Saturday, 11 Jan 2025

The [Festive] Edit: A round-up of favourite design gifts

InteriorsAu editor Cassie Hansen gathers together her favourite design items that have crossed her desk in November 2024.


The [Festive] Edit: A round-up of favourite design gifts
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For this month's roundup, I'm feeling festive and doing things a little differently, selecting gifts for each of the seven members of Architecture Media's editorial team. For the purposes of this story, I'm choosing to live in a world where the cost of living crisis doesn't exist and the budget is infinite.

Dancer light by Coco Flip

This one goes out to our editorial director, team head honcho, Katelin Butler. She loves a neutral palette, a stripe and is fond of a minimalist ceramic number so I think I've nailed it with this one. This new collection of lighting from Coco Flip in collaboration with Melbourne ceramicist Belinda Wiltshire includes table lamps, wall lights and ceiling mounts. The collection takes inspiration from the Triadisches ballet developed by Oskar Schlemmer, who was part of the Bauhaus design movement in the 1920s. Each light is hand thrown by Belinda in her Preston studio using mid-fire clay. Three black iron oxide stripes are applied, giving the light its bold and classic look. I think a little table lamp would look right at home at Katelin's place.

La De Da candle holder by Nightworks

Houses editor and my desk buddy Alexa Kempton is the lucky recipient of this candle holder from Nightworks. If you've been paying attention, I featured the La De Da pendant light in the September product roundup and now the folks at Nightworks have used the rippled design to create a special stocking filler - a candle holder hand cast from bronze or zinc (and brass to come). I hope it brings a bit of zen to Alexa's day.

Tivoli Audio Songbook Max

Georgia Birks, our Design Speaks curator and my fellow Corinthians connoisseur, gets this one under her tree this year (metaphorically speaking). GB and I have the exact same taste in music (i.e. Beyonce Giselle Knowles Carter) so why not blast said music on one of Tivoli Audio's new Songbox Max speakers. This Bluetooth speaker does all the things a top-of-the-line speaker does, but what I love most is its 70s/80s/90s retro-futuristic nostalgic boombox look. This would fit perfectly atop GB's shoulder as she struts around the office.

Hay Sobremesa tablecloth

Our office foodie and avant-garde diner is Emily Wong, editor of Landscape Architecture Australia. She knows of the very coolest restaurant openings and chef pop-ups long before we do. She's also a great cook so I hope she'll like the Hay Sobremesa tablecloth I have gifted her in this chimerical scenario. A collab between Hay and artist Laila Gohar, this tablecloth is joyful and playful featuring embroided motifs by Gohar. Since budget is no issue, I'll also throw in some dinnerware from the collection too.

Bruce Rowe Alter sculpture

Architecture Australia subscription

Melbourne Place gift voucher

I've saved the best for last - this one goes out to our team's MVP, associate editor of ArchitectureAu, Adair Winder. You're not supposed to have favourites in the team, but if I did, let's just say it wouldn't not be Adair. She's hard-working, she cares about what she does and she's got bucketloads of talent. So, to cap off a year of daily deadlines for Adair, I'm gifting her (again, figuratively and imaginatively; can you imagine how much money I've spent so far?) a gift voucher to stay at the new Melbourne Place hotel by Kennedy Nolan, where she can put her feet up in the exquisite rooms, dine at Marmelo and enjoy a few well-earned end-of-year drinks at Mid Air.

Merry Christmas, editorial team. You're the best there is.

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