Australian New Volumes’ approach to furnishings and objects could be surmised to be one in response to the diminishing presence of the natural, textural, and the imperfect – designs defined by a materiality serving modern living innately attuned to the earthly elements. The brand’s terrestrial aesthetic and ethos is in full display with the brand’s follow-up collection dedicated to various applications of baked clay, aka terracotta, for seating, lighting, entertaining, and display.
The form of Echo Low (above), Cove chair (center), and Echo High (right) by Thomas Coward reference classical Greco-Roman architecture realized in clay rather than marble.
The Pitcher Table and Pitcher Stool by Adam Goodrum are sculpturally simple forms with just enough sharp angularity to keep the design contemporary.
A sequel to the brand’s first collection represented by objects made from 250-million-year-old Elba stone, the Collection 02—Terracotta is a more humble material and one described by New Volumes’ Creative Director Thomas Coward as “stories made from the mud.” The combination of clay mud with water aided by heat and time impart terracotta with its distinctive color and texture, a material that’s possibly the world’s first manufactured medium. Put to varied use by a small group of designers invited to interpret the traditional clay, the eight-piece collection takes on forms both recognizable and experimental at once.
Earth Wirri by Lucy Simpson was inspired by the form bark coolamons, water carriers, and other Australian Aboriginal designs.
The linear Pinch wall lamp designed by Kate Stokes is both lighting and wall sculpture characterized by a central sharp line or ‘pinch’ that allows light to fall differently on each side of the terracotta form.
Pinch wall lamp by Kate Stokes
The curvaceous Sol by Hattie Molloy was shaped to stoke curiosity and provide adaptable display opportunities for flowers or incense with its quartet of bulbous protrusions.
Designer Chris Connell borrows the Greek word ‘Skafos’ meaning “vessel” to communicate the purpose of this contemporary umbrella holder and smaller vase.
Megan Morton’s Harvest is a creation of multitudes: multipurpose, multiple of pieces, and a multitude of configurations.
Applied across various forms – seats, side tables, stools, vases, and even a sculptural modular colander set – the New Volumes Collection 02—Terracotta would not look out of place within the Arcological settings of Paolo Soleri’s Arcosanti (or perhaps as set pieces in the next season of Andor), tinged sumptuously by Australian mineral mud and shaped wearing the telltale signs of its creators.
“The designers who took part in this collection are as diverse as the products they have created. From established names to exciting new faces, all possess a fiercely individual approach and style, and have taken to the material with gusto,” notes New Volumes Creative Lead, Thomas Coward.
Thomas Cowards’ Cove chair highlights the strength of terracotta and its organic beauty.
The Skafos fruit platter by Chris Connell reaches out in three directions, with a ribbed base designed to elevate fruit allowing each piece to breathe.
The contemporary exploration of classical forms celebrating terracotta operates in stark contrast to the increasingly manufactured artifice of modernity. Whether admired separately or in sum, New Volumes’ Collection 02— Terracotta is a reminder why we are naturally drawn to play and shape mud as children, a medium that can be manipulated with abandon by hands young and old alike.
To view the entire collection and learn more about the Collection 02— Terracotta, venture over to newvolumes.com.
