Day: December 4, 2020

If you’ve been paying any attention at all to the Australian ceramics scene over the past few years, you’ve likely heard of Tantri Mustika! Tantri’s distinctive terrazzo-encrusted ceramic vases went CRAZY when she burst onto the scene in 2017, propelling Tantri from ‘emerging maker’ status to full-time crafter in only a matter of months.

Tantri has come a long way over the past four years. After launching her brand with nothing but an Instagram account and a Squarespace website, things took off quickly, and it wasn’t long before she decided to leave behind her former career as a hairdresser. She hasn’t looked back!

Seizing the opportunity to open her very own studio and retail space in Collingwood Yards creative precinct earlier this year, Tantri is showing no signs of slowing down. Her gorgeous new shop is now ready for visitors (after a few false starts – thanks 2020!)

A  young couple, their child, and their parents inherited a Thornbury property in 2013 comprising a rundown Californian bungalow and three sheds. Both parties saw an opportunity to enliven the site with two new townhouses – one for the young family, and one for the grandparents – and engaged Fowler and Ward for the job.

Recognising the common shortcomings of many local townhouses, the young architecture studio had a strong vision from the outset. 

‘In Melbourne, townhouses are generally built as speculative developments without architect involvement. This often means they are constructed as large as council will allow, and as cheap as possible,’ says Fowler and Ward director Tara Ward. ‘The resultant buildings are generic, have poor internal amenity, materials that don’t age well, and forms which dominate neighbouring buildings.’

In contrast, Fowler and Ward designed two townhouses that read as a single structure from the street, drawing inspiration from

Material Designer Georgie Brunmayr had the idea for Curio Practice bubbling away for at least a year before she was ready to make it real. A loss of work at the start of 2020 has given her the time and space to finally launch a brand that aligns her technical experience with her core values – to create products with measured intent, functionality, and durability. And of course – it needed to be fun!

After graduating from tertiary study, Georgie worked in Melbourne-based knitting factories for a few years before moving to Shanghai to work with Italian knitting manufacturer Santoni. She eventually returned to Australia after a health scare, which forced her to reevaluate the kind of work she was doing. ‘I knew I didn’t want to work in the same way’, she reflects of the rat race she’d been part of during her time in China. ‘I was ready