Design Factory

As Swinburne University takes note of Finland and the design education of Aalto University, dean of Design, Ken Friedman, makes a concerted effort with his department to not mimic the ‘Living Lab’, but rather to create awareness of a new path in design.

This year, Swinburne University became the first Australian university to create a ‘Living Lab’ or Design Factory as they call it: a multidisciplinary, purpose-built design space that will include advanced workshop and prototyping facilities. The Design Factory aims to differentiate itself from studio-based design programs by focusing on hands-on, real world design problems within an interdisciplinary environment.

Thirty years ago, Swinburne’s design centre was considered cutting edge for its time. It was, essentially, a design studio within the TAFE system (Swinburne achieved university status in June 1992), where students enrolled themselves to learn professional/trade skills. But when Professor Ken Friedman, a man known to pioneer design innovation, was appointed dean of design in January 2008, he decided that the curriculum was “good, but not good enough.”

“The students weren’t getting the benefit of genuine industry experience and research focus. I wanted something better,” says Professor Friedman. With the purpose of increasing the calibre of Swinburne’s design curriculum, Friedman began a benchmarking study of the world’s best university design schools – looking at facilities, processes and curriculum. In September 2010, Friedman paid a visit to the Aalto Design Factory, the Living Lab at Helsinki’s Aalto University.

“I was blown away by what I saw there,” he says. “The Living Lab brings together end-users, researchers and companies in the early stage of product development to experiment with concepts and their potential value. This engages all the vital factors in a process that leads to breakthrough innovations for society, businesses and their customers.”

It’s an environment that encourages user testing in a living environment – so there are plenty of first-time installations. For instance, some of the furniture can charge mobile devices The new Design Factory at Swinburne University will be part of the Advanced Manufacturing Centre on the main campus at Hawthorn.

If you come to Aalto’s Design Factory, you never know whom you’ll meet. The CEO of Nokia occasionally drops by for the two-Euro networking breakfasts it holds twice a week. Here, face-to-face interactions breed collaboration, which is essentially synonymous with innovation. Swinburne has now adopted the Living Lab model as its own, working collaboratively with Aalto University.

Announced in August this year, the Design Factory’s temporary home is on the Prahran campus, but only until the full facilities at the Hawthorn campus are ready for the proposed completion date in 2013. Nevertheless, students are already working at the Aalto Design Factory. In September, three industrial design students travelled to Helsinki for one month to take part in the internationally recognised Product Development Project program.

Like their Helsinki counterpart, the premises of the Australian Design Factory are admirable. It’s a place where students come together from design, economics, engineering and technology to ‘work on real problems that create real answers to make a difference in the world’. They’ll have the freedom and resources to create genuine solutions for client needs, from ideation and proof-of-concept to prototyping and testing.

One may ask: ‘Why would big business or companies want to spend money on a student team?’ Friedman explains. “It’s huge value for them. Even if it’s expensive, it’s not comparable to in-house costs,” he says. “They can limit their research and design spending by giving it to the Design Factory and receiving an educated solution.” In essence, they’ll be sponsors who will gain access to design teams of six to 10 students – their very own A-Team to combat their design problem.

As Swinburne Universit y takes note of Finland and the design education of Aalto Universit y, dean of Design, Ken Friedman, makes a concerted effort with his department to not mimic the ‘Living Lab’, but rather to create awareness of a new path in design.

At Aalto, there are always more companies than student teams, which means the students have their pick of the project crop. It’s unclear whether Swinburne will be able to attract the same attention, at least to begin with, but the program shift looks promising.

Australia still strongly depends on its rich primary industries, but so did Finland until recently. In recent years, however, Finland’s focus has shifted to innovation instead, with great results. The Otaniemi area of Finland – the neighbourhood around Aalto Design Factory – has the top patents per capita statistics for Europe and the overall productivity growth has been on the rise, not to mention employment.

Critics may also question the presence of business in education. Are universities operating more like big corporations? This issue warrants a wider discussion, but Professor Friedman makes it clear that, just like Helsinki, students will be the priority. There are no guarantees for companies that they’ll get what they want. “Sometimes the companies will never develop the project further than this, but they value what they learn – new methods of innovation, processes, new ways of assembly, logistics. That’s real value for any business,” says Friedman.

Like most deans, Professor Friedman wants Swinburne to top the charts in prestigious university surveys such as the Shanghai, Times Higher Education and QS World rankings. Universities are driven by these rankings, after all, and rankings with the research performances they validate garners philanthropic support, justifies government funding and attracts the brightest students both locally and internationally.

The Design Factory also adds another dimension, in both physical and philosophical form, to Swinburne’s existing strategy: positioning Swinburne as a research-based institution with real global impact. Friedman says that many universities claim to have significantly more impact than they really do. He wants to measure impact in a way that is visible and able to be qualified.

“Impact is when you can actually examine evidence and learn from the design process and the research around it; for example, when someone adapts or applies the design method to their work,” says Friedman. “Somebody might see something done in the construction phase – a method or process – that they can use. When people in your profession or outside your profession actually use what you do, that’s ‘impact’.”

