Dale Hardiman and Adam Lynch of Dowel Jones never cease to impress us. In just four years they’ve built a truly remarkable business, creating an insanely impressive collection of contemporary furniture, designed and manufactured in Melbourne, at really reasonable prices. With a fun, lighthearted, yet distinctly utilitarian design approach, Dowel Jones represents a bright future for Australian design.
It’s also a little known fact that both Dale and Adam each also maintain their own individual design practice, working on various additional design projects outside of Dowel Jones. HOW DO THEY FIND THE TIME!?
We recently chatted with this dynamic duo about their most ambitious project to date – Clubhouse.
What inspired you to launch your largest product presentation to date, Clubhouse?
We’ve been wanting to host a complete presentation for many years! We regularly show in group presentations, but these are mainly outside of Australia – we have never shown all of our work in one place. We’ve also been working on a broad range of new pieces, and wanting to show them all together.
Why did you select the venue The Stables, and what can visitors expect to see in your installation?
When we look for spaces to host presentations, we always hope to find something with history. Our last exhibition was with Local Design at the Milan Furniture Fair, and it was hosted in a 12th century Church!
The Stables was chosen not only because of its close proximity to the Melbourne CBD, but also because it’s part of the Melbourne Meat Market, which was designed by George R Johnson in 1880. The Melbourne Meat Markets are a huge part of Melbourne’s history, and being a Melbourne based brand we’re quite pleased to have this history surrounding us.
The concept for the space is really a culmination of our 4 years since we started Dowel Jones. We’ve always used colour as key for the representation of our work, so you’ll find quite a lot of colour at Clubhouse. We decided on the theme based on the title : Clubhouse. A clubhouse is typically known as a place at a golf course where players meet before and after the game, and this is a place where they talk and discuss the game.
What can visitors expect from your ‘walkthrough’? And also ‘Night in Clubhouse’?
We see Clubhouse as an opportunity to present our entire collections in one place, and also for viewers to see our brand in it’s entirety, and not as a single chair or bar stool.
Clubhouse is generally an appointment-only affair, where visitors can book walkthroughs, allowing us to explain the narratives behind each of the pieces. We find that as we present commercial furniture, lighting and accessories, it’s become more important for us to find opportunities to tell the complete story of why and how we’ve designed something.
‘The Night In Clubhouse’ is an opportunity to celebrate, a night for the public along with our clients to spend time in our presentation in a less formal environment, and share a drink at the 19th Hole Bar!
Can you highlight some of your new products that will be on show, and how these compare to past Dowel Jones collections?
A lot has happened for us in the last 12 months. We seem to have grown much faster then we had expected, which has given us the capability to create a great team and produce more products then ever before.
At Clubhouse we’ll be showing additions to current ranges, such as the Hurdle Family and Simon Says stools, and adding a new lighting range called Sir Mark Wall Burly to the Sir Burly range. We’ve typically worked mainly in the commercial hospitality sector, whereas what we’ll be presenting at Clubhouse is products for every home – new coffee tables, dining tables, benches, bar stools, side tables and more.
What’s next for Dowel Jones?
At the same time as Clubhouse, we’ll be presenting a commissioned range of upholstered products called /ᐠ｡ꞈ｡ᐟ\ at DEN Fair, with Local Design for Kvadrat and Maharam – upholstered cats. The week directly after Clubhouse we’re launching a new partnership with an American brand at NeoCon in Chicago!
‘Clubhouse‘ by Dowel Jones
The Stables
2-8 Wreckyn Street
North Melbourne
By appointment, on now until June 12th.
‘The Night In Clubhouse’ on tonight from 6pm – all welcome!
