Do It Ourselves
Do It Ourselves
- By Alor
- December 20, 2024
THE DESIGN BRIEF
Each ‘Do It Ourselves’ project has been crafted by local designers using materials sourced entirely from their local hardware store. These designs serve as a challenge to inspire the public to get hands-on and create their own furniture pieces.
Each project has been designed to require only basic tools, making them accessible for anyone with a basic skill level. Additionally, all projects have been developed with a cost cap of $150, ensuring they remain affordable and achievable for everyone
Do It Ourselves
- By James Walsh
THE DESIGN BRIEF
Each ‘Do It Ourselves’ project has been crafted by local designers using
materials sourced entirely from their local hardware store, often from
Bunnings. These designs serve as a challenge to inspire the public to get hands-on and create their own furniture pieces.
Each project has been designed to require only basic hand tools, making them accessible for anyone with a basic skill level. Additionally, all projects have been developed with a cost cap of $150, ensuring they remain
affordable and achievable for everyone
Bel Williams
ABOUT THE DESIGNER
Bel Williams is furniture and object designer from Aotearoa, based in Naarm/Melbourne. With a background in industrial design, Bel launched her studio practice in 2022. An ongoing exploration that moves freely between materials and grounds itself in the playful manipulation of balance, weight and form.
ABOUT THE DESIGN
Approaching the hardware shop like a giant Lego store, I’ve used the most fundamental construction techniques, expressing the joins and fixings as design elements with a piece that nods toward its more exclusive counterparts. Stacked cork floor tiles stand in for a seat cushion substrate, propped up with butt joined aluminium extrusions to make a stool that looks fancy if you squint your eyes.
Bolaji Teniola
ABOUT THE DESIGNER
Bolaji Teniola is an emerging interdisciplinary designer who blends his furniture and industrial design training from RMIT University to create innovative pieces. He enjoys allowing the process to dictate the outcome, driven by curiosity about materiality and manufacturing.
ABOUT THE DESIGN
Inspired by the straightforward design and complex structure of Gerrit Rietveld’s Zig Zag chair, ‘My Chair’ by Bolaji Teniola is a simple DIY chair made from two pine planks and minimal components for aspiring and intermediate makers.
With specific plank lengths selected to minimise waste when cut down at your local hardware store, the remaining drilling, cutting and assembly are done by the maker in their home, garage, shed, or other making space of choice. Makers are encouraged to customise their ‘My Chair’ and truly make it their own.
Calum Hurley
ABOUT THE DESIGNER
Calum Hurley is a Melbourne-based designer. With a background in Interior Architecture and as an alumni of JamFactory’s esteemed Associate Training Program, his practice includes furniture, object, spacial, exhibition and visual merchandising design.
ABOUT THE DESIGN
Hurley draws inspiration from the design school and movements of Bauhaus and Memphis, using primary colours, predominantly red to add vibrancy and fun to his pieces. This bench uses readily available materials from Bunnings with colour being dependant on rope colour choice; red, blue, yellow, black, or green. Though monochrome is preferred, makers can choose their own colours palettes to suit their space. Though process needs a certain level of accuracy to achieve stability, a ‘have a go’ approach is encouraged with hand tools at home.
Jordan Fleming
ABOUT THE DESIGNER
Jordan Fleming is a Melbourne based artist and designer known for creating unique, sculptural furniture and lighting. With a background in cabinet making and interior design, she launched her practice in Australia in 2018, focusing on transforming furniture into expressive, functional art.
ABOUT THE DESIGN
Her work and process focuses on creating designs which embody a playful, tactile aesthetic, using materials like plaster, pigment, timber, and metal which allow the maker’s mark to be left, evoking emotion and forge connections with viewers.
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