Italian designer Marcantonio Raimondi Malerba has given the nomadic shipping crate a new lease on life by turning them into unique side tables by the simple addition of some elegant legs.
I love that he has reused such a unique item which is not only functional as a table but tells a story of its travels around the world.
Gary Chang, a very smart architect living in Hong Kong, utilises a tiny space to create 24 different rooms through a series of sliding walls and folding furniture.
Gaetano Pesce designed and built the plant-clad Organic Building in Japan which was completed in 1993.
The exterior is covered with steel-encased concrete panels glazed with a red finish that feature 'extruding pockets'. Inside these 'pockets' are fibreglass planters that contain more than 80 types of indigenous plants and trees selected in collaboration with Osaka horticulturists which are all irrigated via a computer-controlled hydrating system of mechanical pipes.
The red exterior is also in direct contrast to the surrounding neighbourhood grey uniformity.
Personally I find this design really interesting as it is different to a standard vertical garden where the plant boxes aren't seen. The Organic Building looks like a building with pot plants stuck along the walls making it quirky and fun and more importantly, environmentally friendly.
After going to the Melbourne Winter Masterpieces: European Masters and seeing all the paintings, it made me want to get back into painting. I hadn't painted anything since VCE which was about 4 years ago and was never a good painter to begin with but I've always loved the way people can express themselves through the medium of paint and that there is no wrong or right with art.
I thought I'd start small with a small canvas and some basic acrylic colour paints. I've always wanted to do a splatter painting (preferably on a large scale but due to lack of space, I settled for a small canvas).
I began experimenting with different techniques on a piece of newspaper just to get a sense of how things would turn out. I tried to flick paint off a toothbrush and off a paintbrush. I also tried to flick paint off a spoon. These all gave me very small splatters and I wanted to vary the sizes of the splatters so I literally filled up a spoon with blue paint, watered it down with water and flung it at the canvas in one splat. It came up beautifully so I continued doing this with red then yellow, flinging them in different directions and from different heights to get a variation of shapes and sizes.
on the left newspaper you can see the initial testing stage
After I had the main splatters down I finished off the painting by flicking blue, red, yellow and green paint over the top using a paintbrush. This gave me the speckled effect over the top.
I'm really happy with how this painting turned out. I love the layering of paint and seeing the paths of travel from the way the paint has hit the canvas.
This exercise was not just a physical painting but more of an emotional way for me to get creative and see what I could produce.
One day I would love to have a giant canvas and literally throw paint tins at it but that's for another rainy day....
I've been out of the design world for a good 6 months now (by personal choice as I just simply needed a break) so in order to find a bit of inspiration I decided to begin where all my best ideas come from, my bedroom.
I wanted to begin exercising the right side of my brain again and decided a constant reminder of what I love doing was the way to go. I saw from a design friend of mine, a photo of the word 'design' spelt out in his room sitting on his bookshelf and so instead of simply buying the letters straight out I went to spotlight and decided to do a bit of DIY arts and crafts.
I bought the letters of the word 'design' and decided to spray paint them black, all except the letter 'i'. The reasoning behind this was because as an interior design graduate, I wanted to remember that I am not just a designer, I am an interior designer, hence not spray painting the letter 'i'.
The positioning of them was carefully thought out as I wanted to be reminded of it so above my bed was the way to go as I would be it last thing I saw before I went to sleep and first thing when I woke up.
I know that spray painting a few letters and sticking them up isn't much but it certainly reignited my love for design.
The simplest way of understanding Hatton's design philosophy is through the materials he uses in all his designs.
Where do you shop in Melbourne for the tools of your trade? (ie recycled materials, hardware, fabrics etc?) Hatton: Side of the road for materials apparently its illegal but what isn’t these days.
Timber from Bowerbird timbers out towards Warburton, recycled and windfall timbers, lovely people to deal with …worth the drive. Recycled Timber and things from Hughes demolition in OakleighI actually scrounge most of my materials, it’s part of my business plan , reuse recycle repair. It’s amazing what people throw away.
I love the floor lamps, the play on light and shadow. I love the quirky ways Hatton works, placing a light which you'd usually hang from the ceiling onto the floor instead, using tree branches as a lamp stand.
Love this chair and the room itself. Looks like you're sitting in an indoor park or forest.
What a cool creation!
The four poster bed looks amazing but I wouldn't want the chandelier of sticks of fall on me during my sleep.
