sommelier: 5 years

Describe your wine list: ‘It’s extensive, around 500 wines. As we are a French restaurant, there is a strong emphasis on French wines. I feel strongly that there has to be a mix of wines that people feel comfortable with, with labels people know, as well as wines that they may not know. For the latter, they’re the wines we tend to hand sell, telling customers as much as we can about them.’

Describe your wine list: ‘Ever-changing! It’s taken me three years to understand my market up here. It’s different in a regional area. My list would have something for everybody. It’s got to be that way up here but there’s also the quirky and the eclectic.’

Describe your wine list: ‘Eclectic, showcasing smaller boutique producers from around the world. We have around 300 wines. I like the idea of showing people the great grape varieties of the world as they are grown in their original country and as they are made here. It’s great to compare styles. I am also trying to get away from the typical big Aussie fruit-driven wines in favour of the Old World style of wine made to go with food. I also do the wine list for our wine bar next door, Melt, that concentrates on Spanish, Italian and Australian wines. It’s definitely more funky and out there.’

Best food/wine combo: ‘The menu usually carries an oven-roasted snapper or barramundi and I team the fish up with a Yarra Valley pinot noir, like the 2003 Wedgetail Estate pinot noir.

People don’t always think of a red wine with fish but it works really well.’

Best food/wine combo: ‘Chef (Nick Holloway) does a great smoked red emperor miang with sweet and sour chilli which goes really well with New Zealand’s Vinoptima 2003 gewurztraminer.’

(Jason worked in Melbourne’s Punch Lane Wine Bar before venturing north).

Best food/wine combo: ‘The menu changes three times a week but at the moment I’m really happy with matching the Mountadam Eden Valley 2006 riesling with our steamed whiting fillets braised in a fish stock with tapioca pearls, served with an apple and fennel salad and a light citrus sabayon.’

Tasmania Cesidio (‘Chezz’) Tucceri T42 Hobart www.tav42.com.au

Victoria Dan Sims Fifteen Melbourne www.fifteenmelbourne.com.au

Western Australia Emma Sputore Must Wine Bar Highgate www.must.com.au

How long a sommelier: I’m actually a horticulturist by training but I’ve been in the food and wine business for 15 years.’

How long a sommelier: 3 years

How long a sommelier: 4 years

Describe your wine list: ‘Accessible. It must appeal to those who are knowledgeable about wine and not intimidated but entice those that aren’t. Diverse, international, progressive and perhaps most importantly, there is something there for all budgets.’’

Describe your wine list: ‘It’s very big – more than 600 wines. It’s a 50-50 selection between Australian and imported wines. I try and focus on Italy, France, Spain and Germany as much as I can and give people lots of choice. I try not to make it Australian-focussed like so many lists around, especially in Perth where lists are dominated by the wines of Margaret River.’

Describe your wine list: ‘It caters for all tastes with around 150 wines. Obviously, it’s predominantly Tasmanian with good pinot noir, riesling and sparklings, but we’ve also got a good selection of French and Italian wines.

I’ve gone to some length to search out wines, going directly to the cellar door for wines from Tasmania, Victoria and South Australia and hence, my prices are highly competitive.’

Best food/wine combo: ‘Our citrus crusted ocean trout with the 1998 Drew riesling from the Coal River region of Tasmania.’

Best food/wine combo: ‘Roasted Berkshire pork with fennel seeds, rosemary and Mt Zero lentils with the Poggerino 2004 Chianti Classico – a great mix of fruit sweetness and savoury flavours. The tannins and acid cut through the fattiness of the dish really well getting you ready for the next mouthful. Very rustica!’

Best food/wine combo: ‘Our French chef’s charcuterie platter – terrines, pate, rillettes – with a fantastic German riesling, J.J. Prum 1998 spatlese, which goes well because it has just a little bit of sugar and lots of texture.’

:: d r i v e n 35

:: i n d u s t r i a l d e s i g n

Ashley Marsh-Croft’s product designs may at first seem to favour aesthetics over applications but he insists that his work is inspired first and foremost by its intended function. As tracey clement discovered, his range of garden power tools that helped him to win last year’s Spirit of Youth Award for Industrial Design would almost be as at home as a centre piece in the living room as they would be keeping the lawn in check

Like many talented young people, Ashley Marsh-Croft didn’t do particularly well in high school. But that doesn’t mean that he didn’t have plenty of ambition. After graduating he took a year off to figure out what to do. ‘I wanted to find something that I liked doing so that I would do well at it,’ he says.

He found his chosen career after taking some good advice. ‘Someone actually mentioned to me, think about when you were a kid, and whatever you liked doing most, that is what you should pursue. Well, I always liked making things and drawing,’ he says. He became interested in industrial design because it combined creativity with practicality and offered the chance to make a living doing what he was good at.

Marsh-Croft’s instincts have paid off. At just 23 he is a very young, successful designer. He has already won several prestigious awards and has even worked for a design agency in New York.

But Marsh-Croft is happy to admit he has been lucky. ‘My parents were a bit worried about me for a while. If I had done a standard degree, like IT or

something, I definitely would have failed, because I need to be really interested to keep motivated.’

The Industrial Design course at the University of Canberra provided Marsh-Croft with the stimulation and motivation he was looking for.

He finished his bachelor’s degree with first class honours in 2006. Marsh-Croft found his fellow students inspirational and he credits his teachers with instilling in him the fundamental and flexible design skills that have led to his success so far. ‘You learn a process so that you can tackle any problem and what you come up with will be the right solution.’

