Lamps made of eggshells disrupt the luxury furniture award | Creation

Melbourne-based furniture designer Joanne Odisho collects thousands of discarded eggshells from local restaurants. They then seal them, dry them and put them in a Nutribullet.

These are the first steps in creating the materials Odisho uses to create his Mod-u lamps, a collection of Jenga-esque lighting pieces, which recently won him the coveted Australian Furniture Award. Creation award, one of the richest creative awards in the country.

Odisho first researched the concept during his undergraduate studies at RMIT in 2022, when he was accused of using food waste. Encouraged by the resources from Materiom, an organization dedicated to new natural products, he tried coffee grounds “but they made mold”, before landing on the unexpected flexibility and hardness of eggshells.

After being crushed into a fine powder, the shells are combined with biopolymer to create a product “about the consistency of wet sand” which is poured into a mold and left to dry naturally “for about a week”. They would prefer to hide their installations to prevent copyright infringement, but say they are household items that can be damaged. Odisho is not sure of the science behind his team’s work but the product can be made in the home kitchen, heals itself and requires no shots.

The products are cheap, durable, mixed and, since they do not add any color, they show the natural palette of the egg carton.

The lamps are made of many recycled blocks made from eggshell, which Odisho describes as rock in its once dry solidity. These can be “moved, rotated and modified to create what you want”, he says.

Stylecraft, a furniture company founded in Melbourne in 1953, has hosted two annual Furniture Design awards since 2015. The last four editions of the award have been presented in conjunction with the National Gallery of Victoria as part of Melbourne Design Week. Winners receive a cash prize of $20,000 and the opportunity to partner with StyleCraft to develop new designs for product development and sales.

Tony Russell, the company’s brand director has been on the award jury since its inception. He thinks he considered more than 500 offers during that time. This year the theme “living well, living small” challenged designers to create pieces that “encourage comfort, functionality, and health in an integrated environment.”

Russell was fascinated by the Odisho’s use of egg yolks, which he had never encountered before, but he says that they are the ones used to make a vote. “It can be turned into a table lamp, a floor lamp or something else.”

“The design of the lamps and how they are used well,” also attracted the judges. “It’s a property you want to deal with,” Russell said.

Odisho will now work with Stylecraft on the design and development of new designs. He is not sure what that will be. “It could be a variation of these lamps, but I’m interested in looking at soft furnishings, like a simple sofa,” he said.