LAVA architect to join sustainability think tank

Chris Bosse of LAVA is one of five thought leaders taking part in a sustainability “ideas laboratory” at Sydney’s Object Gallery.

The STATE. RESPOND. Exploring Sustainable Design exhibition opens on 6 February and takes a provocative look at design’s role in creating social and environmental problems, as well as its potential for positive change.

Exhibition curator, Brian Parkes, has invited five design studios from New South Wales to respond to the issue of sustainability in contemporary design practice.

Furniture design studio Schamburg+Alvisse, multi-media company Digital Eskimo, graphic design agency one8one7, textile design business Bird Textile, and architecture firm LAVA, which recently won a major commission to develop a major part of the carbon-neutral city of Masdar in the United Arab Emirates, will all be involved.

Marc Schamburg, managing director of Schamburg + Alvisse, said the idea that something is expendable or worthless is only a point of view. “Design can transform objects of matter into objects that matter,” Schamburg said.

Marc Shamburg and Michael Alvisse (Schamburg + Alvisse) and Chris Bosse (LAVA) were all listed in The (Sydney) Magazine top 100 most influential people of 2009.

Object said it is trying to create a laboratory of ideas with the exhibition.

STATE. RESPOND. Exploring Sustainable Design runs from 6 February — 28 March 2010 at Object Gallery, 417 Bourke Street, Surry Hills.