WOBBLE
Issue oo5 Nov 2o11
Design // Art // Architecture // Culture
CBR
Director
* wobble oo5
Jennifer Edmunds hello@wobble.cc
Content
Publisher
* summer 11
Wobble Collective
Design & Layout Christiane Nowak
Events Jemist; Yacht Rock Wobble Community
Journalist
Laurie Meyers
Wobble Venues
Knightsbridge Penthouse The Front
Illustrated. Furnished. Projected.Played. Wobble Collective Feature Canberra Lab
www.canberralab.com
Supporters
April‘s Caravan 2before10 Dymocks Canberra
Profile Dymocks Canberra
Contact
art@wobble.cc
New Location Močan & Green Grout Artists & Designers Asha Tsimeris www.ashatsimeris.com
Locations Map Venues Supporters
Alex Lewis www.wobble.cc
Chris Hardy
www.chrishardy.com.au
Polka Luka www.polkaluka.com.au
Konrad Lenz
www.wobble.cc
Kate Travis
www.wobble.cc
Cover image: Kate Travis 08 LED photo print 386x510mm $180 2
Editorial
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Want to get involved? We‘d love to hear from you hello@wobble.cc. Thanks, The Wobble Team
* Wobble
Resident DJ: Jemist
Canberra’s slightly cranky, mood-setter and chief rocker Jemist, dishes out an array of hip hop, funk and nasty classics on a regular basis. Always a sweaty and unbridled night of fun for our unassuming little cocktail bar. Jemist can be seen at Knightbridge Saturday Dec 3rd and Friday Dec 23rd. Get in early, and leave late. Check out one of Wobbles’ favourite DJ’s at: www.soundcloud.com/jemist www.facebook.com/jemist
photo by Rees-ONE
Wobble oo4 at Knightsbridge
Yacht Rock
Sat Dec 24th 3pm free entry Knightsbridge Penthouse’s annual 70’s inspired Christmas Eve event. Wear your best Fleetwood Mac flowery dress, your Farrah Fawcett hair, trim your John Oates moustache, and come kick back with your Pimm’s No. 1 and a cucumber sandwich. To check out the Yacht Rock mythos, search for JD Ryznar’s pivotal ‘Yacht Rock’ series on Youtube.
We hope you are enjoying the new Wobble magazine look and feel. We celebrated the new mag, in the style you’ve all become accustom to, at our home Knightsbridge Penthouse. Keep up to date with our publications and join us for Wobble events every 2 months in 2012. Keep an eye out for the changes as KB gets a facelift.
* Knightsbridge
Events
* The Front
Wobble launch at The Front The Front reopened it’s gallery in style. Sunday October 30 saw April‘s move back into the caravan and a flashy collection of art push into the café-bar. DJ Ashley Feraude and saxophonist Dan Bray played the venue‘s first art show this year. Keep an eye out for Polka Luka’s contemporary resin jewellery collection at The Front this summer and the next Wobble installation in early 2012. If you’ve been thinking of exhibiting, now’s the time. Give Paul a call on 6249 8453, front.gallery@gmail.com
photo by Cole Bennetts
www.wobble.cc 3
What Wobble was born for. We pulled off a fully collaborative event. Illustration, video art, music and furniture. A balmy Sunday evening in November at ‘The Front’ bar in Lyneham, Danny Wilson on the decks with his partner in crime Britt Nichols pushing video through to 5 screens and a projector, the illustration of Asha Tsimeris growing out of the light.
Illustrated.Furnished.Projected.Played.
* The Front
A fine crowd enjoying a few drinks and participating in the performance colouring-in session, how long have we all waited for an excuse to get out the textas? Asha approached us having received a Young Artist Start-up Grant from ArtsACT, we took an enthusiastic offer from the VJ-DJ team and started to plot for the ultimate mixed media event. ‚pasta plant‘ ink and watercolour 210x290mm $155 4
You had to be there.
