A recent interview with Antony has been featured on creative lighting blog Illumni. Have a read here.

tags: daylight, lighting, media

tags: affordable, community, recreation

We are currently working with Matilda Bay Brewing Company to develop a tasting room.

In keeping with the workmanlike image of the brand, our approach is to fit out the space as if it were a canteen for the brewers themselves.

Our strategy for reinvigorating this unloved urban passageway in Deer Park is to tell the story of how the suburb got its name. The aim is to reconnect locals with the a sense of place, while using light and colour to make the passage more inviting. We have borrowed from the distorted perspective artwork of Felice Varini to make an interesting spatial story with minimal cost.

For the past four months we have been working with primary students from the Victorian College for the Deaf to explore the exciting world of design. It has been great to see students develop their skills in three-dimensional thinking and work together to transform a sketched idea to a realised design.

The project is part of an extensive workshop program administered by Regional Arts Victoria and the City of Melbourne. For more information click here

We are excited to announce that our LifeCycle lamp has won 2nd place in the Lightcycle 2011 award as part of the State of Design Festival.

Check out the exhibition this weekend (10am-4pm 30-31 July, Donkey Wheel House, Bourke Street Melbourne) and vote for us in the People’s Choice Award!

Ready Steady Light – see our entry into this fun competition at Federation Square to make a light using a Cecil Walker Bike and as many LED lights as we could attach to its frame.

Thanks to team Jess Boyd, Dave Anderson, Karren De’Ath and Claudia Scalisi for their brilliant contribution.

Thanks to Jess for these brilliant photos!

Well we are about a week away from completing a refurbishment to an existing warehouse in Brunswick for Scribe Publications.

We have been working closely with JC Rawlings and the client on the project and it is exciting to see the project come together.

It shows that these buildings don’t necessarily need to be pulled down and turned into apartments in order to have a life beyond its original intention. The building will now house editors, marketing people and others as Scribe Publications continues to grow.

We couldn’t be happier with the outcome.

UPDATE: Project page up now!

Kinglake Hotel project is a project that is in the very heart of Kinglake. The town was devastated by bushfires 2 years ago and is now slowly rebuilding itself. This project at the surviving hotel is designed to attract tourists to a new Provedore and bottleshop offering whilst still maintaining the original country pub for locals. Designed to be big, rustic and bold – the tower element will be a symbol of Kinglake’s continuing resilience. Currently the project is in town planning and we hope to see the building being built in the new year. This project continues our work in creative re-use; we were able to advocate the retention of the old bottle shop as a viable retail outlet for the new Provedore section.

tags: commercial, hospitality

Great images from Pecha Kucha VOL 17 “What is Light?” – taken by one very talented Neo Feliciano!

I was privileged to be part of organising the event with Dave Anderson and Michelle James. I am not sure I will give my day job and become an event manager – but it was great fun and there was a great spirit – not to mention some fantastic work by some incredibly talented people.

The best quote for me was by Steve Wright who said “What is Light? Light is ambience!”.

Check out all the photos here. Paul Beal has also written a brief piece on the Electrolight website.

Antony

tags: community, lighting, media

The tree is an important symbol for hope and change; our idea is that we re-make the tree and bring the off-cuts back to life. It is fun for families to make each tree which is an individual piece made from different offcuts assembled to make the branches. It will be simple to assemble, easy to decorate, fits easily into the back of the Prius and can be stored for many years to come.

tags: adaptive reuse, sustainable, timber

“One of the key pleasures about working with Antony is that he has a brilliant intuitive sense of balance and we could always rely on this. The elements would always be harmoniously arranged, initially on paper and then later, translated into reality. At various points now, as the build has officially finished, we have found ourselves wishing that Antony was standing behind our shoulder, providing his insight on how to arrange form in space” – a client’s perspective.

tags: extension, lighting, residential

Before our meditation platform project in Northcote is even complete it has already been featured in The Age. The article by Jenny Brown discusses the merits of long-term investment in quality space.

tags: media, refurbishment, residential, small

As kids are staying at home longer and longer many families are looking for ways in which members of different generations can live on the one block with a degree of self-sufficiency and privacy. This recent project gives an architecture student his own ‘pad’ in the back garden of his parents’ house – a place to relax, study or hang out with friends.

tags: refurbishment, residential, student

This recently completed refurbishment to an existing house in Brunswick has succeeded in making the spaces fresh and contemporary without major changes.

Check out the project page here

tags: refurbishment, residential, stairs, timber

This 2-storey extension is all about improving the connection between house and garden. By incorporating a courtyard between old and new we attempting to provide greater internal space without cutting areas off from the landscape.

tags: extension, garden, residential

For this inner-city family home we are exploring ways to deny scale on the street frontage. The simple and apparently arbitrary facade deliberately lacks a reference point, communicating much less than a traditional house.

Check out the project page here

tags: new house, residential, sustainable

They may not be glamorous, but public toilets around Melbourne are in desperate need of sensitive design input.

Over the past 12-18 months Di Mase Architects has been assisting WC Innovations with the development of prototypes for simple, flexible public toilets that can be customised with variations of roof form and decorative treatment to suit particular sites. The aim is for them to expand the range of services they can provide, typically to councils and the like. Priorities have included ease of construction, durability, adaptability, natural light and ventilation and several schematic designs have been developed to support tender submissions by WC Innovations.

tags: community, prefabrication, public, toilet

Di Mase Architects has recently been working with Uniting Church Deepdene to develop a masterplan for their Bourke Road site, having recently amalgamated with a neighbouring parish. We were initially contracted to consult with church council, parishioners, community groups, facilities users, local council and neighbours in a managed workshop process to develop a working architectural brief. We have since been engaged as architects through completion of the project and we’re excited about its potential to breathe new life into the site.

tags: accessibility, community, refurbishment

Just got the photos back from our first nightclub project – in the basement of an Art Deco building in Melbourne CBD.

Check out the project page here or visit Decca Bar

tags: bar, commercial, hospitality, refurbishment