This confident attitude and methodical working method, coupled with his own talent for innovative design, enabled Marsh-Croft to win several awards while he was still a student. These included the Vice Chancellors Travel Bursary and the University Mobility Asia Pacific Scholarship that facilitated a semester studying in the USA at the University of Tennessee.

:: d r i v e n 37

While he was there, Marsh-Croft won the university’s furniture design award for the clever construction methods used to make

and will soon be off overseas again. This time he will go to Paris as the winner of the 2006 Qantas Spirit of Youth Award (SOYA) for industrial design.

that it can be done in little ways.

For a start, Marsh-Croft always thinks about sustainability, recycling and energy efficiency

his Disretrospect chair. In this bent plywood chair, Marsh-Croft combines an updated retro aesthetic with practical concerns, including easy disassembly for shipping and storage.

Winning awards is always nice, but for Marsh-Croft, the experience he gained working overseas is what made the time invaluable. After finishing his exchange in Tennessee, Marsh-Croft was keen to use his own initiative to seize as many opportunities as possible. He negotiated a three-month internship with Pollen Design in New York; an ambitious move and massive learning curve for a designer that hadn’t yet finished his degree. But Marsh-Croft’s risk taking was worth it. As he says, ‘New York opened my mind.’ During his time at Pollen, Marsh-Croft was given his own design briefs to complete, from research to production. He also encountered a slightly different set of working methods and attitudes. He found that in Australia, he had been trained to be much more self sufficient and to design every aspect of a product, while in New York they frequently do the ‘front-end’ styling, and then leave a lot of the nitty gritty engineering to factories in China.

Recently, Marsh-Croft has won yet another award

There he will complete a mentorship with world famous, ex-pat Aussie designer Marc Newson.

Marsh-Croft is looking forward to learning from the experience – he admires Newson and his apparent unwillingness to compromise. He is also eager to get a sneak peak behind the scenes at the highly successful designer’s practice. As he says with a cheeky grin, ‘It will be interesting to see what really goes on there.’

However, Marsh-Croft doesn’t yearn for Newson’s rock-star style, brand name fame.

Most of his aspirations are far more humble. ‘I just want to have a lot of stuff out there. I don’t really care if people know my name, but I’d love them to say, ‘this is a great piece of design!’’ In a slick, hip and happening field that often focuses on designer personalities and markets products as lifestyle accessories rather than useful items, his attitudes to industrial design are refreshingly modest and practical. According to Marsh-Croft, ‘It’s almost like a trade. Like the old saying, design is a process not an outcome.’

Marsh-Croft is well aware of the challenges and difficulties facing a recent graduate eager to start out as an independent designer. For now, he is happy to look for work in a design agency and he enjoys the satisfaction of finding a solution to a client’s needs. Once he has a day job, he can continue to develop his own products, in his own time.

Despite his down to earth sensibilities, Marsh-Croft still retains his youthful idealism.

In an interview on the Noise website, an Australia Council initiative for young artists, he announced, ‘Without a doubt the most challenging aspect of the next decade will be maintaining the focus and energy to ensure the world is a better place as a result of my existence.’ This is a huge goal, and it might be a bit daunting, but as a pragmatist, he is confident

when designing his products. But he points out that for designers of his generation it’s just a given that you will consider these things.

What really contributes to Marsh-Croft’s efforts to change the world is his simple design philosophy. As he explains, ‘It may sound clichéd, but I think design is all about people.

It is about improving people’s lives, making things easier for them. Even if it is just making something look better, that’s helpful.’

This attitude is behind one of Marsh-Croft’s central aims – he wants his products to ‘create a strong emotional bond with the user.’ He achieves this by tapping into the principles of semiotics: the way something looks will effect how it works. As a result, his designs are playful, practical and non-threatening in appearance.

As he says, ‘Life should be fun and happy! When design fails you notice it and it really upsets you.

When it is done well you shouldn’t really notice.’

But even so, ‘quality of life is improved when it becomes easier and more enjoyable to interact with everything you have.’

These ideas can be seen clearly in MarshCroft’s Droplet, the electric lawnmower design that impressed SOYA’s judges last year. With its biomorphic curves, off centre axles and graphic lime green details, Droplet looks more like a quirky toy, or kinetic sculpture, than a macho piece of gardening equipment. Marsh-Croft explains that its distinctive aesthetics are really just ‘visual clues to how it works.’ Rather than aiming for a certain look, he was solving a set of design problems. So even though his award winning design looks ultra modern and super cute, it is actually an old school case of form following function. In his own way, Ashley MarshCroft is putting his own unique spin on the Bauhaus tradition. [ ] www.ash-design.com

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:: d r i v e n 39

grape expectations

:: d e s t i n a t i o n

The Margaret River region is widely known and deservingly respected as one of this country’s premier wine regions consistently producing award winning reds and whites. With no fewer than 70 wineries stretching from Dunsborough in the north to Augusta in the south, it makes for a great drive destination for a few days of surf, sun, wine and food. But at Moondance Lodge – a small contemporary boutique retreat near Yallingup – they have a found a way to use grapes to enhance your health in ways other than by pouring it down your throat. As Russell Williamson discovered, Moondance offers the chance to indulge in a variety of treatments ranging from a Shiraz Salt Scrub to a Merlot Massage I am lying on a massage table covered in vine leaves and mud having already been smeared from head to toe with a paste of crushed grapes, grape juice and oils. I feel as though I might have just finished ten

Images : Russell Williamson

rounds with the Serpent in the Garden of Eden but after the Christmas indulgence I am told that my body will thank me for this minor detox. It is called a grape wrapture but it’s probably not the sort grape rapture that you would normally expect in the Margaret River region in the south west of Western Australia.

