President’s Award:
Edward Linacre for contribution to the profession
The President’s Award is presented to multidisciplinary designer Edward Linacre for his leading work within the design community. Edward is a product designer and artist by profession. He is a partner at Copper Design which resides within Mycelium Studios, of which he is also a co-founder and Manager of Design.
Edward also operates a self-titled studio with an experimental focus and is co-founder of Mycelium’s own biomaterial research and development laboratory, Symbiosis Lab. He is a student mentor and has taught at Swinburne and RMIT Universities. For three consecutive years he has been selected as a Victorian Delegate of Design by Creative Victoria.
Edward’s support for diversity and equality across disciplines is evidenced across multiple streams. Notably in Mycelium Studios’ teamwork, where the method is valued as much as the outcome and where respect for authenticity, inclusivity, community and the environment is a vital part of the process. These are amongst the core values of the Design Institute of Australia and the Designers Australia Awards. Edward embraces these values and is a model recipient of the inaugural President’s Award.
Throughout his profession Edward has embraced innovation and collaborative solutions. A DIA Graduate of the Year winner in 2010, Edward worked at product design consultancy CPdesign whilst at University, and went on to collaborate with Viktor Legin in Copper Design. They co-authored eight international patents for medical devices and built an internationally operating multi-award winning studio.
He has forged a design career in social and sustainable practice by supporting local manufacturing and using renewable materials, including a biodegradable seating stool from fungi and reclaimed wood chips with the team at Symbiosis Lab. Social and sustainability-focused practice is also evident in his involvement in Mycelium Studios, a thriving community of respected artists and designers working across a broad spectrum of creative approaches. The community has become an invaluable resource that allows the core design team to respond to client briefs rapidly as a multidisciplinary creative consultancy called Mycelium Creative.
Focusing on the design process and the environment as much as the outcome is integral to a professional design career, and Edwards’s approach through collaboration and community is praiseworthy. This technique is vital to the role of design, the impact of our designers, and health and wellbeing. For the DIA, cross-disciplinary unyielding collaboration within the community - as pursued by Edward Linacre - encourages design debate by engaging the end-users.
About Edward Linacre:
Edward is co-founder of Mycelium Studios, Symbiosis Lab, Copper Design, and founder of his self-titled studio. He is the co-author of eight international patents for medical device designs, filed by Medical Developments International.
Recently his Flask Lighting System won the national Design Files Awards Lighting category, was named a finalist for the Victorian Premier's Design Awards and won the international lighting competition LAMP. His Sun Illuminated Wall Sculpture won in the International LIT awards and was recently acquired by the Clarence City Council for the Clarence Art Collection. A runner-up in the Design Report Award during Milan Design Week, he also received the global James Dyson Award during his honours year at Swinburne University, and received the DIA GOTYA Award 2010.
Mycelium Creative and studio Mind Buffer developed multi award-winning “Biometric Smart Mirrors“ for IBM Australia’s Outthink Melanoma campaign, which scanned over 800 people for melanoma risk over a weekend at Bondi Beach.
Ed is a third-time Victorian design delegate at HKBoDW. His work has been exhibited throughout Europe, Australia and the US, including multiple Melbourne Design Weeks, and his personal artwork has been acquired by notable galleries in Australia and the U.S. Curator Ian Wong invited him to exhibit at both 100 Objects — “100 years of Australian Design in the Home” at Robyn Boyd’s Walsh St residence, and ICONIC at Design Tasmania. His Mycelium stool and lighting, a co-lab with Philippa Abbott and Mycolab, were shown at Melbourne Design Week and at “PLAY” during Mona Foma by Design Tasmania. The Symbiosis Lab project has been invited to exhibit as part of a four-year-long European museum touring Biomimicry exhibition.
He has taught at both Swinburne and RMIT Universities and manages the Industry Partnership between Mycelium Studios and RMIT in developing Bio-Alternative materials and products. Through Ed’s mentoring, students have been given access to Copper Design, Mycelium Studios and MycoLab, have gone onto design professions, won national awards for their work, and have shown at Milan Design Week.
Category: Place
Designer: Edward Linacre