So what makes a good designer in 2011? Professor Friedman says that the design profession is a contemporary field growing within the university. “Having few historical roots in the philosophical tradition deeper than the last few decade , we have yet to shape a clear understanding of the nature of design,” he argues.

According to Friedman, in today’s world, designers need to act more like lawyers, engineers and doctors, in the way that these professions make their decisions. “These are all professions where people have to solve problems for other people. If you want to say design is about creativity and intuition, our kids don’t lack for that, but you must not make decisions that are based merely on intuition,” he says.

“When you jump into the crucible of the design process, you need a foundation of knowledge. It’s not just a matter of taste,” says Friedman. “In the Middle Ages, when we were building cathedrals or bridges, we tested them by seeing whether they stood up and it was common for them to fall down. We can’t afford the ‘see if it breaks’ test today. Design is a serious profession, and millions of dollars are at stake on some of the decisions we make.”

In this regard, Friedman’s goal is to send designers out into the world who are able to make good decisions when they create or make things – for there to be positive consequences for all of us. He makes the argument that today, designers, in addition to their civic responsibilities, have unique responsibilities.

“The choices they make are capable of making huge differences in the world,” says Friedman. “Over the 10-year period following graduation, the attrition
rate for graduated designers is 90 percent. I’d say that’s not good enough,” he adds. “We want to give people the skills and habits of mind, the ability to analyse, construct, synthesise, create and have the critical skills to help them live a responsible life in society.”

We could surmise that, for Professor Friedman, being a good designer is someone who can make good decisions from a critical foundation of knowledge. Of course, designers in Australia face their own unique challenges. Industrial designer, Justin Hutchinson, who taught product design/engineering at Swinburne from 2005 to 2010, contends that, as an industry, industrial design has never really reflected the needs of the Australian consumer industry, as products designed for mass manufacture require a much larger population to justify the tooling.

Friedman wants design education to be grounded in current contexts – global warming principle among them – along with emerging technologies in the digital and nanotechnology fields. “Frankly, we think that the world can no longer afford to be going the way it’s going. We have economic crises, we have ecological crises,” he says. “Anything that people can do to add value and to create new ways forward is what is needed.”

Perhaps the question should not be about whether the course will prepare graduates for the real world, but whether the real world has the necessary conditions for innovation. Some could argue that, currently, the Australian market is simply not big or diverse enough to encourage such innovations. The mining industry may be booming, but manufacturing is vanishing, thus creating a split-level economy. “We’re at a different phase in terms of economic evolution. I have a suspicion we may wind up with different kinds of partnerships with companies,” adds Friedman. “What does that mean? I can’t really say.”

Hutchinson, who currently runs a mentoring program at Abbotsford Convent, in Melbourne, says that Australia’s export market has also suffered due to the large distances separating us from the current two largest consumers: Europe and the US. “This has also been compounded by the world’s power-based elites fuelling disparity in the markets and thus channelling manufacturing into Asia to help build local economic prosperity. Industrial design has, therefore, never gained a footing, while interior design is site-specific and contextual,so it has been warranted.”

The current pressure on local manufacturers to keep up with the rising Australian dollar is also a key challenge for the design industry. But the serious challenge for design institutions like Swinburne is to be agile enough to keep up with the changes emerging as we transition from a post-industrial economy to a more knowledge-based society, valuing sustainability and information over excessive material gain.

As more Australian businesses go to Asia for manufacturing, the design industry will need to evolve to survive. The argument could be made that, rather than modelling ourselves on our European counterparts, we should be focusing on how we can create new synergies with our Asian neighbours. Only time will tell whether the Design Factory will work in an Australian context or whether it will produce good designers that are capable of changing the industry.

Yes, it’s a great response from Swinburne University if it works in tandem with the Australian economy, but it can’t do it on its own. The question we should be asking of our universities, design programs, government and industries, is not whether we can produce good product designers, but rather what we can do to keep them here in Australia.

Photo: Sinclair Knight Merz (SKM) Architects and Engineers with London’s Wilkinson Eyre Architects are commissioned to realise this facility.

As published in (inside) Australian Interior Design Magazine.

Test of Time: Profile on Daniel Barbera

Daniel Barbera creates furniture not for the sake of ‘originality ’ or ego, but because he aims to employ logical function in the service of art. His work is designed not for fickle markets, but to stand the test of time.

As a designer, 35-year-old Daniel Barbera is patient. Where other designers might rush to push a product to market, Barbera quietly and diligently refines a product until he feels absolutely sure it’s ready to not only hold its own in a fickle market, but that it’s ready to stand the test of time. Since 2003, his understated but impressive designs have earned him a reputation for an impeccable sense of quality and craftsmanship.

One of his latest designs is the Bronze table (available in 1200-millimetre and 1600-millimetre diameters), which is a testament to the value of Barbera’s ‘slow design’ philosophy. The table was first conceived in 2008, inspired by his interest in ancient history and timeless materials. But because Barbera wanted to perfect the production process, he had it on the backburner until its launch at the 2010 Fringe Furniture exhibition, in Melbourne.