For over the past 10 to 15 years, many of the area’s wineries have been acclaimed across the world with local vintages finding their way onto wine lists of quality restaurants around the globe.

And while the wineries were part of the attraction for Driven’s venture to this stunningly beautiful and rugged stretch of coastline, we were also here for a somewhat different type of grape treatment, one that aimed to heal, nourish and relax.

The treatment was part of the wellness menu that underlies the philosophy of the small boutique property known as Moondance Lodge.

Situated amidst 13 hectares of virgin bush off Caves Road between Yallingup and Margaret River, Moondance Lodge opened in 2004. Under the direction of its owners Geraldine Reilly and Richard Doggart, it has been developed into an all-encompassing experience that aims to nourish and nurture the mind, body and soul.

It is this latter facet that Reilly points to as part of the magic of Moondance Lodge in a world of weekend escapes where spas have become the norm. But at Moondance, there is an extra dimension to the place that does indeed nourish the soul.

According to Reilly, part of that comes from the natural energy of the property, that she says was revealed to her in a dream.

After spending the bulk of the previous 13 years living with husband Doggart in Singapore and Hong Kong and travelling extensively through Asia, she was looking for somewhere somewhat less hectic to settle.

‘Originally I had a dream and we had a vision to create a place somewhere in nature where the energy was strong and people could come from all over the world to have healing experiences in nature. It also needed to be aesthetically very pleasing so that was our intention,’ Reilly says.

‘It could have been Thailand, it could have been on the northern beaches of Sydney but gradually I realised over the years travelling down from Asia that the Margaret River region is an extraordinarily beautiful place and it is one of the special places on the planet.’

Having found the property, Reilly and Doggart set about creating a unique retreat that would welcome all comers.

‘Particularly with what we call the leaders of our tribe – the corporate community – they are the people that need nourishing more than ever :: d r i v e n 41

and it is often hard for them to find that rejuvenation, relaxation and well being so at Moondance we are particularly attuned to making those people feel comfortable.’

With that in mind, Moondance is certainly no bared back eco lodge.

The nine suites feature everything a corporate leader needs to keep in touch with the outside world from high-speed wireless internet access to video conferencing facilities.

And when the day’s work or play is done, the weekend-only restaurant serves the best of local produce with a level of service, innovation and flavour that is equal to, if not better than, what you might find in many of this country’s top city restaurants.

But always, the focus of Moondance Lodge is relaxation and trying to nurture a reconnection with the natural world.

After an hour and a half wrap with the grape pulp and oil’s naturally high antioxidants working their hardest on my skin followed by a pressure point based massage, I was definitely feeling remarkably relaxed and cleansed but there was still the matter of soul nourishment.

There are organised experiences that Moondance offers such as the Didgeridoo Meditation or medicinal bush walks with local indigenous cultural custodian Josh Whiteland or even the body treatments such as the grape wrapture that Reilly describes as ‘an experience of fusing with nature like you are inside it’.

But it is more – and less – than these things, it is simply about being in the middle of untouched Australian bush surrounded by things of beauty.

In Reilly’s travels over the years, she has collected an enormous amount of artworks and pieces from around the world and the subtle placement of these throughout the property together with an extraordinary attention to detail gives you little ‘lifts’ as you stroll around or relax in the main lodge.

Whether it is the wattle leaves, gum nuts and pebbles that adorn the breakfast table, the Burmese temple pieces that sit either side of the fireplace in the lounge area, or the candles and grape seed oil burner that sits beside the two-person spa in the extra large accommodation suites, everything is aimed at producing sensory reactions that are calming relaxing and rejuvenating.

It is of course, entirely appropriate for the region which despite its massive growth in popularity as a tourist destination over the past ten years, still retains the charm and beauty forged by both its isolation and the rugged coastal landscape.

And Moondance Lodge is perfectly placed to discover some of the natural highlights of the northern end of what is known as the Capeto-Cape region. For apart from the abundance of high quality wineries, restaurants, produce stores and galleries this region offers an extraordinary diversity of landscapes with some of the best beaches in the world.

To get around, Driven also had appropriate transport given the upmarket, design conscious and environmentally minded nature of Moondance Lodge in the form of the new 407 Coupe HDi. Sleek, sexy and enormously rewarding to drive, the HDi Coupe also has its eye on the environment courtesy of its latest generation, particulate filterequipped, common rail V6 twin turbo diesel engine. With a maximum power of 150kW and massive peak torque of 440Nm – on tap from just 1900rpm – the diesel 407 Coupe is the perfect vehicle for grand touring in style.

And heading south of Perth to the Margaret River region is really about grand touring. Much of the road as far as Dunsborough, located at the southern end of Geographe Bay about 250km from Perth, is fairly straight and flat.

So seated comfortably in the big supportive electrically adjustable leather trimmed seats, with the cruise control and climate control set for legality and comfort respectively, there is little else to do other than sit back relax and enjoy the excellent sounds emanating from the JBL six-stack CD audio system.

When you do need to be a little more involved to overtake, all that is required is a prod of the right foot and the slick and smooth six-speed automatic transmission instantly drops a ratio or two and the car surges forward quickly and quietly thanks to its prodigious mid range torque.

From Dunsborough, it is only short drive further south along Caves Road to Moondance Lodge from where you can explore the region.

