5 Australian Designers We Love

Australia—the light-drenched island at the bottom of the world, the site of virgin white beaches, exotic air, and majestic wilderness, place to a vivid national surf culture, a heady tropical climate, and singular environmental challenges; is a country that champions the design of nationally-made products with a specificity of purpose and an aesthetic, unique to its geographical isolation.

Where some of the world’s design plays on sustainability as a motif of political correctness, Australian designers live environmental shortages, ecological fragility, and depletion as an everyday reality. These hurdles inspire out-of-the-ordinary thought and the use of new materials, so that in the creation of Australian design pieces, their forms and functions embody original ethical approaches and sustainability-conscious solutions. If there was a national Australian design creed, it might read something like: ecologically-savvy with a gently inventive edge.

On a recent trip to the land Down Under, here are five designers that exemplify this creed.

Slideshow

The economically graceful work of Chris Hardy is inspired by modernism, and the desire to make classic design with sustainable materials.