Available with a timber or marble top with a cast solid bronze frame, the table is a slight departure from the materials he traditionally uses (mainly steel and timber), but it remains true to Barbera’s design ethos of producing things that have built-in longevity. It’s an opulent piece that can be described as Clash of the Titans meets Donald Judd. “It blurs the line between what is old and what is new,” he explains. “Because of the materials, it can fit into both a contemporary or classic setting. It’s great to design a piece of furniture with longevity that is timeless.”

Barbera says he wants the Bronze table, and the Bronze coat stand, to be a style and construct that will weather with the ages and, as he jokes, perhaps even survive a nuclear bomb. “I want to build something so that when someone buys my product, they are already thinking about passing it down to their children, even if they haven’t had them!”

The Melbourne designer focuses on “logical design outcomes,” he says, a term he uses to explain why designs can often resemble one another. “As designers, we use the same reasoning, the same logic at times, and what often happens is that we can end up with similar outcomes.” He admits that there’s an inextricable tension that’s attached to this idea. “As a creator, we want to feel some level of originality.”

With some very high standards, Barbera is only interested in designs that can be fabricated using low-volume runs. His process is based on working with old industrial techniques and craftsmen, merged with some of today’s enabling technologies, to deliver something he deems perfect. As he did for the Rouse table design, he’s more than willing to spend his own money on producing extra prototypes if he is not happy with the proportions. “I’ve always been self funded, and invest a lot of time and money back into developing new products.”

Currently, Barbera devotes a lot of time to bespoke furniture for clients. He uses a hospitality analogy to describe the difference between selling existing designs and custom-making furniture. “As a chef, you can work to a set menu and things just run smoothly, but you can get bored. On the other hand, if you have a customer who asks you to make up a dish, you can cut up too many ingredients and end up with a very messy kitchen. Both have their benefits and challenges.”

When not working with architects and interior designers, Barbera teaches furniture design at Swinburne University. “I like working with students,” he says. “They keep my mind fresh… I often get very logical – whatever I design needs to be built – but it’s sometimes important to think of the ‘what ifs’ to push things.” He also says that wearing many hats can help. “We can draw on our different interests and skills like a Venn diagram.”

But, despite Barbera’s self-proclaimed bent to process-orientation, he yearns for a more artistic existence. “Ideally, I’d like to work like an artist, but be a designer…” he says. His plans are to finish the year off with all his current projects completed, and then attempt to take three months off to put things to paper. Asked whether he considers his proposed time off to be work, he replies with a grin, “Absolutely, it’s an incubation period for my ideas.”

As published in (inside) Australian Design Review

@ASecretSymphony with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra has engaged me to execute their @ASecretSymphony social media project on Twitter and Facebook (happening right now). Presented by the City of Melbourne, the aim of Secret Symphony series is to showcase the MSO in a different setting.  The MSO performs for many thousands of people, of all ages, throughout the year and in many different venues. Secret Symphony, by way of being held in unusual spaces in the heart of the city and at differing times, is designed to attract not only existing audiences but also those who might not hear the work of the Orchestra very often. In response to this, I’ve developed a social media plan and content to attract and keep people to the @ASecretSymphony SM channels. Through a series of clues, followers can guess the secret location and be rewarded with an incredible performance in an unlikely setting. Growing the account from scratch, I’ve passed my benchmark of 250 followers in only two days of its official launch. And no, I can’t reveal the secret – not just yet.

Follow @ASecretSymphony or visit the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Facebook page to find out more about the MSO’s Secret Symphony project.

MSO Secret Symphony on Twitter Counter.com

Eating & Drinking Melbourne 2012

My bar, cafe and restaurant reviews appear in the new Eating and Drinking Melbourne 2012 guide. Published by Hardie Grant. Release date: September 1, 2011.

About Eating & Drinking Melbourne:

For the first time ever, Eating & Drinking Melbourne brings you over 700 of the best restaurants, nifty bars and cheap treats.

Our team of dedicated – and slightly bloated – reviewers has gobbled and guzzled its way through more than 700 bars, pubs, cafes and restaurants, to bring you this annual guidebook to Melbourne’s best venues.

Eating and Drinking Melbourne is like a Melway for your tummy! Whether you’re on the grid or on the outskirts of the city you won’t go hungry in Melbourne-town.

Divided into area chapters with sections on restaurants, cheap and cheerfuls, and bars, this guide is as comprehensive as Wikipedia – without the boring bits.

All venues have been carefully selected to represent a cross-section of each of Melbourne’s distinct locales – from the ‘burbs to the bright lights of the city – with casual and schmick options in every area.

From Elizabeth street’s Afghan, Indian, Japanese, Thai, Malaysian and Chinese feasts for all under $10 to Melbourne’s dominant culinary empires of local celebrity chefs, including Shannon Bennett, Frank Camorra, George Calombaris, and entrepreneur Con Christopoulos, while not forgetting the coffee houses of Salvatore Malatesta (St Ali), which can be found all over town.

Melbourne’s bar scene is now frequented by an increasing number of boutique breweries, but beyond local beer and cider, Melburnians are also being treated to the finest whiskies and tequilas, not to mention laboriously handmade cocktails which remain as fashionable as ever.

To find out more about Eating & Drinking Melbourne, visit the Facebook page.

Your chance to win!

