USE Category Winner:

DesignByThem for DL Range by Gibson Karlo and Dion Lee

The Jury was delighted to award the DL Range by DesignByThem, a collaboration between founders and industrial designers Sarah Gibson and Nicholas Karlovasitis, and Australian fashion designer Dion Lee, based on rewarding and acknowledging the interdisciplinary design process and exploration of the concept, translating Fashion into Furniture.

The key objective of this project was to promote crossdisciplinary design and create a unique body of work that merges fashion and industrial design principles. Referencing the iconic Bauhaus slung leather furniture typology and taking inspiration from Dion Lee’s signature weaving techniques, the DL Range combines organic materials and angular silhouettes with Italian saddle leather tensioned over a steel frame.

Both designers brought knowledge from quite distinct disciplines with specific perspectives. Together they explored what it means to create an object that is functional, practical, and expressive of the knowledge and expertise—resolving in something that is not only aesthetically beautiful but very functional.

The concept went through six rounds of iterations, prototyping, and material experimentations. The design process involved experimenting with weaving techniques and how these could be incorporated into a furniture piece while balancing the hand-made with mass production techniques. The leather is woven through the geometric metal frames to create comfortable seats and twisted to enhance the shifting aesthetic and visual lightness.

DesignbyThem encourages responsible practices at the end of the product’s life / or for the used product and provides a Product Stewardship Program for designs within the collection.

The design pushes traditional boundaries of conventional seating and approaches to how furniture is designed. The design is a modern icon.

The Design Institute of Australia is committed to strengthening the design industry’s capabilities through powerful cross-disciplinary collaboration with prioritised interests in encouraging the circular economy. It looks to empower our designers with a vision to recognise Australian design as one of the best in the world. Design ByThem has shown supreme design process abilities while responding to authenticity, diversity, inclusivity, and the environment.

Category: Use

Designers: Sarah Gibson, Nicholas Karlovasitis, Dion Lee