Latest Programs
Saturday 10 May 2008
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This morning we look at the latest trends in cars in Australia. Wheels magazine in association with the Australian International Design Awards has announced the best car in Australia and it's the Honda Civic R, a simple, inexpensive day-to-day car. To find out why the Honda is this year's car in Australia -- and about the contenders -- Jesse Taylor, deputy editor of Wheels magazine, talks to By Design.
What makes a design icon? What gives certain products longevity, and what role, if any, does a design icon have?
On By Design we have been bringing you a number of what we loosely call Conversations, a place for looking at ideas and the thinking behind them, rather than a reaction to events or controversy. Melbourne architect Carey Lyon, joins By Design for his second and final conversation on the value of design -- what meaning it brings to our culture. He says that the old adage that form follows function is dead, suggesting we think more along the lines that form follows ideas.
Take a city. Add creative people. Build a theatre and an art gallery. And in theory at least the result should be culture; a place which is intellectually stimulating and rich in everything the arts have to offer.
Saturday 03 May 2008
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The way in which we design the meals we eat has become an important part of By Design's brief. This week we're looking at fashion and fad in Australian food.
Danny Yount has an interesting job in the world of design. He says of himself that his 'primary focus is main title design'. Today on By Design we look at the magic of designing the 'look' of a film, the power of the opening sequences, for example, the way a trailer is designed to hit the mark. Danny Yount is the man who designed the powerful opening sequence of Six Feet Under, and his work on this cult TV show earned him an Emmy.
Design Island gets under way in Tasmania this week—the annual design festival that features some pretty important discussion about design in Australia. Guests this year include Mathias Schwartz-Clauss, senior curator at the Vitra Design Museum in Germany. Currently he is preparing retrospectives on Rudolf Steiner and Humberto & Fernando Campana. Mathias Schwartz-Clauss is a consultant to the summer academy of Boisbuchet in France, writes for various design journals and lectures internationally.
We often talk on this show about private property but we don't talk about it not just as a roof over your head but as the cornerstone of democracy. It's not a new idea but it found new expression in an address delivered recently to the Adam Smith Club in Melbourne by Bob Day. But he goes further: planning laws, he says, are destroying this central institution of society. There's also a link between urban planning laws and the financial turmoil gripping the world today.
Saturday 26 April 2008
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Today, movie poster aren't quite as important as they once were as a marketing tool for flim distributors. Nevertheless, the way a poster is designed still has a lot power to influence our choice at the cinema.
Emergency Architects is a world-wide group of architects committed to making the world a better place. Their job, as you might gather from the name, is to be there when things go wrong. The big things - when a tsunami hits, or an earthquake, or people lose their homes and towns in a war zone. Emergency Architects Australia is working in our region - in East Timor, in Indonesia and with an important project underway in the Solomons.
Art museums, Jewish museums, house museums, science museums and museums of natural history: there seems to be a museum dedicated to just about everything.
Bathing is essentially about washing the dirt off your body, but if you've ever experienced a Japanese bath, you'd know that bathing is a lot more than a good wash.
Saturday 19 April 2008
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As the Rudd 2020 Summit gets underway today (Saturday 19 April) in Canberra, By Design brings you a panel of design commentators to look specifically at what the world of architecture and design can bring to enrich life in Australia -- what we could be doing better, and how to make sure that Australian cities and design infrastructure are positioned to cope with the incredible shifts Australia in undergoing.
Now trends and products, and this morning we go to Milan where the most important event on the global design calendar, the Milan Salone Internazionale del Mobile (as well as the SaloneSatellite), is underway.
Starbuck's, that vast chain which sprang from a modest Seattle coffeehouse, has become so loved that more than 40 million customers visit every week. On the other hand, it's so loathed that protesters have firebombed its premises. The story of this caffeine phenomenon is told in a new book, which also considers the economic and social consequence of this American success story. This week, we talk to the author, Taylor Clark,
Saturday 12 April 2008
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What have a bicycle, a cutlery set, a nightclub, a dog house and a vibrator all got in common? They've all been designed at some stage by Hong Kong/British designer Michael Young, who talks to Alan Saunders about the extraordinary breadth of his practice.
Increasingly today we spend more time between places, travelling -- by public transport or car -- from home to the office, taking the kids to sport, or visiting friends.
Fitz Haeg is an architect and artist, and a keen environmental activist in the process. His approach is to tackle the front lawn and his project Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn started in 2005 - in Salina, Texas - with the object to replace the domestic front lawn with a highly productive, edible, organic garden landscape. Fritz's initiative aims to affect change in urban and suburban commities alike, one front lawn at a time.
Tim Redway, chief marketing officer for AV Jennings, one of Australia's largest home builders, is seeking national government legislation to enforce green standards when all new houses are built. And he goes one step further: for all older houses sold to be legally forced at this point to improve their sustainability. This, he says, is the only way to really change the energy efficiency of houses...and the larger environment.
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