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Joshua Gowers, Seaton McKeon, Ben Hardy-Clements - AUSTRALIA Encouraging more people and cities to grow trees. The X-POD promotes public awareness on the importance of mangrove conservation and climate change adaptation. The design facilitates a hassle free solution to planting a critical species of tree in tough/remote/hard to access environments. One simply has to throw the X-POD off the back of a boat and nature will do the rest!  Inspired to restore lost or degraded mangrove forests, the X-POD simultaneously incubates, protects and disperses a cluster of mangrove seeds (via oceanic currents) into depleted mangrove habitats around the world. All mangroves disperse their offspring by water. When seeds fall they float & drift for some time before rooting themselves. Seeds float until they reach shallow water and become stranded when the tide recedes. It is here that their roots take hold in the mud. The X-POD safeguards & enhances this natural regeneration process. The seeds grow within the pod until it reaches shallow water. As the pod becomes stranded, it begins to break down releasing nutrients that feed the mangrove enhancing its ability to adapt, grow and survive.  Research indicates more than 35% of the world’s mangroves are already gone. The figure is as high as 50% in countries such as India, the Philippines, and Vietnam, while in the Americas they are being cleared at a rate faster than tropical rainforests. Mangrove forests are extremely productive ecosystems. They provide numerous ecological benefits and service both the marine environment and people. This means that conserving and restoring mangroves is essential to fighting climate change, that is already having disastrous effects on communities world wide. Specifications: Dimensions: 140 x 140 x 70mmWeight: 300gMaterials: 100% sustainably sourced biodegradable seaweed, doubling as a natural plant fertilizer. 
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Sustainable design is changing the world, through innovative new products and projects that protect our environment, reduce consumption of non-renewable resources, reduce waste, minimise energy and water consumption, and create healthy environments.  EYRE CUP
A utilitarian “eco-preneurial” response to throw-away culture, particularly at festivals, this collapsible cup is made from soft food-grade silicon and featured a handy D loop for attachment.  The “wellness” craze has well and truly reached design. Increasing consumer concerns of health, fitness, and
general wellbeing are manifest in greater demand for “healthy” workplaces, products, and strategies. This coincides with ongoing technological innovation and the proliferation of technology throughout the workplace. Can the two trends be combined?    IKKI, our companion therapy robot project won the Next Gen Award at the Good Design awards ceremony at the Sydney Opera House. Proudly presented by RØDE Microphones Founder & Chairman, Mr Peter Freedman AM. The Next Gen Category (previously the Young Australian Design Awards), is open to young Australian designers, engineers, innovators and entrepreneurs. It was created to inspire the next generation of Australian designers and to help foster a culture of design, innovation and creativity in Australia.
Presented by Stylecraft and JamFactory, the AFDA has a mandate of encouraging innovation in furniture design and fostering new opportunities for furniture manufacturing in Australia. Paperclip is an outdoor seating collection, ideal for residential, corporate and hospitality settings. The range comprises of a lounger, with locally sourced Merbau timber armrests, a chair, and stackable stools in 3 heights. The design is light and airy, with a robust undercurrent, Paperclip is perfectly suited to an afternoon by the pool, breakfast on the terrace or a wine in the courtyard.   It was a great pleasure to share the floor with these talented people from various fields to contribute to the STEEL Symposium in Adelaide on the weekend. The Symposium kicks off the national tour of the exhibition down in Adelaide with it travelling across Australia. Great to hear from Matthew Harding about the use of steel in the public art and sculpture context, David Retallack from CT Flames about Olympic opening ceremonies, and Simon Thomson about their architectural work with the material.
