“I’ve always been interested in building things – creating at small scale can really inform the larger-scale work we do,” says Studio Edwards founder Ben Edwards, surveying his Melbourne studio’s collection of material samples, furniture prototypes and design objects. “I suppose we’re the opposite of designing from Pinterest.”
Originally from the United Kingdom, Edwards founded the practice in 2016 and previously worked as one half of lauded architecture practice Edwards Moore. With studio director Nancy Beka, Edwards has produced a catalogue of varied residential, workplace, hospitality and retail projects that are united by exacting use of space, commitment to sustainability and delight in unexpected materials.
Completed in 2022, Microloft rethinks small residential living through a series of overlapping surfaces and horizontal planes of OSB, raw aluminium and recycled denim.
Image: Peter Bennetts
A case in point: the compact hybrid of property company Microluxe’s Fitzroy hotel-showroom-store, where guests can purchase the furniture and fixtures on display. The concept treads a careful line between robust finishes and a kind of effortless luxury. A bathing podium is lined with black-and-white marble panels, while a folding bed is concealed in a gilt-mirrored box. These refined elements are offset by hard-wearing concrete surfaces and angular steel panels that wrap around the kitchen.
This same skilful balance of elegance and robustness shaped the Collingwood store fitout for footwear specialist Finesse. Shelving units made from a single piece of folded aluminium float within the space, supported above and below by scaffolding components. This system leaves the walls intact and ensures the fitout can be easily disassembled if required; the project won the Retail Design category at the 2022 Australian Interior Design Awards.
The minimal, industrial fixtures and surfaces at Finesse’s retail space exemplify Studio Edwards’ material ingenuity.
Image: Peter Bennetts
More recently, the practice applied its multidisciplinary approach to workplace design. After collaborating with digital agency Today on a temporary installation for a conference, Studio Edwards designed Today’s tailor-made workspace, combining off-the-shelf oriented strand board (OSB), visible insulation that had been made from recycled denim wadding, and custom two-tone plywood furniture.
At the temporary Today Pavilion installed at Carriageworks in Sydney, structures and fabrics were selected for circularity in anticipation of their next use: Today’s commercial office interior.
Image: Elin Bandmann / Myf Garven
“It’s 1,000 square metres of workspace – but we didn’t want it to be full of boring carpet tiles and office partitions. The client is really fun; they got it. We designed and prototyped everything,” says Edwards, who adds that it “brought together some of the adventures we’ve had in making things from materials you wouldn’t normally use.”
This interest in material invention was the practice’s starting point for one of its longest-running projects: alt.material, a community-minded annual exhibition presenting one-off works from emerging talents and design luminaries. “Our idea was to invite people to respond to a material theme by making something – a chair, an object, anything really. It could act as a platform for ideas and experimentation,” Edwards says.
Bound chair by Locki Humphrey.
Image: Courtesy alt.material
The first iteration, Plasticity (2018), invited experiments in plastic; subsequent exhibitions Elasticity (2019), Ductility (2020) and Availability (2022) explored other material-driven themes. As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded, virtual Ingenuity (2020) explored how design thinking could adapt to confinement, and Community (2021) reactivated vacant shopfronts as temporary exhibition spaces. The designs vary wildly in their concepts and executions – from a Michael Gittings table made from leftover plastic extrusions, to a 3D-printed chair by Adam Goodrum composed from melted computer parts, to Andrew Carvolth’s meat smoker crafted from tin cans.
“Alt.material started with people asking questions about materials and different ways of using them,” Edwards says. “We want it to be inclusive so it’s not just the same group of designers high-fiving each other. Let’s take it to the high street!”
In that spirit, alt.material’s new iteration – a recently launched online marketplace for independent designers selling furniture, lighting, jewellery and other creations – is intended to offset the sustainability challenges and restrictive commercial terms of the current market.
Concurrently, Studio Edwards has another ambitious project in the works: the redevelopment of its Fitzroy studio site to create a tall and lean apartment building. Each of the nine Fitzroy Loft apartments housed within the building will have a double-height living space opening out to an external terrace enclosed by oversized operable louvres that can control privacy, light and views. At ground level, Studio Edwards will build a new studio space fronting busy Johnston Street. “One thing I love about this site is that it has this nice connection to the street. We try to engage with the public. We can make design more accessible,” Edwards says.
There is something joyously democratic in Studio Edwards’ approach: working seamlessly across disciplines and transforming unexpected materials to push the boundaries of sustainable design.
Source
People
Published online: 8 Feb 2024
Words:
Peter Davies
Images:
Courtesy alt.material,
Elin Bandmann / Myf Garven,
Felix Bardot,
Fraser Marsden,
Peter Bennetts
Issue
Artichoke, December 2023
