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Celebrating a Decade of #DesignwithAJAR
Time does really fly! Introducing some of our favourite Spanish furniture brands and designer lamps to the Australian design world was already one of our common dreams for some time, but it was not until April 2012 that we decided to take our chances and go forward with it. Looking back, we cannot help but be proud of our past selves for summoning the courage to do so. AJAR has become a very important part of all of our lives, and we like to think that we have also left a mark on others.
To celebrate this occasion, we’d like to show you some of the projects and events that we have worked on during these last ten years and which we still hold close to our hearts. In many of these projects, we collaborated with amazing architects and interior designers, teaming up to help them enhance their interior spaces and materialise their visions and ideas with some of the best designer furniture out there.
Queens & Collins Tower Level 16 / Designer lamps and lighting
We were lucky to be able to contribute to Studio 103’s refurbishment of Level 16 of the Queen & Collins Tower. For those of you who are not from Melbourne and may not know this iconic tower, you might want to do a quick search—you are in for a surprise. The tower is part of one of the most iconic corners in the centre of Melbourne’s financial district, towering behind the old 19th Century Gothic Bank and Stock Exchange. Echoing the Gothic motives of the historical buildings, the tower itself was built in 1993 by Peddle Thorp architects, in line with the postmodern style popular at the time. To make room for new office spaces, several of its levels have been refurbished in the last couple of years, while often keeping the extravagance of the original building. Studio 103, an energetic multidisciplinary team of young professionals, was entrusted to redesign the sixteenth level, and the results were quite remarkable.
We contributed to this project by supplying Studio 103 with some of our best designer lamps. Studio 103 took the bold decision to paint all ceilings with solid colours. Even bolder: they opted for doing away with false ceilings in many areas, leaving cabling and ducts exposed and painting them with those same colours. It is not often that we see our ceiling lamps placed in such a context and the results were often striking!
One of these designer lamps is the Tribeca pendant. Conceived by Jordi Llopis for Almalight, a beautiful row of four light fittings made with spherical shades and joined together by a delicate steel structure. The shades are made with alabaster, a stone with a long tradition in Spanish culture and one which—similar to other stones such as onyx—is a perfect material to be backlit, due to its translucent nature and its unique greyish veins. Another designer lamp that Studio 103 chose is the Hoffman pendant, designed by Estudio Almerich. Made from brass and an opal blown glass shade, this designer lamp is classic and sleek, contrasting in a very interesting way with the bold ceilings. The Moon pendant was another choice for this project. This ceiling lamp is composed of three lights of different sizes united by an asymmetrical aluminium structure, vaguely reminiscent of a planetarium model. Studio 103 used it in the meeting rooms, placing them above a round table and hanging from a bright pink ceiling.
Designed by Joan Gaspar for Marset, the Aura wall light was another designer lamp that was used in this project. One of our favourite light fixtures, the Aura emits a soothing indirect light, which can also be modulated depending on the different shade finishes available (translucent, opal, transparent smoked, and copper). Studio 103 worked wonders with the Aura, choosing their placement with the utmost care.
The Hyatt Centric Melbourne
At the centre of the Melbourne business district stands the Hyatt Centric hotel, a gorgeous boutique hotel that is part of Hyatt’s brand of hotels and which is targeted towards the younger business and pleasure travellers. Besides its luscious rooms and the trendy restaurant on the topmost 25th level, Melbourne’s Hyatt Centric is equipped with a striking indoor 25-metre pool and a 24-hour fitness studio. In these last two areas, we contributed with a couple of designer lamps, designed by the talented Joan Gaspar for Marset.
Marset’s Jaima collection of designer lamps takes its name from the Bedouin tents in North Africa, inspired by their textures, materials, and shapes. The Jaima’s charming appearance comes from its unique textilene shade, which is made from flexible and waterproof materials that beautifully sift the light, and which are lightweight enough to move with the wind. The shade`s interior is white to enhance the quality of the downward light, and the exterior is available in three different colours. It also comes in three different versions: ceiling pendant, wall light, and floor lamp. The Hyatt Centric uses all three of them in the pool and fitness studio areas. If by any chance you stay in the hotel and go for a swim or workout, keep your eyes out for them!
RMIT Renovation Project
The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) underwent a major campus renovation project in 2017 by some of the top architecture and interior design offices in Australia. The project consisted of over 30,000m2 of refurbished space, and three new buildings totalling around 6,000m2 of newly built space, which completely transformed the experience of its students and the overall dynamics of the university campus more generally.
In this project, we introduced another designer lamp conceived for Marset by Joan Gaspar. The Soho pendant lamp is another piece in which Gaspar looked back to traditional designs for inspiration. In this case, he was inspired by the archetypical shape of the kind of lamps used in markets, cafés and bars, supplementing it with a careful study of volume, proportions and materials. The Soho pendant designer lamp is made from sturdy and weather-proof rotomolded polyethylene and comes in three different sizes, and several colours. We are very happy to see them shining their light on the gathering spaces on the RMIT campus for years to come!
Window Display Competition and DenFair 2017
We would also like to mention just a couple of the events we have participated in or organised ourselves over the last ten years. The first one is the “The Window to Design is AJAR”, which we organised in collaboration with the Consulate General of Spain in Australia back in 2015. The competition consisted in choosing nine designers and design studios to arrange our showroom’s window displays that overlook Johnston Street. The eight designers/design studios invited were SJB, Geyer, Baldasso Cortese, Atticus & Milo, Robert Mills Architects, Alexa Nice Design, Hot Black, and Inarte. The idea was to rotate designers every month for 8 months, challenging each of them to create an installation that highlighted the essence of contemporary Spanish design in Australia using the pieces of designer furniture and lighting available from the different brands in our catalogue: from floor lamps and table lamps to round tables, modern coffee tables, and home lighting. Each of them approached this task in a particular way, and it was very interesting to see how the design pieces in our catalogue served as the vehicles through which they could express their ideas. The panel of judges—which included the Spanish consul—chose the winning installation according to how effectively and creatively they went through with the task. In addition to this, the Consulate General of Spain curated a series of talks and workshops covering a diverse range of topics, from avant-garde Spanish designer furniture and architecture to contemporary public art. They brought speakers from around Spain, including Nina Maso (Santa & Cole) Jordi Arnau (BD Barcelona), and Dr Mark Burry, the head architect in charge of Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia. This was a very special series of events that left us with very good memories.
Another event we remember fondly is the DenFair 2017, which took place in June of that year at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. DenFair is a design trade fair focusing on high-end furniture and home lighting. Launched in 2015, it soon built a global reputation as one of Australia’s most important showcases for contemporary design. We used the opportunity to proudly showcase some of the best examples of Spanish furniture that we have selected over the years.
These are just a handful of the projects and events that we have enjoyed taking part in throughout the last ten years, and we can’t wait to see what surprises might be waiting for us further down the road. We remain fully committed to curating, for the Australian market, a selection of brands that represent the best of Mediterranean design and craftsmanship. If you are one of the architects or interior designers we have collaborated with or a customer that has acquired one of our pieces during this time, we would like to thank you for your support throughout the years. We also owe a debt of gratitude to our wonderful suppliers who provide excellent designer furniture that expresses modern taste and technology, a vision that we are happy to share here in Australia. We are looking forward to the future!