Patience often reveals silver linings, as Melbourne-based Flack Studio discovered when a glass fitting from a vintage wall sconce broke irreparably during an installation. With the 20 x 20cm back plate already in place, the studio’s founder, David Flack, called on local lighting designer Volker Haug for an urgent, site-specific solution. Haug was able to save the day, creating a bespoke fitting that seamlessly integrated with the existing design, but the story doesn’t end there. The incident sparked the idea for an altogether more expansive and ambitious collaboration.
Using the fixed 20 x 20cm back plate as a starting point, the two studios began to develop a lighting collection. Initially, the designers embraced this dimension as a constraint for exploring material and form. Through models and prototypes, they pushed creative boundaries, eventually loosening these parameters to enable a more organic and unconstrained design process. The resulting 12-piece collection is a celebration of the innate beauty of materials like brass, aluminium, glass and fibreglass.
They called it 'Me and You' – a reference to the spirit of collaboration and the relationship between light and space – and launched it in April during Milan Design Week 2024 as a limited collection. ‘Seeing our clients interact with this collection in Milan was really insightful,’ recalls Volker Haug, founder and director of Volker Haug Studio. ‘How they responded to the designs, the materials, and hearing how they planned to integrate the works with their own projects was really telling. From those conversations, we identified opportunities to build on the original collection.’
Without wasting time, the studios began creating six new designs, which launched last week in Volker Haug’s Melbourne showroom. The new additions include The 'Tux' pendant and 'Tux' wall light, which share softly curved fibreglass shades and brass binding details with the existing 'Tux' table lamp. The collection also features a smaller version of the bud-like 'Fleur' pendant and expanded configurations of the gridded 'Bruce' wall light in cast brass or aluminium.
‘“Me and You” is a collaboration that has always happened organically, and these beautiful new additions are no different,’ comments David Flack, founder and principal of Flack Studio. ‘For me, they really reflect the essence of the collection, which is the coming together of our respective disciplines – interior and industrial design.’
To mark the launch, Volker Haug invited Flack Studio to refresh its Melbourne showroom located in the brand's converted 1940s warehouse HQ. Set across the building's first floor, the showroom is accessed via the brand's ground floor design office and workshops. In a packing and dispatch area that opens out to an internal courtyard, a rear staircase leads up to the showroom and office with a sawtooth roof where pendants hang on long suspensions.
Building on the design studios' Milan showcase, a rug by local brand Halcyon Lake lies underfoot, the walls and ceiling are painted in an oxblood red gloss paint, and the space's south-facing windows are dressed with the same 7m curtain used in Milan. Works from local artists such as Lucina Lane, Spencer Lai, Mike Parr, Jahnne Pasco-White, Joseph Junmara and Mark Maurangi Carrol are hung on the walls.
'As a starting point we used the palette from our Milan show but it quickly became apparent the [earthy brown] colours didn’t work under the Australian light,' says Haug, who moved from Germany to Australia in the early 2000s and launched his own studio out of his garage in 2004. 'Instead, we went with a glossy oxblood red paint. We also reused the textiles and the wooden furniture from Milan which was custom designed and made to be shown in conjunction with the 'Me and You' collection. The space is the perfect setting to present our collaboration with Flack Studio in Melbourne.'