STEEL: art design architecture explores innovative ways that steel is being used by artists, designers and architects in Australia in the 21st century. Showcasing innovative works by 29 contemporary Australian artists, designers and architects, STEEL provides a cross-section of current creative practices, modes of thinking and relationships to this essential material. STEEL: art design architecture is a Jam Factory touring exhibition and is supported by Visions of Australia funding through the Department of Communications and the Arts and the South Australian Government through Arts SA. STEEL Exhibition Tour Dates: Adelaide JamFactory - 16-02-17 - 23-04-17 Seppeltsfield JamFactory - 13-05-17 - 16-07-17 Redcliff City Art Gallery - 11-08-17 - 12-09-17 Cairns Regional Art Gallery - 22-09-17 - 19-11-17 Hervey Bay Regional Art Gallery - 08-12-17 - 04-02-18 Brisbane QUT Art Gallery - 11-04-18 - 28-05-18 Bathurst Regional Art Gallery - 08-06-18 - 05-08-18 Booragul Lake Macquire Regional Art Gallery - 07-09-18 - 21-10-18 Dubbo Western Plain Cultural Centre - 02-11-18 - 20-01-19 Darlinghurst Australian Design Centre - 01-02-19 - 31-03-19 Wagga Wagga Art Gallery - 13-04-19 - 09-06-19 Mornington Regional Art Gallery - 28-06-19 - 25-08-19 Bunbury Regional Art Gallery - 29-11-19 - 01-02-20 Murray Bridge Regional Art Gallery - 06-03-20 - 26-04-20 Goolwa Signal Point Gallery - 15-05-20 - 19-07-20 The WORKSHOPPED 16 design exhibition asks designers to explain how their design puts the human experience first? And how the human experience has been considered or captured in the design. The three projects below are going to be exhibited as part of this years selection, read more about each project under the projects page. Look forward to seeing you there. WORKSHOPPED 16 will be held at Supa Centa, Sydney, in August. Public exhibition Dates: 04 to 21 August 2016. VIP Opening Night Supa Centa Moore Park, Sydney: Wednesday 03 August 2016  The Umbrella stand is the next installment from the Alfred floor dwelling collection and after a teaser launch during Saturday Indesign 2015, the Alfred umbrella stand is now in production and available for purchase!
Ideal for residential and commercial spaces, the Alfred umbrella stand features a central handle for easy maneuvering and an inbuilt shelf to accommodate large and small umbrellas. The product is sturdy and robust, suitable for outdoor use and comes in a variety of colours. Read More... mocosubmit.com design milk Designbythem Design Inspiration. The Sea Slug Pavilion references organic sea creatures or “Slugs”, along with the geological features of a sandstone coastline. There are openings in all directions similar to small rock pools underfoot and pits in the overhanging surfaces of cliffs by the shore. The tunnel like shape fluidly twists and morphs similar to the movements of the ocean, providing the audience with a dynamic visual landscape as is seen in nature. The design is inviting and low to the ground at one end where people would enter to explore the form and peer through the numerous openings to smaller samples of the surrounding landscape providing focus as well as security. The other end is elevated and acts as a viewing platform out of the pavilion where one can sit with legs dangling to people watch, think and pass the time. Computational Design. Through the use of Rhinoceros 3D and Grasshopper a simple parametric design was created which was able to rationalize the size of each opening relative to the curvature at which it intersected with the shell. The parametric nature of the scripting design and simple rhino curves provided design flexibility and regenerated the hole patterns with each manipulation of the curves in rhino until the final form was reached. Simple stilts provide the design with transport-ability and ease of installation across various locations, gradients and surface finishes.        The Sun The Moon and Me, portrays a map of stars in the night sky. The moon is represented by a mirror that reflects your own image within the scene. The etched star map was created by Richard A Proctor in 1870 and represents all the stars visible to the human eye. The design looks to put into perspective our place within the cosmos - drawing from history and science the design brings a conceptual comment about the nature of furniture and lighting design.
Read more... http://afdaward.com.au/ http://www.indesignlive.com/news-flash/nurturing-australian-furniture-design-afda http://www.stylecraft.com.au/article/blog/2015-afda-winner-announced http://www.interiordesign.net/articles/detail/36953-seaton-mckeon-wins-inaugural-australian-furniture-design-award/ http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/entertainment/arts/stylecraft-and-jamfactory-furniture-design-award-winner-reaches-for-the-moon-and-stars/story-fni6um7a-1227427067929 Over the past few decades Australia as a nation has witnessed a very apparent change in our everyday and out of home technological needs. Our technological ecosystem has become smarter, smaller and fundamentally portable. The challenge in creating a meaningful public touch point for Telstra is not only in choosing the most advanced technologies, but also in creating something of lasting social value. For many years Telstra’s payphone network bridged land and sea, quite literally connecting people from afar, providing utility right across Australia. This simple and unique design looks to reflect Telstra’s core brand values and visual language whilst delivering on the same degree of social responsibility and equity that payphones have done in the past.
Read more... There are currently 7,106 languages being spoken around the world in contemporary society according to Ethnologue. Some spoken only by 1,000's while others spoken by millions of people every day. It is not just fascinating the sheer number of languages but more so the amount which are in trouble and or "dying" - 2,434 to be precise! There are also emerging and developing languages however, humanity is not entirely converging.