Thanks to Hardie Grant publishing, I have two copies of Eating & Drinking Melbourne (valued at RRP $29.95) to give away. For your chance to win, tell me about your favourite Melbourne bar, cafe or restaurant. The best two answers will receive a copy of the book. Winners will be notified by email by 2 September 2011. Enter by commenting on this blog post.

Good luck!

Where They Create

As published in (inside) magazine, June 2011.

The visual studies of a curious and wise photographer can be both revealing and full of intrigue. Paul Barbera focuses his lens on interiors, but for other reasons than just pure aesthetics. The place of intimate and creative process is what he seeks. Now having entered more than 90 creative studios across the world, Barbera has prepared a tangible feast – sharing his photographic perspectives with us in a major way.

An assignment cancellation in Milan was the catalyst for Where They Create, an intriguing visual ‘blog’ and personal project of Melbourne-based photographer Paul Barbera – who has spent the last 15 years documenting creative studios around the world. The body of work is a privileged look into the inner working lives of designers, architects, musicians and all those who work in that ubiquitous field of what we consider the ‘creative’ realm. The photo series showcases the interiors of over 90 studios, including that of Opening Ceremony, Olaf Breuning, Wallpaper, Jeremiah Goodman, Cyril Duval and Clive Wilkinson, to name just a few.
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A product of Barbera’s compulsion to document his friends in their studios, the collection of candid still-life images ultimately caught the eye of a renowned Dutch book publisher – known mainly for putting out Frame, Mark and Elephant magazines. Agreeing to an interesting proposal put forth last year, Barbera will now transform his blog into a new book project come September of this year.
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But back to its origin. The impetus for the blog came in the European summer of 2009, when Barbera was in Amsterdam working on a book commission for an interior designer. The job was cancelled just a week before it was scheduled to start and Barbera found himself at a loose end. Finishing up a small photography job, he decided to meet his friend, the artist Jebila Wolfe-Okongwu, in Rome.
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“On that trip he [Jebila] asked me to shoot his studio which I had done many times before,” says Barbera. “Funny thing was that I had been documenting studios for over 15 years. The images just sat on the bottom of my hard drive. With some time up my sleeve, I started the site, and a good friend Michael Nicolaci helped me come up with the name… ‘Where They Create’ just made sense.”
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Shooting creative spaces is, of course, not a new concept, and Barbera is clear to make this distinction. “I do not think it’s unique, I think it’s my take on studios, not really an idea so much, more me documenting the spaces around me.” In over a decade, Barbera has paid tribute to the creative friends around him, using his camera to accentuate what he loves best about them as professionals and their respective work.

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“I am always so surprised by how many people say yes,” he says. “I guess everybody loves to have their space documented.” Though this may be true, the fact that Barbera himself is a creative certainly doesn’t hurt. Add to this his sense of humour and ability to relate to people, and it’s not surprising that he has managed to gain access to even the most private of creative studios.
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“I feel at home very quickly,” he explains, “I’ll sit down and just look around; sometimes I might even stop and start working on my laptop or diary. I feel inspired to work on my own a bit; ideas comes to me so it feels ok to work in other people’s spaces as I feel part of it.”
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A true diplomat, Barbera cannot think of any one studio as a particular highlight. “Every space offers up something I did not expect,” he explains. “An old fax machine holding the door open… or that fact that Washington, Irving, Dickens and Thackeray lived in the same building as the artist Cyril Duval… to the view of a harbour in Hong Kong that can only be seen from that one building.”
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As far as favourite assignments go, Barbera cites his Vogue Living shoot for the 2010 Milan Design Week as one of many. On this particular job, he got to meet his heroes Tom Dixen, Missoni, the Campana Brothers and Tetsuya. But another stand out was the Grazia editorial he did in 2006 on the legendary industrial designer – the late Achille Castiglioni – during which he met Castiglioni’s wife Irma. “It was really lovely to meet her. She had such great style,” he says.

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As a photographer, travel is a natural tool of the trade. It’s where Barbera does much of his work and where he draws much of his inspiration. In the past few years, Barbera has lived a freelancer’s dream, clocking frequent-flyer points between Melbourne and Amsterdam and travelling to all four corners of the globe on assignments.
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But of all destinations, the Melbourne photographer offers the Eastern Bloc city of Warsaw as one of his favourites. “I love the Polish people,” he declares. “There are a lot of misconceptions that there’s not a lot going on there – but there is – and I want to show that.” His photographs of Poland reveal his high regard for the country as an interesting focal point and of course its creative inhabitants.
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Like Warsaw, Barbera explains, the online project offers him the privilege of highlighting aspects of a culture and people he finds interesting, and ultimately the chance to debunk some stereotypes. Where They Create also builds a compelling case for Melbourne as a thriving creative hub still, rather than what some might see as a ‘nascent’ design city. Remarkable photographs of several Melbourne-based studios, including Marc Pascal, 3 Deep Design, Robert Doble, Chris Connell and Nicholas Jones, seem to clearly affirm this notion.
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When asked about his home turf Barbera offers a climate theory to explain why Melbourne is such a creative city. “People in colder climates tend to be creative because there’s not much else to do,” he says. “I also think people outside the centre tend to over compensate. Unfortunately, because we are not at the epicentre, things can be missed… Of course we have our Marc Newsons, but generally people just think of the outdoors when they think of Australia.”

