The Style Index Guest Blog: Off-Cut & Assemblage Design

THE best thing about a designers’ market is that you usually get to meet the amazing people who design and craft the wares you buy.

I met Jacqueline Wallace from home wares label RedBerry Design selling her wares at the Young Blood Designers Market yesterday at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney’s Ultimo.

Jacqueline’s delicate origami mobiles and pretty washi-patterned-paper-look lanterns are the trademark designs of her brand, but I was instantly drawn to the architectural appeal of her timber jewellery line called Furrow South.

Wallace collects triangular off-cuts of pine flooring and gives them a lick of luscious pink or yellow paint, or a stripe of silver or black. She then strings up the woody pendants on a monochrome lace or silver chain. Cool idea for a necklace huh?

Also at the market was Cath Ertler who hails from Tasmania but now lives in Eskineville. Her cardboard Zeppo chair for children is made entirely from strong corrugated cardboard.

Flat-packed and ready to assemble via a slot and lock system, the tough little chairs can be put together in minutes — which is not a moment too soon for eager little kids with a paintbrush in hand ready to do some colourful decorating.

Also flat-packed and looking decidedly Euro-design-week cool is the work of one of the entrants in this year’s Interior Design Excellence Awards for 2012 (the winners were announced last night at a gala event at the Seymour Centre in Darlington).

Yellow Diva, a design studio founded by James Davis & David Walley in Melbourne, submitted an entry in the object category. The studio collaborated with emerging designer CK Goff to produce a chair and table, which is laser cut from sustainable plywood and slotted together. I love the way the furniture makes its method of construction a design feature.

For more examples of the structure-as-style trend, including the IDEA 2012 winner of Retail Design, visit my blog thestyleindex.com.au.