Heading west from Dunsborough, you pass the quiet and calm beaches of Meelup and Eagle Bay and if you are after a great spot to enjoy a long lazy lunch, Wise Wines’ restaurant overlooking the clean blue waters of Meelup is a perfect place to stop.

Further out at the end of the road is the historic Cape Naturaliste lighthouse, built in 1903 and opened to the public in 1986. From its top, it affords spectacular views north across Geographe Bay and south

Back on the surface, south of Smith’s Beach is the rugged coastal rock formation known as Canal Rocks, a favourite spot for local fisherfolk, where you can wander among the granite outcrops and simply enjoy the splendour of nature at its sculptural best.

Caves Road winds south towards Margaret River through an everchanging landscape of coastal woodlands, pastoral grazing country and of course, a vast number of vineyards, and along the narrow twisting road, the 407 Coupe’s sports nature was revealed. Sitting flat and firm on the road, its competent dynamic abilities were well and truly evident with the car always maintaining the desired line through the swiftly changing sweeping bends. With the engine spinning constantly through the strong mid range courtesy of the manual shift mode for the tiptronic automatic, the 407 Coupe does deliver an exhilarating and responsive

towards the impressive natural granite boulders of Sugarloaf Rock.

Dunsborough is also perfectly located for the annual whale-watching season, between September and December, when Southern Right, Humpback, Pygmy and Blue Whales move along the coast. You can watch them basking or at play from a number of coastal vantage points or from one of the many tour boats that operate in the area.

South of Dunsborough you head towards Yallingup, home of one of the best beaches in the area where you can swim, wander along the shallow reef shelf or surf, with the break renown for its capability to hold very big waves.

Just before Yallingup are the region’s most spectacular limestone caves with one of the most impressive being Lake Cave. A venture deep inside this stunning chamber reveals a tranquil lake that lit up, reflects the delicate formations that rise from the floor and fall from the ceiling of the cave. Closer to Moondance Lodge are Moondyne and Ngilgi caves where experienced guides take you on a journey through a labyrinthine subterranean world using head torches. Ngilgi is named because of its association with an Aboriginal legend that describes the battle between a good spirit (Ngilgi) and an evil spirit (Wolgine).

drive experience when the mood and conditions are right.

After a day out exploring the region’s natural splendour, retreating to Moondance Lodge offers the chance to indulge in some of its best produce and saviour the delights of another form of grape rapture.

Sitting on the broad terrace overlooking the lake in front of the main lodge as the sun goes down with only the sounds of the birds and the bush for company, you can easily again be absorbed into a very calm and comforting natural world. Relaxing, rejuvenating and most definitely nourishing for the soul, Moondance Lodge and its surrounding area is indeed a wonderful destination to take a few days and simply forget about the rest of the world. Connected it may be for those who need it, but make a connection with the surroundings and you are guaranteed to leave relaxed and replenished. [ ] www.moondancelodge.com

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:: d r i v e n 43

:: l a n d s c a p e d e s i g n

gardens

le grande

Images : Jonathan Hawley

The gardens of Versailles are a prime example of the beauty that can be attained where art and horticulture meld on a truly grand scale.

Carrying on that tradition in the former veggie garden of the French palace is one of the world’s most prestigious landscape architecture schools. Julian Raxworthy, a senior lecturer in Landscape Architecture at Queensland University of Technology recently taught a workshop at the Versailles school. As he explains, the concepts that underlie the school’s teaching and the formal grandeur of the gardens of Versailles continue to be as innovative and relevant today as they were in the 17th century

Few gardens conjure up such grandeur as the gardens of Versailles. Possibly the most famous and excessive of all the world’s great gardens, they were designed in the late 1600s by Baroque garden designer André Le Nôtre, for the French Sun King (Le Roi-Soleil), Louis XIV. The estate comprises grand formal gardens that stretch out to the horizon along enormous axes, with a complex system of smaller gardens contained in geometric parterres, and a vast array of fountains and pools. Louis saw the gardens as the great achievement of his court at Versailles, and he personally wrote a guidebook called

The Way to Present the Gardens of Versailles, setting forth his ideal tour.

Le Nôtre inherited the role of Royal Gardener at the Tuilleries in Paris from his father and set about establishing a system of interlocking axes and sub-spaces, delineating strict grids with rows of trees. This system opened up the enclosed garden into geographic territory, restructuring the city between the Louvre and the Concorde.

Building on the intimate garden geometry of the medieval cloister and the expansion of the Renaissance axis, Le Notre took Baroque garden design, and landscape architecture to its zenith. :: d r i v e n 45

When Le Nôtre retired, Louis awarded him nobility and a title but despite this, he somehow stayed outside all the political manoeuvring of the court, even though his creations were enormous political trinkets. Le Nôtre is the quintessential (and first), landscape architect, but he remained the humble gardener to the end.

But Versailles is much more than just a garden or a Chateau, it is also a territorial centre and perhaps, the first suburban subdivision. The town is integrally aligned to the layout of the garden, with the composition of the garden and its parterres establishing the location of the main avenues and the street layout. The garden is both a form of organisation and a type of branding, no different to how landscape is now used to organise and market contemporary Australian suburbia. Many suburbs are organised around the layout of the landscape – and water bodies in particular – and these are then used in marketing to give ambiance or status to a development.

The organisation of Versailles was also for the convenience of Louis to access his court, and for the court to come, trembling, to him. Like a web, avenues extend from Versailles all around Paris to meet other estates (and gardens by Le Nôtre), and make Paris appear to be the court’s play thing: as though Paris rather than Versailles had come later.