Jennifer Edmunds ash stool $180
‚moon and giraffe‘ ink and watercolour 210x290mm $155
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A new online space for Canberra design, culture, city spaces and architecture has just been born. Canberralab.com was conceived by a group of young architects driven by a desire to create a space for the local design industry and the broader community.
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The idea was born from a conversation between local architects Ronan Moss and Sophie Clement, two of the blog contributors. ‘Sophie and I met at a party… we had a few drinks and were talking about Canberra, we decided that what we needed to do was get out there and try to start something up’ Ronan said. ‘The main idea was to try and set up a conversation with designers in Canberra’.
Design Blog
Canberra Lab
Launched on 8 December, Canberralab.com is an online magazine, published every two months rich with interviews, multimedia, humour, culture and colour.
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The Lab reaches out to designers from a range of disciplines, asking questions about design, but also about sustainability, where Canberra is heading as a city and what the community wants from its urban environment.
Having just moved back to Canberra after a stint out of town, Ronan was frustrated by the fact that on the surface Canberra can look stagnant. But it’s not, at least not anymore. The pair rallied a group of likeminded souls to drive the project. Together they‘ve spent the last four months gathering content, recording interviews and bringing the first edition of Canberra Lab into being. The core contributors, James Park, Gerard O‘Connell, Sarah Herbert and Nugroho Utomo, all work in architecture, with different areas of interest.
‚Primarily it‘s about architecture, but it‘s talking about the city more broadly than just the buildings,‘ Sophie said. The blog will also touch on urban design and creative happenings within the urban framework. Each edition will find a range of comments, questions and thought provoking interviews. ‚One section is called A3, it’s a multimedia component with interviews of architects who we feel are contributing to the city,‘ Ronan said. Other regular sections include ‚street critique‘, in which Canberrans are asked for their opinions on local buildings. And ‚pin up‘, a section to showcase the work of
university students. If it‘s all sounding a little serious, the ‚smash it‘ section provides videos of frazzled students finding ways to destroy the architectural models they’ve slaved over all year. The hope is that once the site is up and running, locals with thoughts and opinions on the city and its design will pipe up and get involved. You can also look forward to seeing their urban themed contributions to Wobble Magazine every 2 months. Laurie Meyers
www.canberralab.com
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Močan and Green Gout Močan is the newest addition to the extraordinary arthouse that is New Acton these days. The tiny espresso bar opened its doors in October.
Močan & Green Grout *
Espresso Bar
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The project of Industrial Designer Myles Chandler and Graphic Designer David Alcorn who’s label Močan originally produced custom bikes: singlespeeds, fixed gear, townies… and handmade clothing. Myles and Dave linked up with New Acton’s Nectar and Jonathon Efkarpidis and put together a truly different little venue.
There is an alley that runs between the ground floor terraces of ‘The Apartments’ and through the back of the heritage listed but slightly charred Diamant hotel. The windows of the espresso bar look out through the alley onto Marcus Clarke St. An unusual urban space that will, in the coming months, open onto the Nishi apartments and a refurbished Parlour bar.
The name Močan comes from the Slovenian ‘to be strong’ and is pronounced Mochun thanks to the ‘grapheme’ on the C. 19 Marcus Clarke St New Acton. Open 7am - 6pm Mon to Sat 9-3pm Sunday. Močan & Green Grout 9
The population density of Paris is 3,550 people per km2, Moscow hosts 4,900/km2 and Kyoto 6,400/km2. All have a footprint of a comparable size to Canberra (less than 2,800km2). That’s right. Our population is 23 times less dense than Paris, and 32 times less dense than Moscow.
Half a thought on density Chattanooga, not Paris.
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Canberra Lab
Density
* Gerard O‘Connell
I love the ABS and I have some stats for you: 358 571 people were living in Canberra in 2010. Our suburbs covered 2350 km2, with a population density of 153 persons per km2. Our footprint of 2350km2 is comparable to other cities around the world. It seems we are in good company. However, reconsider the same cities in regards to their population density and we have a different story.
