The Powerhouse Museum continues to bring the arty goodness to Sydney’s heart with brand-new exhibition Hybrid. Taking a look at what homes might look like ten years from now – because seriously, we’re so over 2020 already – it promises to be a forward-thinking dream for Grand Designs watchers.
Part of Sydney Design Week 2020, the show has been curated by creative director and esteemed writer design Stephen Todd, design editor at the Australian Financial Review. He tasked nine design studios to work alongside researchers and practitioners from a host of alternative industries, together brainstorming new ways to tackle the urban lifestyle for our domestic futures. They were asked to look at our new normal, from the climate crisis and subsequent longer, scarier bushfire seasons to our current global predicament. Taking a look at the fascinating results, there’s nary a jet pack nor hoverboard in sight.
The team includes innovative Australian industrial designer Adam Goodrum working alongside furnituremaker Ella Williams, and Dutch immersive art and design duo Golnar Roshan and Ruben de la Rive Box – aka Rive Roshan – collaborating with local spatial designer Emmaline Cox.
Bringing wellbeing and heart to where the home is, the works range from lighting that emulates the great outdoors inside to stools made from recycled plastic. Thirroul-based designer and lecturer at the University of New South Wales Art & Design Trent Jansen has re-teamed with Nyikina man and leatherworker Johnny Nargoodah. We’re particularly keen to see what they come up with after their previous collaboration, ‘Ngumu Janka Warnti (All Made from Rubbish) High Back Chair’ (pictured), which was stunning.
Todd argues the way we live and how we experience our homes has been radically altered, so he wanted to see new solutions that think outside the box. “The primary role of the home in the 21st century is to be a sanctuary, a respite from the clamour of daily life, the ultimate refuge in these times of crisis,” he says. “For the Hybrid commission, we asked creatives outside of the field of design to create domestic artefacts for our future.”
With the intriguing exhibition running from September 12 to February 28, you can mainline your designs for life right here.
Want more inspiring art? Check out Fijian-Australian show Bittersweet.
