The last 18 months have seen a new sub category of small businesses emerge in the design space. These are the businesses of people who lost their jobs, or whose workloads drastically decreased following the onset of the pandemic, and those who needed a creative outlet to keep their hands and brains busy during the many long months of Melbourne’s lockdowns.

Aided by the chronic online-ness of the general population during this time, new businesses (particularly those with aesthetically pleasing outcomes) have quickly grown massive followings on Instagram. This, combined with the urge many of us felt to update our home spaces, provided fertile ground for P0LY Designs founders Lara Fisher and Andy Kepitis to launch a pivot-project that has quickly grown into fully fledged business – all from the backyard of their Northcote sharehouse.

After 18 months of creating their tiled plinths, consoles and side tables from home, Lara and Andy have recently moved their fast-growing business to a beautiful new work space and studio in Fitzroy North. We caught up with the business partners (and couple of 10 years!) to learn more about the future of their ‘accidental baby’!

When you’re the CEO of global architecture practice, people expect your home to be pretty special. 

That’s certainly the case for Nik Karalis, CEO of Woods Bagot – but the architect hasn’t been in any rush to finish his family’s beach house on the Mornington Peninsula.  After 20 years and three major renovations, we’re excited to finally share the completed home!

There’s no shortage of beautiful homes in Victoria’s Macedon Ranges, but getting your hands on one isn’t easy! Photographer and sculptor Jessica Tremp knows this firsthand, having resorted to placing letters in the mailboxes of local properties, resulting in one owner selling directly to her! 

Since moving in one year ago, Jessica, alongside her husband Michael Madden, and children Syd, 7, and Gray, 4, have set about making small tweaks to the interiors and garden to enhance the wonderful bones of this 1980’s gem.

Every January it is our annual tradition to revisit our most popular Tasty Tuesday recipes from the past 12 months, they fly by so quickly, we are amassing quite an archive!

First up, we revisit this delectable cake from Melbourne’s cake queen, Cassy Morris of Fig & Salt. Cassy creates all kinds of treats, both savoury and sweet, but her cakes are seriously something else. Her decadent layered desserts, piled high with ganache, cream, toffee shards, meringue, fresh berries and flowers have made her pretty famous on Instagram. This rich mud cake with dark chocolate ganache is a perennial crowd pleaser.

Roses hold a sort of miraculous quality. There is perhaps no flower more imbued with the symbolism of love, beauty and devotion.

Soho Rose Farm in Victoria has a bit of a love story of its own. When more than 8000 rose bushes were set to be destroyed on a retired flower farm in Drysdale, florist Kristy Tippett and her husband Brock stepped in to save them. The couple corralled a team of people, who worked tirelessly to uproot and relocate  each individual rose bush, to be replanted on Kristy and Brock’s own farm, 2.5 hours away. Despite no experience with commercial growing, Kristy has spent the last three years tending to the roses, and cultivating the most glorious flower farm.

We talked to Kristy to find out a little more about the journey of Soho Rose Farm, and the magic of the humble garden rose.

Every year since 1993, Craft Victoria has held Fresh! – an exhibition of graduate makers from across the state. Spanning craft, design and fine art disciplines, Fresh! is an important annual showcase of the newest class of Victorian makers.

Artist Anni Hagberg exhibited her graduate collection of porcelain pieces, titled ‘Integrity’, in last year’s show. Constructed from discarded metals coated in speckles of gold lustre, the body of ceramic works scored her both The Design Files Emerging Maker Award and The John Wardle Architects Craft Prize!

We visited Anni at her sunny backyard studio in Yarraville to hear more about her blossoming practice.

Our Gardens column has become one of our most popular features, yet for some inexplicable reason, we rarely interview landscape designers. Major oversight!

Today, we chat to Phillip Withers, the passionate Creative Director of Richmond-based  Phillip Withers Landscape Design.

You can visit the Phillip’s garden installation ‘I See Wild’ at the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show, next week – March 29th – April 2nd 2017, Garden A76.

Millie and Dave Wells searched for 12 months for a family home to renovate, and they found it in this Warrandyte property.

Since moving in four years ago, the couple and their three children (Luella, 10, Isla, 8, and Arty, 7), have undertaken extensive renovations, bringing the outdoors in at every opportunity.

It’s a contemporary home, but with an enchanting and timeless feel, facilitated by its location among the trees in Melbourne’s outer east.