Anchor Ceramics
Architect turned ceramicist Bruce Rowe has released a new series of vessels that are made using materials that would have otherwise gone to landfill. The Vas collection comprises 48 pieces that combine fired ceramic with CNC-cut reclaimed timber.
Rowe is founder and director of Anchor Ceramics, a ceramic design studio that also makes lighting, tiles and garden pots.
Read more about Bruce Rowe here.
Marta Figueiredo
Marta Figueiredo’s Elementary Abacus is a side table with movable parts invites interaction.
Image: Jonathon Griggs
Portugal-born, Melbourne-based designer Marta Figueiredo is another former architect who has now established a practice of creating objects. Her works are colourful, tactile, anthropomorphic, have a strong sense of narrative and invite interaction from viewers.
The Elementary Abacus, for instance (pictured), is a side table with movable elements, creating a playful and inclusive piece of furniture.
Read more about Marta Figueiredo here.
Elliat Rich
Different Thoughts (2020) by Elliat Rich uses colour and form to express interrelationships.
Image: Haydn Cattach
Elliat Rich is an award-winning object designer based in Alice Springs. Her practice seeks to spark connection between things, with a design process that is a “creative translation between materials and culture”. She has three arms to her practice: the first is centred around cultural questioning through objects, the second around service (responding to a brief), and the third, Elbow Workshop, is an enterprise she shares with her partner, shoemaker James B. Young.
Read more about Elliat Rich here.
Five Mile Radius
Waste Terrazzo by Five Mile Radius, originally created as a concrete side table, can now be ordered as a custom slab.
Image: Callie Marshall
Inspired by the philosophies of Mahatma Gandhi, Brisbane-based architect Clare Kennedy established a studio that rethinks and redefines the process of making. The studio’s ethos is expressed in Waste Terrazzo, a robust and crisply modern concrete side table made entirely from local construction waste. Another product, Telegraph Stool, is a rustic piece made from decommissioned telegraph poles.
Read more about Five Mile Radius here.
Dean Norton
Containa by Dean Norton is an encased furniture series that explores the narrative of the vessel and its contents.
Image: Spot Studio
This English-born, Melbourne-based designer creates furniture and objects that connect on an emotional level, with refined detailing and harmonious materials. Originally a graphic designer, Norton pursues a minimalist approach underpinned by strong graphic expression, exploring the creative tension between art and design. Containa, for example (pictured), is one of several pieces designed as emotive reactions Melbourne’s pandemic locksdowns. The piece explores confinement and protection, featuring a wood-turned form encased within a frosted glass shell, while Daylight is a light therapy lamp intended to boost wellbeing and creative energy.
Read more about Dean Norton here.