While Louis was adamant that the gardens of Versailles be aesthetically pleasing, he was also interested in productive gardening, albeit on a much smaller scale, and established Le Potager 46 d r i v e n ::

du Roi, the Kings Vegetable Garden, adjacent to the main gardens of the Chateau. It was accessed via the Orangerie, where fruit trees were wheeled out amongst palms, and then along the Pièce d’eau (The Water Mirror of the Swiss), a long pool. This was the route that Louis took to enter the garden from his palace through enormous gilded gates and on the King’s arrival workers would conceal themselves in alcoves in the stone terraces.

The garden was not designed by Le Nôtre, but

by La Quintinie, the Kings Vegetable Gardener, in 1663 and is remarkable not for the layout which is simple and generic, but by how this simple two-dimensional layout controls the three dimensional micro-climate of the garden.

In its centre is a quadrangle featuring a large circular pool that is surrounded by a grid of garden beds. This central quadrangle is lower than the surrounding garden, which in turn is enclosed by an even higher walled terrace.

Beyond this are a further 29 other walled gardens all of which were set at different levels to make the best use of the solar orientation, wind and air movement. This allowed different parts of the garden to have a different climate and enable the production of fruit and vegetables, out of season and from climatically different countries.

Espaliered fruit trees edge many of the beds, adding more walls and further subdividing spaces, both ornamental and functional.

The garden has continued to be a working one and in 1850 became the site for a horticulture

school. Over one hundred years later in 1972, the horticulture school began teaching landscape design, and it is now the Ecole Nationale Superièure du Paysage (ENSP Versailles). In the midst of Le Nôtre’s creation, and in his spirit, it has become one of the world’s premier schools of landscape architecture.

A two-story building from the17th century lines one edge of the Potager housing the design studios and workspaces. The course is a three-year post-graduate diploma and is one of only two courses in France that teach landscape architecture. Entry is tough and competitive, as are the subsequent expectations of the students who are often found working in the studios around the clock. Each year level is given its own walled garden to work on that they use as a community space and each year the best garden is awarded. Like getting dirty in the garden, students also make art with their hands in the first year of the course.

Gardening is an important link to Le Nôtre, that emphasises an understanding of scale.

Students must understand the landscape both at the scale of the plant as well as that of the broad landscape, as Le Nôtre himself did. At the Versailles school the landscape and the garden are the same thing, since the one contains the other, and both are made up through similar natural and cultural processes. This is the notion of ‘territory’ that underpins the school, developed by its contemporary fathers.

After the fervour of the 1968 student

revolution in Paris, two former students of the horticulture school, Jacques Simon, a filmmaker and then his pupil Michel Corajoud founded the more progressive ENSP and revolutionised its teachings through the establishment of its current studio based education in the garden and their development of this territorial view.

Simon was an artist who produced a particularly French version of Land Art – a 1960s art movement that used the natural environment to create large-scale works (its most prominent practitioner being the American Robert Smithson, famous for his Spiral Jetty). Though the Americans created pure abstract forms in the landscape – the only space big enough to take them – Simon’s version of Land Art sought to reveal the qualities of the landscape, a landscape shaped by human occupation. Using the tools of agriculture, the tools of the Potager, Simon ploughed phrases into fields, melted them into snow, burned them into stubble.

Corajoud’s interests were complementary but his approach was quite different. Both were united by a rebellion against the uselessness and the privacy of the garden, in the face of the exponential urbanisation of France and Europe in general. While Simon came from an art background, Courajoud was more interested in architecture and planning. He rejected the dominance of the garden in the Versailles course and its exclusivity. He felt that architecture and planning were better tools to learn how to work with the shape of the city, but these could lead

to dehumanised places. This led him to assert landscape architecture as a positive, democratic and humane force of urbanisation. He sought to value banal broad-scale landscapes of the public domain rather than the small private fascination of the garden.

To consider Le Nôtre and the Potager, and then the subsequent course that Simon and Corajoud established there is to be struck by the scale of the garden. Le Notre showed us that the garden is exactly what we think it is – plants, water, outdoor activity – but that its scale can be increased to the point where it becomes the landscape. Michel and Simon show us that the landscape too is a garden, made up of ecological relationships and human processes. What is remarkable about the ENSP Versailles is that the laboratory for this action in the landscape is a garden, and a garden that needs tending, always.

When landscape architects introduce themselves to new acquaintances their job title generally confuses people and they ask, ‘So, can you design my garden?’ Landscape architects sigh and explain they do big landscapes too: suburbs, cities, etc. But a visit to the Potager shows us that the large is in the small. It reinforces the value of the garden in its broadest sense. In our gardens we can learn things that have very little to do with gardening and much to do with people, with nature, with history, and, in noticing the weeds that should have, or need to be, pulled out, with ourselves. [ ] www.ecole-paysage.fr

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:: d r i v e n 47

:: i n t e r i o r d e s i g n

Take a look at a current Peugeot and

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there is no doubt that the company has a certain innovative style about it. But for the owner of a car, the exterior design is something they only glimpse occasionally as they spend most of their time inside the car. As Roger Cayon finds out, Peugeot subsequently treats interior design with as much attention as the exterior ensuring customers are able to appreciate the latest in design trends, ergonomic layouts and high tech innovative materials

inside line

48 d r i v e n ::

In discussing cars, people often talk a lot about the drivetrain, ride and handling and bodywork and the major technological advances applied to these areas, but car interiors are also benefiting from a variety of sophisticated and innovative techniques. Whether it is to make the interior more comfortable, ergonomic or reduce its environmental impact, Peugeot is constantly exploring new ways to treat a car’s interior.

