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From the editor

As I put this issue together, it struck me just how palpably fun and joyful a time the designers must have had while creating the projects that are featured.

At the offices of Johnson Partners, YSG has flipped the script on the conventional corporate highrise headquarters to create a workplace that looks like a James Bond set and feels like the inviting home of a discerning tastemaker. At Monash Robotics Lab by Studio Bright, what could easily have become a generic “high-tech” space is instead a striking, welcoming yet entirely functional workshop for both human and droid. Meanwhile, at community radio station, bar and restaurant Hope Street Radio, architect Peter Frederick Cole has let his inner child free. Cole and artist Alice McIntosh hand-drew playful sketches on the walls of the venue, reminiscing about their own childhood restaurant visits, where crayons and paper tablecloths were provided. While these projects are distinctly different, just like the many other interiors in this issue, they each embody a sense of joyful making and expression.

Calum Hurley is another designer having fun on the job. One look at the pieces by this Adelaide-based emerging furniture and object designer and it’s clear that colour, character and vivacity personify his work. And similarly, in the Rekkan / Tamuwu / Nyinakat: (sit/sit down) exhibition, Indigenous textile artists and South Australian furniture designers have collaborated to create a jubilant but thoughtful collection of chairs.

The work in this issue is the result of designers relishing in the brief, expressing an exuberant idea, and having fun along the way.

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