Wood Melbourne’s new Kiwi collab
The duo behind Wood Melbourne’s Chromablock range. Left: Oliver MacLatchy, founder of Wood Melbourne. Right: Georgina McWhirter Kiwi-born, NY-based, designer and editor.
Australian design studio Wood Melbourne is known for geometric bath and kitchen fittings made in effortlessly cool, pared-back concrete and reclaimed timber. Now, Oliver MacLatchy's characteristic circular and square faucet handles get a jolt of colour courtesy of Kiwi-born, New York-based designer and editor Georgina McWhirter.
Shunning the ennui of chrome and the market over-saturation of brass, Chromablock is a collection of minimalist (in shape) but playful (in colour) tap handles in matte poured resin — a new medium for MacLatchy.
Kahn, a cylindrical tap handle named after architect Louis Kahn and his penchant for circular voids, joins Corbu, a cube handle with Le Corbusier’s nickname. Pair two of the same or play with architectural geometries by juxtaposing Kahn with Corbu.
The handles for bathroom basins, tubs, showers, or kitchen sinks can be paired with any Wood Melbourne faucet and backplate — in brass, concrete, Blackbutt wood, or Carrara marble — or mount sans backplate flush to a sink or wall.
The 12 colors are deliberately, evocatively ‘off,’ exploring the liminal space between primary and secondary hues. See the burnt orange-red Hot Sauce or mustard-tinged olive Dirty Martini.
They take inspiration from such references as Le Corbusier’s Polychromie Architecturale keycards, Douglas Sirk’s lush Technicolor cinematography, grunge eyeshadow by Terry Barber, William Eggleston’s 1970s color photography, the Memphis Group, zeitgeisty interiors by contemporary Italian studios such as Dimorestudio and Marcante-Testa, and retro 1950s pastel bathroom tile.
To view the full Cromablock range head to woodmelbourne.com.