And the development of the interior is certainly no afterthought either as work on any new model’s interior starts at the same time as designers, engineers and technicians begin work on the rest of the car – usually several years ahead of the new model’s release. The public’s tastes, requirements and preferences must be anticipated long in advance and reconciled with the use of modern, strong and highperformance materials.

‘Quality, comfort and style are the basic parameters,’ explains Peugeot’s Parisbased colours and trim marketing manager,

Gwendoline Guezelle, ‘but the customer also has expectations in terms of innovation.’

Because a car’s interior is an ambience composed of colours, feelings and materials, the designers’ intuition and their ability to pick up on the feel of the times is essential and to guide their inspiration and back up their research, they compile and maintain style catalogues. They collect images, note harmonising colours, select objects, think about the feel, observe the effects of ambient light, anything they think is relevant in terms of new trends.

Magazines, films, paintings, opera, video clips, fashion, design, architecture, anything and everything presenting a hint of novelty is gleaned from every source. The slightest sign of a coming fashion or trend is duly added to their store of references. These ideas, although nebulous and unquantifiable, inspire the designers and guide them in the choices they make. When the marketing managers have decided on the positioning of the model, the

designers can then use their store of references to create a particular ambience and harmonious look in keeping with the style required.

‘Our job is to give meaning to materials,’ says Guezelle.

Fine materials – wood, leather and metal – are still very popular and are now less expensive so that we find a leather-covered dashboard in the 307 CC for example, a feature previously reserved for top-end sedans. But in addition to these essentials, plastic – an eminently modern, malleable material – is now used for the lion’s share of the interior trim.

‘A lot of thought is given to the significant use of plastics in our cars, for they too, contribute to interior ambience and style. The choice of textures and colours is just as important as finding new looks and innovative features,’ says Guezelle.

‘To get away from old habits and well-worn paths, Peugeot has set up a system of ‘crossfertilisation’,’ she says.

‘This entails looking at other sectors, such

as household appliances and cosmetics, and tapping into them for new ideas or other techniques that might usefully be applied to the car; without, of course, losing sight of the economic and industrial constraints.

‘We used to be relatively limited in terms of décor (beading, radio fascia, etc.) because the technologies used were themselves fairly limited. Borrowing from the technologies used in telephony and hi-fi design has widened the range of possibilities and cars like the 407 and new 207 have both benefited appreciably from these new technologies.’

Light, smell and feel: all these factors are taken into account when designing interior trim.

They already make a major contribution to the on-board ambience, while at the same time materials and designs are becoming increasingly varied. This is a constantly evolving world and an ongoing quest for new avenues to explore and Peugeot is among those at the leading edge. [ ] www.peugeot.com

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:: d r i v e n 49

through the corners, in golf it is all about driving straight down the line. And like Peugeot, Callaway Golf – the carmaker’s proud partner in the Peugeot Women’s Classic golf tournament – is a company that relies on cutting edge design and technology to keep ahead of the game. For an example, look no further than its innovative new FT-i Driver Six years ago, Alan Hocknell, vice president innovation and advanced design at Callaway Golf HQ in California and his associate Matt

one of the biggest challenges was investigating alternative geometries.

Over several months, they ran thousands

Cackett, were asked to write a paper outlining a road map for the next generation of drivers.

Now you might think that there are not a lot of innovative possibilities in designing a new golf club – after all it will always basically consist of a grip, a shaft and a head.

But the brief for Hocknell and his team was simple: abandon traditional golf equipment design thinking and gaze deeply into a world of space-age composite materials, advanced manufacturing processes and new clubhead geometries.

For the 35-year old graduate of the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine in London, it was like a dream come true.

Having developed an affinity for golf at the age of eight after following his father around courses looking for lost balls, he completed his studies in mechanical engineering with a PhD from Loughborough University in Leicestershire in the UK. His curriculum included studying golf ball and club impact through computerised simulations and a laser-based measuring system that he helped develop.

He was, however, all set to enter the automotive industry in the UK, when he got a call from Callaway in 1997 offering a full time job. After receiving the blank sheet brief in 2001, he certainly has no regrets about his decision.

‘It really was an opportunity to think outside the box and focus purely on the performance of the golf club without outside factors like costs, market research or technological limitations getting in the way of things,’ Hocknell says.

Callaway had already been working on advanced composite materials through the development of its Fusion Technology – a process of using a titanium cup face and lightweight carbon composite body to create discretionary weight that can be positioned at strategic locations within the clubhead – so

of different clubhead design permutations through what Hocknell refers to as the ‘Virtual Test Center.’ For the most part, the team focused on analysing the performance of new designs created using existing technologies and materials. But the really fun part of the project was conducting detailed simulations of radical designs built using technology that wasn’t even on the horizon at the time.

Hocknell’s team experimented primarily with the properties of Moment of Inertia (MOI) and center of gravity location – two key factors that influence the performance of a golf club – and developed what they believed to be the optimum shape – a square head.

By placing extra weight in both rear corners of the clubhead, Hocknell reasoned that it would increase stability, thereby reducing sidespin and hooks and slices. Through creating a unique weight distribution, the Callaway design team felt they could deliver high levels of Moment of Inertia – or a resistance to twisting – across both the vertical and horizontal axis.

At the time however, the manufacturing process for the Fusion Technology was not sufficiently advanced and the project was shelved for three years before it was reviewed again. With the materials process now fully developed and commercialised – with the 2004 Callaway ERC Fusion Driver being the first product to use it – development on the ‘squarehead’ club began again in earnest and earlier this year, the company launched the FT-i Driver.

