Designers ... enough. If you are copying overseas trends, the same modernist box on repeat, that's F&*king enough! Hear me out...
It’s time for us to be braver. To stop borrowing other people’s design language
and actually find our own here at home.
Because this — is what that looks like.
This piece came out of Lyzadie Renault Papatūānuku collection.
Furniture that reflects our whenua
Not as decoration. But through how it’s made.
The base is a ponga stem.
Carved by hand by Dylan at Bespoke Timber Design. You can still see the tool marks. I've never seen anything done like that before.
Then you’ve got the leaves. And this is where it gets exciting for me.
Those fronds are made from Critical.'s Forest Cleanstone.
Yep, Recycled soft plastic bags and fishing nets. But they’re not treated like a flat panel.
The ponga leaf stem profile is cut and thermal formed, folded cleanly at 90 degrees.
Then braced underneath with a steel plate, screw-fixed into the panel.
That’s what allows this long cantilever that feels almost wrong when you first see it.
Like it shouldn’t hold. But it does.
And then the shaping. This is the part I love.
There are no flat faces here. No sharp, angular lines.
Every 'leaf' is shaped by handed and sanded. Worked into a compound, double curve.
So the fronds read more like a tuki than a shelf. The edges are sanded back
then finished with a blue flame to bring the lustre back into the surface.
The result is just fucking stunning.
Ponga. Recycled plastics. Timber. Steel. I couldn't have dreamt this up!
Coming together into something that feels unmistakably Aotearoa.
It's Not imported. Not trend-driven. Not safe.
A reminder of where we come from.
And a reminder that we don’t need to copy anyone else to make meaningful design right here at home.