Binary code had first been explored in 1679 by German Mathematician and Philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz and forms the basis of all of our everyday digital interactions. Since 1679, further and further our existence has become digitized and the significance of this silent language has increased. The digital permeation of the urban environment combined with mass manufacturing has borne an age of Machine-made objects. Each of these products are an exploration of the Machine Aesthetic, a poem of form comprised of straight edges transitioned by perfect radii into straight once more, which repeat until eventually finding their beginnings. The Frank pendant light and Alfred Magazine Rack explore the need for "draft" in some production techniques and how it can aesthetically inform design. To provide contrast between the Machine-made and the Human I asked Chris to photograph the products in a real world setting entirely raw and uncontrived. On a winters afternoon, the sun was low and subtly lit a barren construction site. "We shot in the midst of a half-finished renovation complete with freshly stripped concrete walls, bare floors and paint encrusted ladders. "Too often the use of a stark white backgrounds and a single lighting setup dominates current product photography and the role of the photographer becomes one of technician and all creativity stripped away. The silhouette-like shapes of the Nexus hangers appear as long shadows against the bare concrete. The marble-white bollard stands centered as a carved bust dedicated to an ordered, modern civilization."(Chris Fatseas) 
Design Thinking will have an impact on Australia’s future prosperity.
Whether designing products and services, or corporate strategies and processes, Design Thinking is core to innovation - imagination, research, concept, prototype, evaluation, implementation and review. Design Thinking will position Australia as a global thought leader – positive, confident and able to realise our future potential. WORKSHOPPED 14 asks designers to share their thought processes in developing ideas, designs and products – from a clean slate! Featured works of the exhibition will then be on show at the Supa Centa Moore Park, Sydney – allowing us to continue our commitment to bring great design to the wider public. Public exhibition Dates: 14th to 24th August 2014. VIP Opening Night Supa Centa Moore Park, Sydney: Wednesday 13th August 2014 
OBJECT FUTURE is an annual design exhibition. The exhibition surveys a combination of massive produced works and one-off pieces—the heart of the project being to support designed outcomes with intellectual foundations. OBJECT FUTURE looks at how ideas shape the things that are designed for everyday consumption and asserts the objects in a context for aesthetic consumption.
Initiated by Suzannah Henty and Dale Hardiman in May 2013, the show was developed in response to the lack of inclusive design exhibitions in Australia. Hardiman and Henty wanted to see more design and they wanted to show how underrepresented designers were exploring their ideas in physical form. From the first show in May 2013, the future of the exhibition is already cemented into the 2016 calendar. Which raises the question: rather than what is OBJECT FUTURE but what can it be? read more... http://o-f.com.au email... [email protected]  The Nescafe Azera Project gave three designers 150 coffee plungers and two weeks to re purpose and up cycle their materials into a new creation based on the theme of evolution. The Mechanical Flower Species is a collection comprising of 4 man made flora, each with their own quasi natural super powers, as an homage to Darwin's "origin of species" which popularized the very concept.
Click here to vote on facebook in the peoples choice award. Read more... http://www.seatonmckeon.com/the-mechanical-flower-species.html For the Nescafe Azera Project I set about transforming the coffee plunger components into a new collection of man made flora, each with their own quasi natural super powers. Get close and personal with a sample of The Mechanical Flower Species. through the interactive 3D model below you can Peek around using the left click as well as Pan and Zoom using the scroll wheel.   Alfred Magazine Rack is the result of this creative partnership between seaton.mckeon and Australian brand DesignByThem. The rack is truly a minimalist utility item that is as functional as it is stylish. The central handle gives it an inherent strength and ensures it is transportable between spaces, indoors and out. Made from powder-coated aluminium, Alfred is available in black, white, blue and yellow; modern and versatile colours that represent the fun, playful aesthetic DesignByThem is known for.
Read more... http://www.designbythem.com/ http://www.contemporist.com/2014/03/31/alfred-magazine-rack-by-seaton-mckeon-and-designbythem/#more-86760 http://www.trendsnow.net/2014/04/alfred-magazine-rack.html 3 designers compete over 2 weeks to turn 150 coffee plungers into something extraordinary.
read more... http://nescafe.com.au/azera-project/
Story written by Katie Rorison ( Courtesy of home design magazine) Captivated by the simple and unexpected in everyday life, industrial designer Seaton McKeon is primarily driven by product format and function, where design innovation is geared towards providing the “good life” for consumers. “Design is responsible for the reality of our everyday existence,” says Seaton. “As a designer I’m continually questioning how products can provide, communicate and facilitate.”
