THE FIRST SHOW To celebrate Pin-up’s future, twenty of Melbourne’s leading creative studios reflected on their work - past and present - to encapsulate a ‘Design Moment’ or ‘Big Idea’ that continues to underpin their practice today. The result was a diverse and dynamic set of responses that communicated a deep exploration of the influences, preoccupations and commitments that underpin a collective body of work. Reacting to a simple catalyst - in the form of a set of cardboard archive boxes - each exhibitor transcended this ubiquitous object to communicate their intent and, in turn, provided a rich and revealing insight into the design process. Anthea van Kopplen envelope.net.au E.F Schumacher once said materialism does not fit into this world because it contains in itself no limiting principle, while the world, or earth, within which it is placed, is strictly limited. This exhibit uses materials provided by Pin-up to demonstrate the principles of my practice, in response to Schumacher’s observation. This piece is a mid-phase in the design process exploring the principles of “no waste”, “longevity” and “single pattern”. The “box”, a vessel, transforms into a series of conceptual prototypes. Three of which are presented here in the form of a dress, a satchel and an evening bag. The patterns connected by a common thread, singular and defined. ...ask yourself, if all you had was a cardboard box and your life depended on it (like many homeless people) how would you wear it? Büro North buronorth.com From two, to three and back to two point five. Büro North has faced many challenges that have prompted evolution, growth and new approaches to creativity. The project that has defined our process in the most significant way is the way finding signage for Falls Creek Village, a project that commenced in 2007 and was completed mid 2010. A defining characteristic of our design process is our relentless pursuit of simplicity between both two and three dimensions. Often our design and documentation process will combine both dimensions to achieve an exceptional outcome, with the relationship between the two being the critical element. As such our concept for the Pin-up exhibition is to construct a 3D representation – of the 2D documentation that was used to build the Falls Creek way finding signage – and suspend it within a 3D perspective…kind of 2.5D. Dhiren Bhagwandas dhirenbhagwandas .com Objects and spaces carry personal stories that reflect our individual experience. The objects presented here form a reference point for the work of Dhiren Bhagwandas, both formally and as representations of places, cultures and moments in time that have influenced a line of thinking. Each object has been interpreted into a contemporary iteration of the archetype. This process communicates Bhagwandas’ belief that the human is central to the design process, both in terms of the individuals who produce an object and those who experience it through use. This continual investigation has informed his understanding of the role of design as a vehicle through which industrial production, consumption and social attitudes can change, which culminated in the development of a furniture collection for Australian company Native. Elenberg Fraser e-f.com.au In the experience of art, a peculiar exchange takes place; I lend my emotions and associations to the space and the space lends me its aura, which entices and emancipates my perceptions and thoughts. An architectural work is not experienced as a series of isolated retinal pictures, but in its fully integrated material, embodied and spiritual essence. It offers pleasurable shapes and surfaces moulded for the touch of the eye and other senses, but it also incorporates and integrates physical and mental structures, giving our existential experience a strengthened coherence and significance. Pallasmaa, Juhani, The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses, Wiley, West Sussex England 2005 p.12. Studio Hacienda studiohacienda.wordpress.com General Assembly Sharing a passion for making and a commitment to contemporary jewellery practice, Blanche Tilden and Phoebe Porter founded Studio Hacienda in 2005. Their first collaborative project, General Assembly Melbourne, invites the public to select from pre-fabricated parts to create their own souvenir brooch – so far over 250 people have participated in this award-winning project. “General Assembly exemplifies Porter and Tilden’s common ground: working in multiples, exploring the individual impulse to select, combine and adorn, alertness to the ubiquitous street styles that pulse through a city. It is a project that involves people in a lively, intelligent conversation though the object. That’s Studio Haçienda.” - Merryn Gates, Courtesy Powerhouse Museum, 2007 Blanche Tilden and Phoebe Porter from Studio Hacienda invite you to make a General Assembly Brooch on Saturday 30 April 2011. You can select from pre-fabricated parts to create your own souvenir Brooch. Prices range from sixty to three hundred and fifty dollars and include all parts. Register your interest. General Assembly Melbourne brooches, image by Johannes Kuhnen Brochure Design, Ty Bukewitsch, Envelope Group Herbert & Mason herbertmason.com approach process making resource scale The studio of Herbert & Mason has responded to ‘The First Show’ as a question about how we practice. Using the cardboard archive box as a tool to demonstrate process, making and scale – it begins to represent our work. The ‘process’ forms the starting point of the investigation. The method involves ‘making’ a series of scaled elements through the study of the box itself. From repetition of one process and the ‘resourcefulness’ of using the constraint of a given material we were able to generate and compose new potential. This speaks of a key aspect of our practice. Departing from the ‘process’: The consideration and composition of a collection of objects and their ‘scale’ also forms a significant part of how we approach our work. 5 x boxes - 5 x scales – 1 x