THATCH Andrew Johnston

NZ Homeware Designer - Hawkes Bay

"An architect who's island hopping past influences beautifully simple objects constructed for everyday use."

Island hopping his way through his childhood, Andrew and his wife have ended up settling on their wee patch of Kiwi paradise, the beautiful foothills of Havelock North in Hawkes Bay. His workplace provides a view over the vegie and herb garden they nurtured from a dried and cracked piece of land. Singapore, Rarotonga, New Caledonia have indellibly left their mark on his work though. "Lightness, I don’t do solid or monolithic very well. It may be from the time I spent in the Pacific, structures there have a much more temporary connection to the earth." Training and working as an archictect taught him about the innovative and efficient use of low cost, standard materials, their uses and sustainability. Add to that his desire to create everyday objects, affordble and useful to many, and allow the user to complete the last stage of the product's journey, allows a sense of "ownwership". Is this a reference to the Constructivist days of the Proletariat? Long live Kiwi design!