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As a reaction to the more glamorous and often over-stylised shoots, which he’s often commissioned to do, Barbera is sure to have each studio for his personal blog appear in its natural and everyday state – whether sparse and minimal or cluttered disorder. In a series of beautifully articulated shots, Barbera shares with the public every type of studio out there – from the chaotic creativity of graphic design duo Tin&Ed, recipients of the Qantas Spirit of Youth Awards, to the understated black and white avant-garde stylings of fashion designers, Alpha60.

As a photographer and creative surveyor himself, he also likes to use the blog to publicise the good work of others. “There’s a lot going on in our own backyard, and that’s what I want to present to the world,” explains Barbera. ”I’m proud to be Australian – to be from Melbourne. There’s a lot going on here and as a photographer, I can accentuate this.”
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Along this vein, Barbera recently shot Republic of Everyone to highlight the Sydney studio’s work in sustainability strategy. “I like them because they are trying to change the world, a little bit at a time.” Documenting non-commercial projects is nothing new to Barbera, who from 2003 to 2006 worked in poor areas of India and Peru, documenting the humanitarian efforts of Dutch NGO Solidaridad.

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Those who follow Barbera’s work may have also encountered his other, less public, blog – Love Lost. It’s a photographic series that depicts women in soft, romantic and intimate poses. He is reluctant to talk about it, explaining that unlike Where They Create, Love Lost is a project of a very personal nature.
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Like many bloggers out there, Barbera’s success has been helped by social media trends. And he fully acknowledges this. “I feel blogs get me as excited as magazines these days,” he says. “I find so much great work online… the digital arena has democratised photography and anyone can do it now. If the work is being seen and inspires others, then it’s a success!”
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If site statistics are anything to go by, then Where They Create’s 15,000 unique hits a month seem to echo this sentiment. Later this year, Barbera will head to New York to conquer new creative terrain. In the meantime, he’ll continue to divide his time between editorial and commercial work, along with his other personal projects. Although not entirely content to rest on his proverbial laurels quite yet, Barbera is appreciative that his projects have gained such attention. “I am happy with my projects, but I do have another 25 odd ideas I would love to start…” Just going by the first three here, it’s safe to say any of those 25 odd ideas would be interesting to look at.

End.

Rocking the Tectonic Plates

As published in the Voice, The Age, January 2011.

Anyone who has ever attended one of Dr Mark Quigley’s lectures would be forgiven for mistaking him for some kind of rockstar. The popularity of Dr Quigley’s lectures, often overcrowded, reveals that there is a genuine interest among the public to understand earthquakes, and arguably, a thirst for the science that underpins these seismic phenomena.

Once described as a ‘geo rockstar’ by media, alumnus Mark Quigley (DSc 2007) has been a lecturer in the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, for over two years, and also gives public lectures on earthquakes, a hot topic in New Zealand, a country which is affected by the movements of both the Australian and Pacific tectonic plates.

His unusual hybrid accent is a by-product of extensive international experience. Born in Ontario, Canada, Dr Quigley completed his Bachelor of Science at the University of Toronto (BSc 1999), his Masters degree at the University of Mexico, Albuquerque (MSc (EarthSc) 2002), and then his gained PhD at the University of Melbourne. Dr Quigley’s thesis research was conducted in the Canadian Arctic, and for work, he has travelled to the Virgin Mountains, the Grand Canyon, Beijing, Hong Kong, Tibet, East Timor, Iran, and Mexico, to name just a few.

Dr Quigley’s obsession with rocks came from a desire for global adventure. “I always wanted to work outdoors, be an adventurer and travel,” he says. “I had this geology lecturer come in one time, and he told me some crazy adventures he had in the jungle and that sounded cool. So, I got really interested in digging dirt.”

Dr Quigley is a specialist in active tectonics and geomorphology, a field of study within geology concerned with the structures within the lithosphere of the earth. In simpler terms, he is in the business of diagnosing  arthquakes. “I basically study the processes by which the earth forms in response to the movements of tectonic plates…the collisional and extensional processes,” says Dr Quigley. “In order to understand that, you need to know when earthquakes have occurred”, he says, “looking at faults through time and forensic investigations.”

He was at the scene of the September 4 Canterbury quake in Christchurch. The fault that ruptured caused an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.1. The scientist attracted widespread media attention for his expertise and reportage of the event. During this period, Dr Quigley made numerous TV and radio appearances and appeared in countless newspaper articles across the globe. He even met up with New Zealand Prime Minister John Key and Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker on several occasions to talk science.

Technology has also contributed significantly to advancing our understanding of earthquakes. During the Christchurch quake, the GeoNet website, a geological hazard monitoring system, received a sharp increase in web hits. “People can get really tuned into science,” he says. “There’s a tremendous amount of interest.”

He cautions that it’s not always about more information. “When people have more information at their fingertips, and don’t have the necessary scientific background to synthesise this, it can occasionally create unnecessary anxieties.”

The potential confusion creates an opportunity for scientists to play a role in educating the public. “It’s never been more obvious how important earth science is than now,” says Dr Quigley. While he waits for the next big hit, he’ll continue to supervise his seven PhD students and seven Masters students, and teach nine different  undergraduate geology classes. On top of this, he’ll write scientific papers and research grants, attend university events, speak at public lectures and educate the public on when the next big quake is most likely to occur.