composition. The collection aims to describe a critical and holistic understanding of the importance of the relationship between the scales/parts and the overall outcome/whole. Harrison and White (HAW) haw.com.au Dog Model, Dog Kennel The Foyn-Johanson house – started in 2008 – was the first domestic project completed by Harrison and White (HAW). It built on work undertaken with the same client and builder years earlier, as well as the result of research undertaken at an urban design level into parametric solar access to external space. In this house, the garden space was defined as needing good year-round sunlight and the subtracted form of the house is a result of a process of reverse shadow casting. The form subtracted from is the maximum planning envelope allowed under the former Rescode provisions; these are accepted and thus the house extension did not require a planning permit. The 1:10 cardboard model for this exhibition is the new external envelope; an enlargement of a 1:50 working model made and issued on site to the builder. The working ‘dog’ model bridges between studio and site. It now takes onboard the characteristics of a dog kennel, a small building type that rescales the domestic. Kokkugia kokkugia.com The dominant strand of design research that can be traced back to the formation of Kokkugia is the development of a behavioral design methodology. This inherently organizational approach to form has emerged from an understanding of swarm intelligence and operates through the self-organization of multi-agent systems. Design intent operates within this methodology through the interaction of local behaviors rather than the explicit description or parametric manipulation of form and organization. This strategy has been developed through a series of projects varying in scale, from urban to tectonic. The interest in this non-linear approach ranges from the resolution of complex problems, such as structure or program, through to the generation of non-hierarchical tectonics. John Wardle Architects johnwardlearchitects .com A maquette captures a moment within the design process, a temporary pause before the next iteration. This maquette -– modelled after construction – simply reminds us that the building itself is situated within an ongoing trajectory of exploration. A cross section through JWA would reveal many overlapping ideas. The extrusion of function to meet a mannered cut or ragged end makes a building explanatory. A sequence of picturesque events is curated to frame a narrative – civic place making. The precious bits of history embed within the work. A thick surface, scribed and layered, clothes and contains activity. All taped and glued together. Maquette 1 of the Balnarring House (Building Construction Completed 1997) Maquette 2 of The Exercise Science and Sport Precinct and Learning Commons Project for Victoria University, Footscray (Building Construction Completed 2010) Leah Heiss heiss.anat.org.au ‘proem’ charts the development of my practice from the ‘first’ project, Empathy Vest, developed in 2004. This early experiment, working with wearable light sources, laid the foundations for a sustained inquiry into the use of next generation technologies to invite emotional engagement (wonder, surprise, connection, introspection, empathy etc.) Proem creates five expansive interiors within the shells of unassuming archive boxes. The box interiors are partially clad with mirror, which amplifies a piercing line of blue light connecting the spaces. This spatial drawing is simple to start with but becomes increasingly more complex as the viewer moves from box to box. Using magnification, reflection, and amplification, proem embodies the conceptual journey of my practice over the past 7 years. Materials: Electroluminescent cable, mirrored acrylic, archive boxes March Studio marchstudio.com.au Upon reflection There is no one precise moment that has altered the direction of March Studio practice since its inception 4 years ago. Instead, a steady accumulation of work, thoughts, tests, and projects, influenced by a broad range of people entering and exiting our office doors has resulted in 101,651 images (roughly) and over 60 short films. Whilst the images tell a complete and overwhelming story, the films have been chosen for Pin-up as a denser cross-section of the years past. By viewing our work through the filter of an AVI, March Studio’s interdisciplinary and undisciplined thread emerges - ideas of density, repetition, materiality and community; of making, movement, and patterning. The films have been amplified through the kaleidoscopic viewing device because in the world of March Studio, seeing more is often seeing better. Pen Plan Paris & Pen Plan China: photography by Tanja Kimme Milbourne. All other images by March studio. March Studio would especially like to acknowledge CBD Contracting Pty Ltd for their support for the fabrication and installation of this work. Muir Mendes muirmendes.com the daddy mendes apprenticeship 1 x metal fabricator referred to as daddy mendes (not a builder) 2 x practicing architects (not builders) 1 x owner builder licence 1 x site 20.6 x 4.5m = 93m2 1 x dilapidated 1 bedroom workman’s cottage riddled with termites site access limited to the front door 182 weekends 41m3 of soil removed 11m3 of concrete 8.21 tonnes of steel 918 lineal meters of metal studs 660m2 plasterboard 25.25m2 of double glazed glass 110m2 yellow tongue flooring 140m2 timber floorboards 75 litres of paint 283 cut pieces of joinery 320 tiles 25 x (2.4x1.2x12mm) eco panels 784 insulation batts 36m2 timber decking 27.9 lineal meters of lights 9 lineal meters of hydronic heating panels 156 x nando’s chickens (lemon and herb) 2184 litres of water 360 litres of coke cola 1092 bottles of beer archive box 01, 2 OCULUS oculus.com.au Urban Design and Landscape Architecture Could you lay down and rest on the footpath? Do you hack phlegm? What does ‘It just goes to show’ actually mean? Are you kind? If not, do you look upon kindness with sympathy or disgust? Do the ratepayers