Co//Operate

Melbourne Design Week | 1-2 June 2024

For Melbourne Design Week 2024, Blomley Cashman Design Office presented Co//Operate -
an interactive exhibition exploring the role of objects as conduits for connection. 

Co//Operate encouraged visitors to contemplate how our spaces and things
can influence our relationships in post-lockdown Melbourne.

How can our environment be the catalyst that helps shared
experience overcome the walls of caution that we learned to erect?

We imagine furniture that serves as a tool to heal community.

We presented a world that is
unnavigable when alone, but rewards collaboration.

 

In this world, you have permission to consider how play, humour and courage can facilitate the joy of exploring the unknown.

BCDO invited guests to engage with
a suite of novel objects that were intentionally frustrating
to use as an individual, but came to life through cooperation. 

Back to Back Rocking Chair

Star of the show, this was the first concept we developed while exploring the theme for Co//operate. The most physically engaging piece is also the most rewarding, not only to use, but to witness others use. Nicknamed by visitors as the ‘therapy chair’, the Back to Back Rocking Chair is highly uncomfortable for an individual, but when shared with another it lulls you into a slow, synchronized harmony.

Steel, textile, foam, plywood

900 x 1200 x 500

Blomley Cashman Design Office – Melbourne Design Week 2024 – Back to Back rocking chair at Collingwood yards space – Furniture Hand made for Exhibition Co//Operate
Blomley Cashman Design Office – Melbourne Design Week 2024 – Sam Blomley and Lachlan Cashman rocking on the back to back rocking chair – Furniture Hand made for Exhibition Co//Operate

Too Long Cabinet

Too Long Cabinet can be used as a regular hall table or divider, it lives to hold nicknackery, but it also holds a secret. A less obvious experience of cooperation. Yes you can pull the handle on your own, but without help you’ll never see what’s hiding on the other side. The lever puller is always timid, the door opens slowly then snaps shut when the handle is released, providing only a moment in which the mystery is revealed. We’ll never tell you what’s inside.

Plywood, Cord, Steel

240 x 1240 x 1900

Blomley Cashman Design Office – Melbourne Design Week 2024 – Too Long Cabinet Detail with Baltic Birch Plywood and Red paracord – Furniture Hand made for Exhibition Co//Operate
024_Blomley Cashman Design Office – Melbourne Design Week 2024 – Lachlan Cashman and Sam Blomley opening the too long cabinet – Furniture Hand made for Exhibition Co//Operate
Blomley Cashman Design Office – Melbourne Design Week 2024 – Too Long Cabinet in Action with the Red Paracord Wrapped Handle and Sam Blomley's Hand – Furniture Hand made for Exhibition Co//Operate
Blomley Cashman Design Office – Melbourne Design Week 2024 – Too Long Cabinet with Sam Blomley opening the baltic birch plywood furniture cabinet – Furniture Hand made for Exhibition Co//Operate
Blomley Cashman Design Office – Melbourne Design Week 2024 – Sam Blomley using the air pump to Pump up mild steel Piston Stools in Mild Steel – Furniture Hand made for Exhibition Co//Operate

Piston Stools

Exploring temporal cooperation. The Piston Stools are full of air, and can be adjusted to suit your ideal sitting position. They are also connected, so if you sit without company you will sink while the vacant stool raises. There is however, a leak, that does not reward complacency. To complete the experience you must find a third person, to volunteer not to sit but to pump, to replenish the volume your body is trying to displace. Cooperation isn’t always equitable.

Steel, hose, foot pump

350 x 350 x 550 x 2pcs

Blomley Cashman Design Office – Melbourne Design Week 2024 – Sam Blomley sitting on Piston Stools in Mild Steel – Furniture Hand made for Exhibition Co//Operate
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