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Scarier still, is if we assemble a list of those cities with similar population densities to our own. They include the great American cities of: Barnstable Town (290/km2), Massachusetts, USA; Chattanooga (485/km2), Tennessee, USA; and Hickory(512/km2), North Carolina, USA. Even then, we are barely making the grade. Granted that Canberra is a unique city, a National Capital, open spaces, a good place for raising a family, access to cultural amenity etc... these arguments are well understood.
Less widely known, (and more difficult to quantify) are the economic, social and environmental consequences of such a unique urban form. In contrast to popular thinking, city dwellers have a smaller carbon footprint than suburbanites -The average resident of Manhattan consumes petrol at the same rate as a 1920’s American and Hong Kong is one of the most energy efficient and least automobile dependent cities in the world. Now I’m not about to go all Jane Jacobs on you, but what we do know, is that great cities depend and thrive upon diversity of building stock, diversity of persons, diversity in urban functions (shops, offices, residences) and of course, density. Canberra is achieving very poor results across most of these criteria. Nor is it an easy fix. A population
density of Chattanooga (450 persons per sqkm) within the current urban boundary would result in a population in excess of 1 million people. At current growth rates, of (say 6000 people per year) this would take around 125 years. I am not advocating population densities of Kyoto, or even Paris, (maybe we could start with Chattanooga?) nor am I advocating skyscraper and mega urban
forms. But I would suggest that there is an urban character for Canberra that is more appropriate than the one we have adopted to date, and seem hell-bent on pursuing. We’ll have the solution for you next issue. In the meantime, for those interested in a clever take on cities, I would recommend Edward Glaeser’s , Triumph of the City and David Owens’ entertaining read ‘Green Metropolis’.
Available at Dymocks city store.
www.canberralab.com
Images courtesy of: Changchun Research Studio, University of Canberra Architecture, 2011.
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Asha Tsimeris ‘my horse likes to read late at night‘ ink, watercolour 290x210mm
* Dymocks Canberra
Books
* Canberra Centre, City
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$155
As the dust that was once Borders and Angus and Robertson settles, online retail empires rise and ebooks expand their market share - we start to ask questions about the future of the printed page. The Borders business model of supermarket style book sales has failed dismally, twice.
But there‘s still something in it for the little guy - according to the owners of Dymocks in Canberra City Alison and Richard Kay. It was not so long ago things were looking tough for small, locally-owned booksellers in the CBD. Originally located in City Walk, two years ago Alison and Richard decided to relocate their Dymocks franchise to the Canberra Centre. They made the move in order put themselves in the space where their customers were shopping, City Walk had seen tumbleweed since the mall extension. They were facing potential domination of a new Borders store. Since then the tables have turned. Borders Australia failed in 2008 and was bought out by Angus and Robertson. Owned by the same company, Red Group Retail, Borders and Angus and Robertson went into receivership in early 2011. The downturn in retail spending, growth in book sales online and the strong Aussie dollar were all said to have played a role. It all happened at an alarming pace.
