U is for Utility

October 11, 2015 Amalie Wright

Typographic design by Nicole Arnett Phillips

As I write I’m sitting in my butterfly chair at the front of Craigston watching people come and go for Open House. (Over 140 through the studio this year – double last year’s numbers!)

Over the road people are streaming around the old Windmill and the Spring Hill Service Reservoirs. Both of these structures were built as pieces of public infrastructure. They had a clear purpose: providing a municipal utility for the emerging city.

Too often public utilities seem to be constructed with the focus firmly on the utility, and not the public. It wasn’t always thus...

T is for Time

September 27, 2015 Amalie Wright

There are Huon Pine trees in Tasmania that are between 1000 and 2000 years old.

They are part of a colony of Huon Pine that experts believe has been reproducing by cloning itself for 10,500 years.

That’s a long time...

S is for Sculpture

September 13, 2015 Amalie Wright

When it comes to garden sculpture, the battle lines are clearly drawn: you’re either Team Plastic Flamingo or Team Tyre Swan.

I know, I know, touchy subject, isn’t it.

Or maybe you have a beloved who fashions sculptures out of treasures bought home from the tip?

R is for Ruin

August 30, 2015 Amalie Wright

In the past week two major public realm projects opened in Sydney: Barangaroo Reserve and The Goods Line.

Both are on my list to visit next time I'm in Sydney, and both were created on former industrial sites...

Q is for bBQ

August 16, 2015 Amalie Wright

So…’Q’…

Tricky, huh.

bbQ is, admittedly, drawing a long bow, and I have to confess we’ve arrived at this juncture after consideration and rapid rejection of‘Q is for Queen Bee’, ‘Q is for Quandry’ (no kidding) and ‘Q is for Quirky’ (shudder).

P is for Play

August 2, 2015 Amalie Wright

When I was a kid we played outside all the time.

I loved riding my bike round and around the canefields behind our house. My brother spent years climbing on to our shed roof and then hurtling himself off on a flying fox.

A friend’s place had the perfect combination of chook shed, tree, open lawn, and dark under-house area.