After studying industrial design at the University of New South Wales, Seaton worked in collaboration with leading Australian design group Bluesky as a junior freelance designer. Gaining experience across industries such as retail, advertising, medicine and aviation, Seaton describes the work as a “massive learning curve”. His broad skill set is exemplified through his diverse product designs that focus on functionality and engineering, as well as incorporating streamlined aesthetics. The Blade Workstation system designed with ThinkingWorks (where Seaton is now an in-house industrial designer) and distributed through Stylecraft, has been Seaton’s most popular collaboration as the market for contemporary integrated workplaces expands. Growing up in the Southern Highlands of NSW, Seaton appreciates the beauty of the natural environment. However, it’s his fascination with modern architecture that is particularly prevalent in his design style. “Modern Movements in Architecture by Charles Jenks and From Bauhaus to Our House by Tom Wolfe really opened up the idea of the ‘machine aesthetic’ for me,” says Seaton. This aesthetic is seen within Seaton’s creation, Orwell, which combines hard-tissue engineering with selective laser sintering to create regenerative tooth implants, and his interactive touch-screen shower for the future. Seaton is careful not to disregard colour, which he describes as an area that is both “exciting and overwhelming”, whereas texture, he believes, has got to be “relative to application”. Seaton’s furniture favourites include Marc Newson’s Orgone chair for Löffler and Per Lutken’s glass work for Holmegaard. Seaton recently won the Northern Lights Design Competition with his Press Pendant design and this has spurred him on to continue working with furniture and consumer products for the near future. Ultimately, Seaton hopes the bigger picture will involve work with spaceships, yachts, biologically active products and in the medical industry. He believes working with a range of products and like-minded manufacturers is going to be the long-term key to finding his own “good life”. Read more... http://www.blueskydesigngroup.com.au/ http://thinking.info/ http://stylecraft.com.au/ Photography by Bethan Mooney ( Courtesy of Broadsheet)
Desert Designs and Siberia Records officially launched their concept shop on Regent Street Chippendale this month. The Concept store brings together Dan Stricker, Midnight Juggernauts drummer and director of Siberian Records with Sydney based fashion label Desert Designs, headed up by Jedda-Daisy Culley and Caroline Sundt-Wels. The store is located near Freda's and White Rabbit and incorporates a studio, listening station, and shop front. Read more... http://www.broadsheet.com.au/sydney/fashion/article/siberian-desert-cityhttp://thethousands.com.au/sydney/shop/desert-designs-and-siberia-records-concept-store http://www.pedestrian.tv/news/fashion/colour-your-wardrobe-with-desert-designs-winter
This "swatch watch" of street furniture experiments with separating the traditional bollard into two halves and creating a catalogue of different possibilities. Recycled plastic is a lightweight and durable material which provides colour bursts alongside the traditional look and feel of cast aluminium. The FLEXI bollard system allows every simple bollard to become portable, promoting the urban landscape to be reconfigured with new colours or different function as the seasons and needs of the city or community change
Read more... http://www.howwecreate.org/stories/manufacturing/seaton-mckeon Functional and graphically iconic the transparent Nexus Hanger has been laser cut from optical grade polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) and each hanger is hand finished to stringent quality controls. With exceptional weathering and impact resistance properties they are suitable for both indoor and outdoor applications. The Nexus Hangers are also suited to retail applications because their transparency visually promotes the garments they hold.
Read more... http://desktopmag.com.au/project-wall/meet-the-nexus-coat-hangers-reinvented/#.Uuc1mBB9IdU http://blacklognz.blogspot.com.au/2013/10/blacklog-editorial-63-chris-fatseas.html The smart.shower is an interactive screen and shower head. The streamlined unit hangs from the ceiling slightly hovering above the floor. The design integrates the cutting edge of capacitive touchscreen technology with real everyday showering habits. Technology often takes us out of the moment. We find ourselves reading tweets in a meeting and posting a status at the dinner table. The ambition for the smart.shower was to focus the person on their present showering experience, for pleasure, relaxation, the environment, waking up, and getting clean.
Read more...http://www.seatonmckeon.com/smartshower.html |