While Dr Quigley may not quite lead a rockstar lifestyle, he certainly does deliver an impressive performance, worthy of the media hyperbole and academic adulation.

More information about Mark Quigley and his research can be found on his website  www.drquigs.com

Hide & Seek Melbourne

My reviews have been published in the new Hide & Seek for Melbourne.

One for the record

Nobody likes a show off. Which is one reason LongPlay has plenty of pals – hidden behind a veil of venetian blinds and frosted glass, it doesn’t feel the need to brag about its abundant charms. Stepping inside reveals an understated, old-school-Italian-like interior with a lovely timber bar, inviting booths and, of course, LPs supplying the soundtrack. Bar stools suggest you prop up at the bar with the help of the great beer and wine selection. There’s also a modest menu of yummy light meals such as cocktail lamb cutlets and meatballs. The real treat, though, is the tiny 30-seat movie theatre out the back (hidden, of course), where you can catch classic films from time to time.

A dime a dozen yum cha

We have some big news to share people, so you better take a seat. You know what yum cha is, right? If you’re not already acquainted with this dining experience, here’s a primer: it’s the practice of drinking tea and eating a variety of sweet and savoury dishes, often served via a procession of food carts. As you can imagine, this gravy train of deliciousness can get quite pricey, as it’s damn near impossible to practise restraint. So what if we told you that there’s a place that serves all-you-can-eat yum cha for just over $15? Yep, it’s the truth – we’re not trying to get a rize out of you (bad pun, sorry). Rize is a yum cha utopia that will serve you, at this ridiculous price, till your stomach’s content, if not bursting. (Not happy with just this major feat, Rize is also a barbecue restaurant.) Within minutes of ordering from the à la carte menu you’ll be feasting on seafood dumplings, mini roast-pork buns, crispy spring rolls, Singapore noodles, custard egg buns, won tons, deep-fried prawn toast and other tasty morsels. Repeat once, twice or as many times as your belt buckle will allow. There are no gimmicks or catches, but there are rules to Rize’s yum cha experience. You pay cash, it’s available weekends only and you have to bring at least one friend to feast with. Sounds more than reasonable, doesn’t it? Hang on though. Before you go running out that door, be
warned: all-you-can-eat yum cha is a test of true endurance that’s not for the weak of stomach. But if you’re up for the challenge, we’ll see you in the queue.

So much more than tea towels

Let’s face it – few of us can afford a masterpiece. So you’ve gotta love the fact that most of today’s leading museums come equipped with their own souvenir gift shop. After a day marvelling at great artists, we can buy a souvenir and take ownership of a little piece of creative genius. No time to peruse the galleries? No problem. Enter Third Drawer Down: Museum of Art Souvenirs, a museum gift shop without the adjoining museum … Maintaining a balance between the useful and the beautiful, Third Drawer Down not only sells gorgeous art souvenirs, it also functions as a design studio and showroom where its products are conceived and brought to life. You’ll find items such as edible  chocolate pie charts (perhaps a thoughtful gift for your favourite statistics nut?), a wide variety of custom-printed tea towels* and bed linen, and huge vinyl stickers die cut with graphics by your favourite artists. Many objects in the little storefront are designed to cleverly fit into your everyday life, bringing the things we love most about art out of the museum and into our homes. You can now wake up under a David Shrigley doona*, go to the beach with a Raymond Pettibon* beach towel and carry your bits ’n pieces in a Mickalene Thomas* tote bag. But please be careful: amid all this excitement of living with art you may never step foot in a museum or gallery again.

Raw food to mock your socks off

In a modest restaurant on Brunswick Street there lives a dragon. In one hand it wields a spoon of diced vegetables. In another a fork-impaled block of tofu. In yet another (dragons have many limbs), a bowl of noodles and peas. You’ll find this healthy beast painted on the wall at Yong Green Food, sending an invitation to all vegetarians, vegans, raw foodies and mere mortals who are open to finding out just how delicious meat- and dairy-free food can be. The attitude at Yong’s is to achieve sustainability through  delicious, unprocessed, often uncooked organic food – an echo of the raw food movement’s philosophy. Raw foodies, such as David Bowie and Woody Harrelson, believe that cooking food destroys good and living enzymes, which prevents you from achieving everlasting health. We realise at this point that we may be losing you, that you might have started dreaming about burgers, but please bear with us. The people at Yong’s understand that many of their clientele are not vegan raw foodies but everyday hungry folks. They adapt to this challenge by offering delicious vegan/vegetarian and raw versions of meals like hamburgers, teriyaki fish, Thai green curries and chicken wraps created from ingredients such as homemade almond milk, cashew cream, soy mayo, kim chi* (which is fermented in the backyard) and an array of soy meats. As connoisseurs of all things fried and meaty, we ordered from the far side of our culinary spectrum, including a raw nutty burger made with carrots, walnuts, sunflower seeds,  flax seeds, vegetables and herbs. Not only was the food delicious, it left us feeling light and healthy. Now when was the last time you could say that after wrapping your chops around a burger?