of Balmain deserve better than asphalt? Do you use the word ‘aggregation’? Is this a two-hour spot? Do you use a business card? Does this rug really hold the room together? Do you have access to a Holden Premiere? Would you support efforts to build a wall around Zone 1? Have you ever made out on street furniture? TAKE ONE (Loyalty Square 1997) 200 Potted plants, 112 painted disks, 5 cardboard boxes. Dimensions: 3,500 x 1,750 x 200mm Peter Atkins & Dana Harris ‘The Meadmore Project’ Artists Dana Harris and Peter Atkins are both interested in the appropriation and re-interpretation of readymade forms. What both of these artists are attempting with their work is an investigation into familiar, often incidental elements of our day-to-day lives, re-presented back to the viewer as something new and unexpected. This is evident as seen in recent projects exhibited in Melbourne. Dana Harris’ recent residency at the Australian Tapestry Workshop in Melbourne saw her develop a new series of works, which involve the deconstruction, thread by thread of her fathers tie collection. Left behind are exquisitely delicate, feathery echoes – skeletal reminders of their former structure. Peter Atkins’ most recent exhibition titled ‘Hume Highway Project’ at Tolarno Galleries involved the documentation over a five-year period and subsequent series of abstract paintings of roadside signage along the Hume Highway between Melbourne and Sydney. PHOOEY Architects phooey.com.au The Port Philip EcoCentre was our first project where we started asking... How can we to aim to create zero waste? How do we revalue the things we throw away? How will we engage in the cultural identities of our sustainable future? How can we be entertained by the sobriety of global warming? We wonder whether this installation including past & present work is able to catalogue the development of these original ideas? S!X Collar-age Cutting up and re-configuring tailored garments has been the practice of S!X since 1994. This piece represents the way this methodology continues to inform our design practice today: garments are turned inside out to reveal the inner workings of tailoring and then cut away to recreate a new tailored form. Tailored details re-appear as prints on the surface of the garment. This process continues to challenge us with endless possibilities and configurations for design. Simone LeAmon simoneleamon.com not-yet-junk Compressed cardboard bale, Corian, nylon and gold leaf, 924H x 850W x 700Lmm A Work made specifically for The First Show not-yet-junk incorporates the archive boxes supplied by Something Together with cardboard waste retrieved from the South Melbourne produce market. The mechanism of compressing cardboard is practiced in the waste management and recycling industry; bales of cardboard are typically equal to 3-4 hours of trade. not-yet-junk is an experimental Work that implores us to consider the stock of matter accumulating on Earth and our processing of it. Simone LeAmon’s practice is characterised by products, limited edition artifacts and designs that tell a story through process and material. not-yet-junk alludes to the artist-designer’s desire to obtain cultural significance and status for their Work, acceptance into the cultural economy predicated on criticism and the evaluation of ideas. The concept for not-yet-junk can be found in Dr Zeynep Mennan’s paper The Great Virtual Library: Notes for a Theory of Junk Economy (2005). A professor in the Department of Architecture at Middle East Technical University, Ancora, Turkey, Mennan’s paper charts an argument for a theory on the subject of ‘junk’. Embracing junk as both matter and non-matter Mennan discusses the process by which matter and ideas are ‘junked’ and/or stored to defer junk status. not-yet-junk is explained as a condition whereby matter and ideas are saved the status of junk, this postponement is a form of preservation/storage by virtue of assigning value through strategies of re-thinking, re-positioning, processing, re-circulating, re-analysing, re-conceptualising, re-naming and re-experiencing to name a few. Simone would like to thank Cleanevent Australia and Classic Solid Surfaces for their assistance on not-yet-junk. Tom Kovac alessi.com//tom-kovac Alessi Superstar The Alessi Superstar project commenced ten years ago as an architectural investigation into variable geometry and spatial organizations. The project breaks with the standardisation of normative spatial production by promoting alterative, organisational processes with variable perceptual interests. These propose forging new processes for development of complex spatial formal components. It involves a process of forming spatial conditions between form, structure, movement and containment. The Alessi Superstar aims to materialise a customised environment, formed by six curved environments and surfaces that have been explored and treat the object as a scaless form that translates industrial to architecture scale. Project Team: Jerome Frumar, Luke Waldron, Farzin Lotfi Jam, Michael Duan Mei Engineering: ARUP Prototype Production: Alessi SpA Prototype Development: Jerome Frumar, Luke Waldron Image Production: Luke Waldron Media Design: Michael Duan Mei Universal Design Studio universaldesignstudio.com Universal Design Studio’s first Melbourne project was the temporary pop-up store for menswear designer James Cameron. At the outset of this project, a single cardboard archive box was given to the client as a receptacle in which to collate ideas, materials and influences. A vertical matrix of over 400 of these boxes eventually created the anchor wall for the store. The application was informed by the simple graphic form, signature hue and functional simplicity of the box. This project encapsulated a continuing interest in the creation of textured surfaces, geometric patterns and sculptural volumes through repeated use of a single form. The process of distillation, analysis and experimentation through physical models is one which continues to underpin the studio.