‘Essentially, what we have done with the FT-i Driver is move the weight inside the clubhead as far away from the center as possible to significantly increase the stability of the clubhead at impact,’ Hocknell says.

‘If the clubhead is more stable when it’s in contact with the ball at one of the off-center

impact locations, good things happen – the ball can’t force the clubhead to rotate at impact – and effectively, it means the sweet spot is larger.

‘If you hit the golf ball in the centre of the face that’s fine but most golfers don’t so that’s where this design really helps the average player.’

Hocknell’s team had initially made hundreds of sketches of square-shaped designs of which about 30 were turned into prototypes for secret market research and product testing. The company also had to consult with the game’s official ruling bodies – the Royal and Ancient Golf Club in St Andrews, Scotland, and the United States Golf Association – to ensure that the new driver conformed to the regulations before it went into production.

After getting the green light from the authorities and favourable market acceptance from clinics, the new 460cc FT-i Driver did go into production and is now available in both standard and Tour models as well as right and left handed, and men’s and women’s versions.

So will square drivers become the norm on golf courses around the world?

Hocknell isn’t sure but there is one thing he is sure about.

‘The FT-i is a driver that’s going to having significant benefits to all golfers.’ [ ] www.callawaygolf.com

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:: : alan hocknell

:: g o l f

driving straight and square 50 d r i v e n ::

While Peugeot may constantly strive to get the best drive

:: i n - g e a r

funky phone

:

dial it ::

Danish firm Bang & Olufsen is renown for its seriously stylish audiovisual equipment so you would expect nothing less than something entirely out of the ordinary for its first venture into the mobile phone market. And the Serene mobile phone certainly fits the bill. Developed in conjunction with Samsung, the Serene clamshell flip-phone features an innovative circular keyboard that surrounds a central navigation wheel in the top half of the shell. The lower half features a big display screen and microphone with the phone opening silently and gently courtesy of a built in motor. As you would expect of a high end audio manufacturer, the sound quality is superb delivered through air holes dotted around the circular key pad while the camera lens is located on the side of the phone so to take a photo, you hold the camera parallel to the ground and look down on the view screen. The Serene comes with an equally stylish integrated docking station/charger that can be synchronised with other B&O landlines to transfer phonebook data or it can be linked to a PC via Bluetooth. [ ] www.serenemobile.com

corporate comfort Given that many of us spend much of our working lives sitting down, having the right chair is essential for your general health and wellbeing.

As its name suggests, the Life Chair from New Zealand firm Formway, is all about ensuring that you do indeed have the comfort and support you need for your working life. Through its innovative design, the chair automatically adjusts the amount of flex and tension in the seat back and base according to your weight while its unique recline geometry maintains a virtually constant eye-line so you can keep working easily in any position. The Life Chair has also been designed with the future life of the planet in mind winning numerous eco-design awards for its use of up to 62 per cent of recycled material and natural finishes for cleaner production and ease of recycling. [ ] www.formway.com

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sit on it ::

design destinations

:: carry it

stylishly secure Having trouble identifying your laptop from the zillions of others encased in their standard black carrying cases? Then perhaps you need a toffee case. Available in a range of colours and sizes to suit Apple and PC laptops, these high quality leather cases provide security for your mobile workplace in an aesthetically pleasing and instantly recognisable style. With an absorbent interior padding and hard wearing leather outer, the Australian made toffee laptop sleeves come with a one year warranty and can be bought on-line or through a variety of national retailers. [ ] www.toffee.com.au

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Guidebooks can be quite subjective depending on the interests or aspirations of the author that may or may not suit your own personal tastes. But if your taste in exploring a new city runs to funky bars, architectural highlights, sumptuous spas, designer nightclubs or hip hotels, then perhaps the latest selection of Wallpaper* City Guides is what you need. Published

by Phaidon for the stylish design magazine Wallpaper*, the 60 existing and proposed city guides are aimed at the design-conscious traveller with sections on where to stay, what to visit, where to eat, shop and be seen. From Sydney to San Francisco, Melbourne to Marrakech, the city guides offer practical information and travel tips provided by Wallpaper’s international travel editors and writers. Each edition of the pocket sized guide will be updated annually to ensure you don’t end up at a club, bar or hotel that is so last year! [ ] www.phaidon.com/travel

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:: read it

:: d r i v e n 53

hard drive digital

snap it ::

smell it ::

Forget about buying tapes or trying to ensure you have a compatible disc, Toshiba’s first foray into the camera market, the Gigashot R, uses a 30GB or 60GB hard drive to record your favourite memories or video footage. The compact combined video camcorder/ digital still camera can store up to 55 hours of video or thousands of still pictures which can then be easily downloaded onto a computer via the docking cradle or burned directly onto DVD. Both models feature high quality MPEG-2 video recording with a 2 mega pixel colour CCD sensor and offer three modes of recording quality – SHQ, HQ and SP. With a 10x optical zoom and 2.5-inch LCD screen, you can be sure to get the shots you want while the accompanying AC/DSEE photo and PowerProducer video editing software enables you to cut out the bits you don’t. [ ] www.gigashot.com.au

fresh fragrance Mention Chopard and the mille miglia together and you probably think of the classic line of watches that bear the stamp of the famous Italian car rally. Well now you can also wear the scent inspired by the race with the launch of Chopard pour Homme. Don’t be alarmed though, this fragrance for men is not going to leave you smelling like an oily rag or burning rubber. Rather, it was created on a treasure hunt expedition in vintage cars across Brescia in northern Italy and is an amber/woody/oriental featuring hints of Cardamon, Star Anise, Nutmeg, Sage, Tobacco leaves and Cedarwood. Presented in a deep blue Flacon, Chopard pour Homme is available as an Eau de Toilette, after shave balm and deodorant stick. [ ] www.chopard.com

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: : b re w i t

monster monitor

coffee cube Coffee machines these days come in all shapes and sizes and with the advent of the Nespresso capsule system, previous limitations on design have all but disappeared. For evidence you only need take a look at one of Italian maker De’Longhi’s latest models dubbed appropriately Le Cube.