The unsung hero

Forget the right to vote. The clear path to democracy is karaoke. After all, anyone can sing! The true equaliser of man, karaoke’s appeal is that it doesn’t discriminate by colour, age, race or, least of all, talent. In Japan, karaoke is a social activity used to forge friendships and seal business deals. In America, karaoke bars give rise to would-be-stars (and amateurs) seeking their three minutes of fame. In Australia, it’s very much just an excuse to get drunk, make a fool of yourself and poke fun at others. Melburnians have taken to doing it in private – choosing to box themselves up in rooms with eye-popping retro wallpaper and state-ofthe-art video with more than 60,000 hits in English, Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Indonesian and Malaysian available on demand. The venue is KBOX, frequented by locals and internationals alike, each in search of a night out on the town in with Michael, Mariah and Whitney. You can hire a party room for two hours at $250 a pop, which includes $150 in booze. This democratisation through song turns into quite the workout – you can even count the kilojoules you’ve burned after each song with KBOX’s performance appraisal and calorie counting software installed. It goes to show that karaoke, like democracy, is healthy too.

Life on the Rocky Shores

As published in the University of Melbourne Voice, The Age, January 2011.

Three world-class marine biologists, two of whom are alumni, have released the third edition of Life on the Rocky Shores, a fascinating look into one of our unique eco-systems, the intertidal reef, or in simpler terms, our seashore. Lieu Pham reports.

Not many people can boast going to the beach as work, but Associate Professor Geoff Wescott (MSc (Zoo) 1976) has the pleasure of working near the sea.“Whether it is to look at the plants and animals on a rocky shore or to study use and conservation of Victoria’s wonderful coastline, it is fantastic to be able to say, ‘I am heading for the beach and it’s work’!”

An Associate Professor of Environment, he claims that Victoria’s reef pools are among the most fascinating in the world because so many species can be found only here. “The key feature about southern Australian marine plants and animals including those on the rocky shores and pools is that so many, well over one half of many groups, are endemic,” he says. “This is how we differ from coral and the tropics… there are more species in tropical coral reefs but the majority of them are distributed around the globe.”

Associate Professor Wescott along with alumnus Professor Gerry Quinn (BSc Hons 1982, PhD 1986) and their colleague Dr Chris Porter produced Life on the Rocky Shores, to raise awareness and help conserve our intertidal reefs. He says that Victoria’s marine sanctuaries and marine national parks, where the plants and animals are fully protected, are some of the best places to find diverse species.

“My personal favourites include Ricketts Point and Jawbone Marine Sanctuaries (in suburban Melbourne) and  Mushroom Reef Marine Sanctuary (at Flinders), where much of the work for the early editions of the book was done.” He says that on average you can find “…anything upwards of a dozen species in a small pool to 25 plus.” He is particularly excited about kelp, a particular form of brown algae or seaweed, and claims that, “Possibly the most stunning feature is just at the lower edge of the rocky shore (and extending then out into deep water) where there are forests of kelps – long lived and tall.”

But for the title of ‘most exotic beast’ of the sea shore, he nominates the blueringed octopus. “This small shy octopus lives under rocks and in rock pools along the Victorian coast. It is quite plain (grey) when seen but if it is threatened all of a sudden blue iridescent rings begin to glow like a neon light going on and off all over its body.” But the conservationist warns that the octopus’s bite, which contains a deadly
neurotoxin, can be fatal and if not treated quickly can arrest the person’s breathing.

Associate Professor Wescott’s interest in marine matters was stimulated by his study at University and his visits as an undergraduate to rocky shores. He was struck by the then (1972) disregard for conservation of the reefs in which he was studying.

“We (100 of us) would take the animals o the rocky shore to identify back in a lab – they would all die of course,” he recounts. ‘So myself and the other two original authors Russell Synnot (BSc Hons 1974, PhD 1979) and Heather Powell (BSc Hons 1974) decided to write the first edition of Rocky Shores (rst published in 1980) so that people could identify the animals on the rocky shore and hence leave
the shore intact.”

After studying marine evolutionary ecology at the University of Melbourne in honours, he won a  scholarship for a PhD in the same field. After a year though he decided he wanted to focus more on the
applied side of ecology and enrolled in the Masters of Nature Conservation course at University College London. On returning home in 1979, he became the Director of the Conservation Council of Victoria (now
Environment Victoria).

“I decided what we needed were academics who could back the conservation message up with data,” he says. With this notion, Associate Professor Wescott returned to study a PhD at Deakin University on Victorian coastal policy. One year in, he was offered a job as a lecturer in Victoria College’s (now part of Deakin) Environmental management program and has since combined his ecological and conservation policy background with environmental policy work.

With a genuine love for conservation, he and co-authors and fellow Deakin colleagues Dr Porter and Professor Quinn in collaboration with the Victorian National Parks Association, produced this third
edition. The authors hope that the book will help visitors enjoy the shoreline without causing damage to it, such as trampling or using endemic sea life as bait. But of course, the most significant threat to this eco-system is climate change, particularly with rising sea levels and sea water temperatures.

“The long at reefs (rocky shores) that are currently sitting right in the intertidal zone on our east-west running coastline will probably become sub-tidal with sea level rise over the next century,” he explains.

