Reflections on Design Made Trade

Still reeling from the creative diversity at Design Made Trade, a trade fair run as part of the State of Design festival. Held in the gorgeous surrounds of the Royal Exhibition Building in Carlton, this event offered a whistle-stop tour of innovations in Victorian design and design thinking. (Not forgetting our Belgian visitors, from the excellent Design:Made:Flanders stand!)

‘Education’ was not really a buzzword at this event, but ‘community engagement’ certainly was – particularly, engagement with environmental themes. And the most iconic material that emerged from this event would have to be, not FSC-certified timber, not some kind of techno-laminate, but plain old cardboard.

The best examples of this meeting of ‘wisdom of the crowd’ and environmental values came perhaps from Makedo. What a great project. It’s all about community and creativity, as much as it is about all things ‘green’. The Makedo concept is very simple – it consists of a set of plastic ‘pins’, that can be used to create assemblages of existing materials. It’s all about doing more with less, and recognising the value of the stuff that surrounds us.

Or if that sounds too worthy, there is always Baking Architecture – a fun collaboration between architects and chefs. This project created some of the best news headlines, and unexpected visual/sensory textures, of any festival event. (Sensibly, the curators enclosed the baked/built creations safely inside plexiglass-style boxes, to foil any inquisitive taste-testings).

Check out some photos of the event from Design Files.

Is Liquid Architecture finished?

So, the Liquid Architecture 10 festival has just ended in Melbourne. I wrote a review of the final concert, held last night at the Melbourne Planetarium, which will probably be published somewhere. Intriguing venue. But will it be the last Liquid Architecture? The last festival, at least, in its current format. The Director, Nat Bates, strongly hinted at this in his closing speech last night. It’s true, ten years is a long time – in terms of digital media, certainly, it’s a cultural institution – but this has been an important festival for Melbourne and Australia, and I for one would be sorry to see it go.

Brand new site

Well, it took a while, but this site, a replacement for my old site at the University of Cambridge, is finally up and running. I’ll be using this site to post about my work at La Trobe University and my scholarly research interests and activities. This doesn’t mean that my other blog, Ida Takes Tea, has been entirely mothballed. Let’s say, for now, that the strategy on how to manage the two is evolving.