Fancy a piece of old photography equipment as the centrepiece for your dining room? Or stripping the floors back to concrete and giving it a polish? The style we’ve come to know as Industrial Chic is around to stay, and it is part of the groundswell of trends that focus on reusing, reducing and integrating.
Most of our port based capital cities have a lovely array of old warehouses that provide the most stunning canvas for Industrial Style designers to work with. Dusty exposed brick provides warmth and texture, old banged up concrete does likewise. Unfortunately the Gold Coast is significantly short of warehouse material, so designers are being innovative in their interpretation of this style, and coming up with a new kind of cool.
In 1972 Leonard Schechter pioneered saving architectural masterpieces being demolished in New York City. The company he created became the inspiration for an entire industry of architectural salvage that today is visible on the pages of magazines like Martha Stewart Living, Architectural Digest, and many others.
Industrial Style design has been around for a while. The eighties and nineties however were more focused on streamlined surfaces and ignored, for the most part, the critical element of texture.
Today we crave it. It’s powerful and exciting to see big contrasts in a building, internally and externally, and textures define a space, give it character and personality. As we shift towards a greener consciousness and are more aware of the value of reusing, we are witnessing a design style which adds flavour and depth to the spaces it creates as it also gives opportunity to generate interest from old pieces, old surfaces or stripped back structure. We are creating places where you’d like to linger, where minimalist furniture sits beautifully against a stunning backdrop of burned brick walls, and nothing further is needed. Yet the person sitting on the furniture doesn’t feel like a museum exhibit. This isn’t a style that presents as untouchable. It is very tactile, very friendly. It’s the perfect scale to allow a space to function without a ‘do not touch’ sign out the front. The humanity of it is comforting, like an old friend.
Honouring imperfection, ‘Industrial Chic’ pares back the severity of a pure Industrial Style and allows us to use the ideas and elements within a more domestic environment. On a domestic scale, few of us are lucky to have warehouse proportions to work with, so we need a scaled down version that works at home.
Embracing the essence of Industrial Style, Industrial Chic still celebrates disparity, imperfection, texture, and function. It is exciting, unexpected, unique and so very livable.
It is a sensitive approach to design which layers form and function without ignoring the context. This style allows the architecture to pay homage to a story, and to its history. To reveal where it has come from, and with sudden bursts or discreet angles, the new chapter, the new purpose comes to life.
Robina Group have noticed this returning trend and are planning to incorporate industrial chic elements in residential projects.
So take a better look down the streets of the Gold Coast City and you’ll find some wonderful examples of Industrial Chic creeping into our midst. Have a look at their creative lighting and wall treatments especially!
Here’s a few that we’ve noticed:
No Name Lane in Broadbeach
Tonic on Chirn in Southport
Justin Lane in Burleigh Heads
Good Day Coffee in Tugun
Welcome to a new Industrial Age!
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