Words by Tom Emmett
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“We’re definitely still experimenting,” Jouni Jarvela states as he leans against a workbench holding two freshly cast moulds of concrete. “It’s sort of an evolving process. Especially the first two or so years, there was a fair bit of experimentation. We’re a bit more on top of it now I think, so now we’re bringing in new techniques and trying to streamline the process.” Jouni Jarvela, along with his brother, Sami, is the co-founder and owner of Pop Concrete, a design and manufacturing company that produce anything from candleholders to bench tops. The firm has experienced a rapid rise in business over the past few years, asserting itself as one of Australia’s top concrete manufacturers. Originally working for the family concreting business, Jouni says he knew that he would eventually break away from this: “I was always interested in design so I decided to go study design at QUT”. A little to his surprise, Jouni got in: “…it was a great four years there, learnt a lot.” When it came to graduation, Jouni, like a lot of us, found that he was unsure what to do next. “I didn’t have my portfolio completed yet but I thought, I really want to do this kind of thing, using concrete as a medium… and using what I’d learnt in design to back that up”.
Photographs by Tom Emmett