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Thursday, November 7, 2024

Phillip Withers – The Design Files | Australia's most popular design blog.

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.

A Space-Saving Courtyard That Makes Something From Nothing

If there was ever a test-case to convince doubters on the value of a landscape designer, then this revamped courtyard in Woodend by Kathleen Murphy Landscape Design (KLMD) is it.

Previously an uninspiring stretch of bare and bedraggled residential turf running beside the length of the house, the space is now a lush and functional outdoor room comprising timber decking, an outdoor seating area, pizza oven and integrated veggie patch. Transformations are one thing when you have good bones to work with, but here, KMLD has really made something from nothing.

The Aussie Architects Designing New Houses For An Affordable Flat Fee

From 1947 to the late ‘70s, the Small Homes Service (SHS) provided an affordable option for Victorians interested in an architect-designed house. Consumers could choose from a range of architect plans published in The Age (complete with working drawings and specifications), purchase them for a modest price, and have these constructed by a builder. 

The first SHS director, Robin Boyd, estimated at one stage around 40% of new homes in Melbourne were being built through the service.

The number of architect-designed homes has since dropped to an estimated 5% nationally – a figure that Architopia is hoping to change. Adopting a similar model to the SHS, the online platform allows individuals to purchase an architectural house design for a flat fee.

Speaking to founders Robert Duffield, Sophie Lindblom-Taylor, and Leon Morton, we learned what inspired this innovative model.

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The Most Fabulous New Furniture Designs In The TDF + Laminex Design Awards 2021

familycreative-peopleThe Most Fabulous New Furniture Designs In The TDF + Laminex Design Awards 2021

Ross Gardam, Breeze Collection

Over a 12-month design process, Ross Gardam developed the ‘Breeze’ table as a flatpack marble structure with only three fasteners. The top is Emperador marble sourced from a quarry located in North Queensland, and the base is black marble.

Johnny Nargoodah and Trent Jansen, Ngumu Janka Warnti Collection

A collaboration between Nyikina man and saddler Johnny Nargoodah and furniture/object designer Trent Jansen sees salvaged scrap metal bent into structural forms and covered with beaten leather. The pair created the designs remotely, developing a collaborative ‘sketch exchange’ system to ferry prototype designs between Johnny’s home in Fitzroy Crossing and Trent’s on the south-east coast of NSW.

Photo – Haydn Cattach.


Photo –Romello Pereira.


Photo – Timothy Kaye.


Left: Photo – Tom Ross. Right: Photo –Photo – Haydn Cattach.


Photo – Mattia Balsamini.


Photo – Eve Wilson.


Left: Photo – Amanda Santamaria + Chris Von Menge. Right: Photo – Peter Ryle and Nat Turnbull.


Photo –Brenton Colley.


Left: Photo – Penny Katopodis. Right: Photo –Jem Selig Freeman of Like Butter.


Left: Photo – Brook James. Right: Photo –Dean Toepfer.

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