“It is unlikely that new horizontal platforms will form fast enough to allow the plants and animals  currently on the rock platforms to migrate to them.”

Along with this is the issue of ocean acidication through climate change. “The ocean is dissolving more carbon dioxide and getting warmer – and hence becoming more acidic,” he said. “It is believed that this increased acidity will make it harder for animals which form calcium-based ‘shells’ to fully form these protective layers.” Associate Professor Wescott wants us to keep these issues in mind when we’re out at the beach this summer, hopefully with his pocketbook, to guide us to the who’s who of the rocky shores world. But more importantly, he hopes that by raising awareness of our precious intertidal sea life, we can together inuence the course of conservation to protect the future of nature.

Life on the Rocky Shores (RRP $18.50)
Order by mail or buy in person
Victorian National Parks Association,
Level 3, 60 Leicester St, Carlton, Vic. 3053

www.vnpa.org.au/books

Melbourne Summer Style

I worked with Destination Melbourne to copywrite the Melbourne (Summer) Style magazine, a liftout in the Herald Sun this summer (2010/2011).

Where the Creators Are

As published in Broadsheet, 14th December 2010

Melbourne photographer and seasoned traveller Paul Barbera has photographed over 90 creative offices all over the world for his personal project Where They Create, which began as a blog and has since culminated into a book concept for Frame, a renowned book publisher in Amsterdam.

Living an enviable lifestyle, Barbera journeys between two hemispheres, with occasional stopovers in other corners of the world, for that perfect shot. In his photography work, he has had the pleasure of meeting some of his design heroes including the Campana Brothers, Rossellini Missoni and Martin Baas.

But it was a slow start for Barbera, who took a while to find his proverbial calling in life. As a 16-year-old, he did not think much of classroom learning. This was evidenced by the number of hours he clocked up in the darkroom.

“School never made any sense to me – all the kids sitting still in a classroom for hours on end not moving. It was weird,” recalls Barbera. “I ended up spending lots of time in the dark room and weekends working at a lab and taking lots of pictures with dad’s old Minolta SR-T 101.”

Barbera, who has dyslexia, struggled at school and felt that he would never get into university. His work, however, spoke for itself and the passionate Melburnian gained entry and later graduated from VCA in Fine Arts. Barbera went on to do photography professionally, taking on all kinds of jobs shooting commercial ad campaigns.”

A significant career turning point came in the form of his neighbour, a furniture designer whose work, photographed by Barbera, appeared in a Marie Claire magazine; the shots subsequently impressed the lifestyle editor, who asked him to do some editorial for the magazine. Needless to say, Barbera’s career took an upswing from there, bringing him to his current projects and successes. He is careful to state, however, that Where They Create is not a new concept. “It’s more me documenting the spaces around me the past 15 years,” he says. “Also, it’s a complete reaction to shooting for Vogue Living and Elle Decor type magazines, which are super stylised.”

Despite Barbera’s humble admissions, the photographic blog is a fascinating and intimate look into the lives of creative studios in Melbourne and around the world, studios that would often only been seen by a privileged few – either friends or clients. The studios, which include locals Tin & Ed, Tongue and Groove and Alpha60, and further afield Fantastic Man, IDN magazine and Marcel van Doorn, range from the messy and chaotic to the beautifully furnished and well appointed.

“I am a voyeur by nature and most of my work is about that,” admits Barbera. “I use it as a way to go and meet the people I most admire, and it’s a way to explore a city – you get to go to places you would never normally go. The book doesn’t talk about their work, how successful they are, or who they are. It talks about the shared common ground we all have as creative people, and the struggles we go through.”

When asked why the project has been successful, Barbera’s answer is simple but astute. “I guess people like to see other spaces and everyone loves to have their space documented,” he offers. But Barbera attributes much of this success also to social media. “My blog has given my work exposure to so many markets, and to so many people,” he explains. “It’s got me into many magazines and led me to shooting studios all around the world.”

Although Barbera doesn’t generate any money from the traffic that comes to his site, he has built a community around his projects, with the people in these communities acting as ambassadors, bringing his work to the attention of Amsterdam’s Frame, for instance. Known in the design industry for creating beautiful magazines such as Frame, Mark and Elephant, the Dutch publishers will turn Where They Create into a book for release in September next year.

“I think in the past, the power of social media was in the hands of a few who curated a certain view and perspective,” explains Barbera. ‘That’s changed; it’s flattened out so that many more people hold that place and that power, and there are more unique voices and it has made the process of information flow more fluid.” It’s taken almost 20 years of taking on every type of job for Barbera to find his style, but he now feels he is on the right track.“I am really only now at the start of my career.”

For many creative folk, Barbera is an example of a self-made man, someone who has created his own success through trial and error, with a bit of help from his friends. His work, tangible in his blog, is something he has personally crafted, achieved on its own merits. Though he has sought other, less fulfilling, projects he has still managed what most of creative people have struggled to obtain: a life based on a passion and a well-honed talent. As Barbera’s experience of school illuminated, “I think once you’re told you are good at something, you become better at it.”

Projects
wheretheycreate.com
paulbarbera.com
love-lost.net