Just why did the big, shiny Borders store fail to push through the pain barrier and why have the smaller players survived? Richard puts it down to the love of books. Rick and Alison know their regulars by name, treat their staff like family, speak about the store itself like an old friend and relish the opportunity to host authors for signings and book launches. John Birmingham, the author of ‘He Died With a Falafel in His Hand’, shared beers with fans last month. And unlike other chains which have failed in the changing market, Dymocks is a network of stores that are owned and run locally. The Kays believe this independence is what‘s helped their store weather the poor retail conditions of recent years. With company-owned chain stores, book ordering is generally done centrally from a head office far from the store and it’s clientelle. It’s the luxury of small, independent stores that they can select all their own titles, and can be flexible in what they stock. ‘We‘re talking to customers all day everyday - so we know what
our customers like and what they‘re reading,‘ staff member Shannon Kellett said. ‚It means that we can be very responsive. Within a couple of days we can have new books on the shelf‘. Dymocks Canberra also made a point of hiring staff with a love of books, primarily local university students and graduates with their own special areas of interest in reading. ‘They spend a lot of their own time thinking about it and coming up with ideas for us,‘ Richard said. ‘That passion is what drives the business really. We see books as
such a crucial part of society… it‘s part of education, it‘s part of culture, it‘s part of how you live. That enthusiasm I think carries over into the business .’ Richard acknowledges that ebooks and online retailers will continue to shave down their market share, but for now he and Alison remain confident about their future and are committed to the book trade. ‘Additional service, that’s what you can‘t get online, and that‘s really what we‘ve concentrated on’. Laurie Meyers
Alison, Richard and Suzy Kay
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Facing a fork in the pedestrian road leading up to the Kings Ave bridge ... the choices are clear – follow the strictly orchestrated pavement curling mindlessly to the right, or head straight along the path most travelled. The line of pavement meanders uninvitingly whilst the desired path ahead is well worn and wide.
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A designer can’t help but imagine the brief that was prepared for this bureaucratically formulated and counter-intuitive maze; ‘we need a pedestrian crossing and room for runners, but here’s the catch, it must also be able to accommodate the turning circle of a barge.’ Faced with a choice of how to get from A to B in an urban environment, people speak with their feet, and Kings Ave is just one of dozens of examples around town.
As a newcomer to Canberra, I often feel the city is playing some kind of Kafka-esque joke on me, but it isn’t a joke, in fact it’s dead serious and there is great expectation that no-one breaks script - as designers we acquiesce. Are Canberran designers so beholden to the Griffin geometry that we fear one misguided line will send the town into unrecognisable chaos? www.canberralab.com
Canberra Lab
Desire Lines
* James Park
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Konrad Lenz 27x20cm $150
Kate Travis 08 LED photo print 386x510mm $180
Kate Travis 04 LED photo print 386x510mm $180
Kate Travis 12 LED photo print 386x510mm $180
Alex Lewis ‚Downtown‘ 2011 etching 50x36cm 15
Chris Hardy paper pendant lamp
www.chrishardy.com.au
Local Design *
Chris Hardy powder ring
Chris Hardy
Chris Hardy Triple stool
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Polka Luka Moderist $25
Polka Luka Oeuf $35
Polka Luka Eclipse ring $25
www.polkaluka.com.au
Local Design *
The Front
Polka Luka Ellypsis bangle $35
Polka Luka wrap-bangle $40
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Locations
* Wobble
recommends
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Aprils Caravan
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www.wobble.cc
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KNIGHTSBRIDGE Penthouse 1/34 Mort St Braddon ACT 2612 Mo - Closed Tue - Wed 5 - 12 Thu 4 -1 Fri 4 - 3 Sat 2 - 3
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THE FRONT 1 Wattle Place Lyneham ACT, 2602
APRILS CARAVAN 5 hall St lyneham. opposite bike shop at lyneham shops. Wednesday - Sunday Wobble’s next magazine launch: Knightsbridge Penthouse, Thursday 16th February 2012 2 10
TWO BEFORE TEN 40 Marcus Clarke Street Canberra City, 2601 Mon - Fri 7 - 4 Sat 8 -2
MOčAN & GREEN GROUT 19 Marcus Clarke St New Acton ACT 2601 Mon - Sat 7 - 6 Sun 9 -3
DYMOCKS Shop DF18 Canberra Centre, Bunda St City ACT 2601 Mon - Thu 9 - 5.30 Fri 9 - 9 Sat 9 - 5 Sun 10 - 4
“The Listening Post” Sculptor by Paul Jamieson O’Connor Wetlands, Banksia St 19