Lamps inspired by iconic Brisbane buildings

There’s a lot to love about Queensland architecture and our iconic heritage buildings and State Library of Queensland has a wonderful collection of built heritage items in the catalogue.

The John Oxley Library holds a vast collection of drawings, manuscripts, design plans, house plans, building
designs and related materials with links to architecture in Queensland, available to view as digitised drawings, images and digital stories with architects as they talk about their work.

You can also visit the Purpose Built exhibition that's on in the slq Gallery currently to see some of the collection items on display.

For the recent Open House event in Brisbane, The Edge ran a make and design workshop that highlighted several of Brisbane's iconic buildings which we used as inspiration to design bespoke wooden lampshades.

Participants of the workshop were taken through some key collection items, such as the James Peter Birrell (1928-2019).

One of Queensland's eminent architects, Birrell was responsible for many of the state’s best-known buildings from the 1950s, and as Brisbane City Council Architect in 1955. He designed and oversaw many projects, including the Toowong Library, the Centenary Pool and the Car Park on Wickham Terrace. In 1961, he became University of Queensland Staff Architect and designed the J.D. Story Administration Building and the Union College Building at Queensland University and designed the campus plan at James Cook University in Townsville.

We used the concrete render on the Wickham Terrace car park building as a training tool to teach vector design using free and open source program Inkscape. Participants in the workshop were free to try to design their own patterns or use several of the template designs already created, inspired by the windows and shapes of four Brisbane buildings.

The Edge's laser cutters were then used to cut the designs and participants assembled their brand new custom lamps. 

Check out below some of the end results, and don't forget that you can also visit The Edge at State Library to explore your make and design skills. 

Find out more about the space and what's on offer by subscribing to The Edge enewsletter or visiting The Edge webpage.