With a flip down drip grid, that folds away when not in use and covered cup storage on top, this colourful cube is perfect for blending into the kitchen or office. A one-litre tank supplies the water which is pressurised by a 19 bar pump with a thermobloc heater. Le Cube comes supplied with a sample of each of the 12 Nespresso blends. The Nespresso system uses individually packaged capsules of coffee to ensure fresh brews every time. www.delonghi.com.au 54 d r i v e n ::

If you find your standard 19-inch monitor is just not big enough to view those pre-production film rushes, magazine layouts or financial spreadsheets then NEC has the answer with the first 26-inch widescreen desktop computer monitor in the Australian market. Part of its 90-series professional range, the LCD2690WUXi features 1920 x 1200 native resolution (2.3 MP) and a 16:10 aspect ratio.

The new monitor is compatible with both of NEC’s display calibration software packages: SpectraView II and GammaComp MD and incorporates, X-Light Pro, a technology that utilises the display’s internal luminance and colour sensor to achieve a consistent light output level for the life of the monitor. Triple-input technology allows all three inputs: VGA, DVI-D & DVI-I to be connected and switched between on a single display. [ ] www.nec.com.au

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:: watch it :: d r i v e n 55

:: t h e n a v i g a t o r

trends :: outlook :: vision

Dr Dan Wollmering Senior Lecturer in Sculpture, Faculty of Art and Design, Monash University As a sculptor, lecturer and currently Coordinator of Research in the Department of Fine Arts at Victoria’s Monash University, Dr Dan Wollmering has a long history and association with the three-dimensional arts form. With pieces in private, public and corporate collections and more than 25 solo exhibitions he has seen this once marginalised art form come out of the gallery to become firmly entrenched in the public domain.

And with the massive growth in prizes and competitions, the public’s appetite for sculpture seems set to continue to develop.

56 d r i v e n ::

‘Never before in the history of sculpture has this discipline been so active across fields of visual arts, design, public art and recently, forming synergies with architecture.

In spite of the onslaught of digital based media and the internet that has absorbed many artists – sculpture continues to forge ahead with increasing popularity because it offers something that other two-dimensional disciplines do not – a tangible threedimensional outcome; non-illusionary and entirely physical.

Many sculptors are now celebrating high exposure and recognition in the popular press – not only through some of the richest awards offered internationally being those in Australia – but also through commercial galleries who are now representing sculptors in greater numbers within their ‘stables’.

Because sculpture does not require the traditional protection of a gallery or museum, we now see pieces sited in many unconventional settings: warehouses, alleyways, backyard patios and apartment balconies in the inner city.

Councils, developers, vineyards/wineries, car-dealerships and boutique businesses are also keen to embrace sculpture through curated exhibitions that attract considerable prize money and many visitors.

The growth in the concept of public art has fuelled a surge of sculptural objects sited within our urban and regional areas across political/ social/environmental, gender, popular culture and aesthetic boundaries. These works not only beautify a street, plaza, foyer or park but also enlighten, inform or challenge us in our daily existence within a social or cultural context.

But by far the most exciting shift in the discipline, I believe, with a nod towards the future, focuses on a new hybrid. Termed originally by eminent British sculptor Anthony Caro as ‘Sculpitecture’ it involves self contained sculptural structures (often designed with computer modelling software) that the spectator can walk through and around or up and over.

In my opinion, boundaries between these two proud disciplines are collapsing and merging. We see sculptors and architects eagerly collaborating on major projects such as bridges, walkways and contemporary buildings whereby the overall form is both sculptural and architectural. It is a very exciting and engaging time to be a practising sculptor.’ [ ] www.flg.com.au

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fun207

207.com.au SMS “THRILL” TO 19 44 40 TO REQUEST A BROCHURE ^ The new Peugeot 207 is pure driving pleasure. We call it fun to the power of 207. From its aggressive, sleek contours, to its well appointed and spacious interior, the 207 is at the forefront of European design. Of course, all this style comes with substance. A range of responsive petrol and HDi diesel engines, combined with Peugeot’s rally-bred handling, ensure any road’s a thrill. With so much exhilaration, you’ll expect protection.

The 207 has a class-leading suite of safety features including up to six airbags, as well as ABS and Electronic Brake Force Distribution as standard. From $19,990* for the 3-door 207 XR or $24,990 † for the 207 XT shown above, you’ll wonder how we packed in so much fun. ^Maximum SMS cost for brochure is 50c. *RRP for 207 XR 3-door manual model excluding dealer delivery and statutory charges, subject to change without notice. †RRP for 207 XT manual petrol model excluding dealer delivery and statutory charges, subject to change without notice. Optional metallic paint (as shown) available for $680. This is a manufacturer’s PEU6138DRIVEN advertisement. Please contact your local dealer for exact dealer delivery and statutory charges additional to the RRP.