The Monocle Minute
On Design

A former automotive workshop set among Victorian-era terraces in Sydney’s bustling inner-city neighbourhood of Paddington might be a surprising location for a contemporary Japanese-inspired residence. But for Matt Elkan, his aptly named Smash Repair House is right at home. Working with the existing light-industrial building, whose doors open directly onto the street, the designer turned to architecture in the Japanese capital as a precedent for his renovation.

“Houses in Tokyo seem to be able to exist so close to the public realm but also have such privacy,” says Elkan. “You can find yourself in a very private little garden or courtyard within meters of a busy public street. I felt that Smash Repair House needed to offer similar respite and relief within.”

Elkan designed the home around an internal courtyard which brings natural light and air across all three of the building’s levels. It’s a design move that complements the warm timber throughout the space and the careful spread of wooden battens on the ceilings, which help to absorb sound and create a calming acoustic environment. The result of this combination? Onsen-like tranquillity. mattelkanarchitect.com.au

After more than a year of planting and preparation, Swiss furniture manufacturer Vitra’s Oudolf Garten is now in full bloom. Designed by renowned Dutch landscape designer Piet Oudolf, the garden at Vitra’s campus in Weil am Rhein, Germany, will – literally – bring new life to the architecture park. Over the past year, about 30,000 plants have taken root there, each with specific requirements.

“To me, plants are personalities that I can use and arrange according to their appearance and behaviour,” says Oudolf. “Each one ‘performs’ in its own way but in the end an interesting play needs to emerge from it.” With the Vitra Campus already a cherished destination for design aficionados, this added green space looks likely to drive even more traffic to a beloved name in furniture. vitra.com

Currently under construction, London’s Design District is a collection of 16 commercial buildings that will soon count architects, artists and industrial and graphic designers among its tenants. Billing itself as a dedicated space for designers’ studios and offices, its ambition is to become the beating heart of the city’s famous creative industry. Overseeing this charge is Helen Arvanitakis, the Design District’s director, who has previously worked as a consultant for creative firms across the capital and managed British designer Tom Dixon’s studio. To find out more about how she plans to support the industry, we caught up with Arvanitakis for this week’s episode of Monocle on Design.

Why is this new district significant for London?
As far as I’m aware, it’s one of the first times that a development of this size has been purposefully designed for people in the creative industries. At the moment you can point to certain areas in London and say, “Well, Shoreditch has a lot of creative businesses and so do pockets of Hackney.” But there are also a lot of other businesses in those areas. What’s different in the Design District is that it’s only people in the creative industries. There’s a real benefit that comes from being surrounded by your colleagues, your inspiration, your help network and all of the things that you get from being around other creatives.

So the benefit is in the proximity to other designers?
Yes and we’re working really hard to construct ways to enable all of the tenants to be able to communicate with each other and lean on one another. For instance, if there’s a tenant that has a small recording studio that creates podcasts or music recordings and there’s someone else who might need that service but would normally just get on Google and find a random studio, now they’ll have each other on their doorstep. It means that they can actually sit down with each other and discuss how it works and how to get the best from it. It also means that they can pop back to their own space and go back and forth from the studio. The value of that sort of interaction with businesses that are right there with you will be incredible.

What about the actual architecture and buildings? How do they support creative pursuits?
Having a space that is dedicated to creative pursuits will allow designers to do their best work. As an example, we’ve made sure we have really good natural light that’s not from south-facing windows, so that there’s no glare.

To hear more about London Design District, listen to this week’s edition of ‘Monocle on Design’.

As the northern hemisphere summer enters its peak, we’ve noted a lack of fans that not only keep you cool but look the part too. This 1970s stunner by Milanese architect and designer Marco Zanuso puts today’s nondescript designs to shame. The blades of the all-red Ariante are tucked in a stylish plastic casing. The compact design is also practical for those needing to beat the heat at the office desk.

There’s also a symbolic cause for reintroducing the Ariante. Zanuso can be regarded as one of the founding fathers of Italian industrial design and popularised the use of basic materials such as plastic. But like other members of the Italian modern movement, almost all of his work in production today is luxury furniture. An affordable reissue of the Ariante would honour Zanuso’s laudable legacy of helping to make good design a part of daily life for all.

Danish furniture company Form & Refine’s new chair is a celebration of simple but effective design. Sculptural, ergonomic and stackable, it’s both stylish and timeless – an homage to the principles of slow design and slow living.

According to the chair’s designers, Jonas Herman Pedersen and Helle Herman Mortensen of Ry’s Herman Studio, time is an essential commodity when it comes to crafting furniture that not only looks good but also serves its purpose. “We wanted to create a chair that radiates quality,” says Pedersen. “The backrest had to be at an angle that works for people of all shapes and sizes. That took many attempts and countless tests.”

Made with sustainably sourced wood, the Blueprint is available in various finishes and materials from white oiled oak to black-painted ash. Even those living in smaller spaces can pick up multiple pieces, due to their clever design. formandrefine.com

As readers know, Monocle rarely misses a newsprint launch and at last week’s Pitti Immagine Uomo menswear fashion event in Florence, we discovered a unique project harnessing the power of our favourite communication medium. Alongside a menswear collection that debuted at the festival, Johannesburg-based designer Thebe Magugu produced a newspaper that went far beyond serving as mere promotion for his colourful, 1970s-inflected clothes. “I worked with 20 South African journalists in collaboration with the Daily Maverick, a leading newspaper, looking at the idea of corruption and those who oppose it, a theme that influenced my collection,” says Magugu, who presented his work at Pitti through a theatrical installation highlighting the bravery of whistleblowers in South Africa.

With in-depth reporting and infographics on topics such as state capture and how one wealthy family can drastically influence a nation’s economy, the newspaper offers a fascinating (and beautifully designed) insight into Magugu’s home country and the topics that he and other young South Africans are concerned about. thebemagugu.com