Factory Design District: Maker Meditations Show & Tell

Penny is the founder of The Design Writer blog, Contributing Editor of Architectural Review Asia Pacific and Mezzanine magazines and is completing a Masters in Design at UNSW on the topic of narrative in design.

A former Editor of Artichoke magazines, she also works with architecture and design firms in communications roles, including Bijl Architecture where she is Communications and Business Development Manager.

In 2016, Penny is on the Houses Jury of the NSW Architecture Awards and has co-edited with Peter Salhani a special issue of Architectural Review Asia Pacific magazine on high rise architecture.

Andrew Simpson is the founder and director of Sydney-based design house Vert and has designed a huge range of products over its ten years of operation, from the intimately hand-crafted through to mass-produced industrial products. Andrew’s approach to design is open and honest, with the act of designing, prototyping and making core to his practice.

Andrew graduated in Industrial Design from the University of Technology in Sydney in 2005 and his work has appeared in over 20 exhibitions in Australia, Europe, North America and Asia. Andrew teaches design at University of NSW Art and Design and speaks regularly about design at events across the world.

Sarah Rice is an art-theory lecturer, writer and visual artist who teaches practice-led research in craft and design at the School of Art, ANU. Her most recent course explores the idea of ‘making concepts’ and asks what questions motivate the making process. 

She maintains an active participation in ekphrasis – or art forms responding to other art forms – in particular, poetry responding to visual art and design. Her work in this area has led to recent workshops convened in collaboration with Bendigo Art Gallery, CraftACT and Canberra Museum and Gallery. 

Rice graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from the Australian National University (ANU) and received a PhD in Philosophy from the University of New South Wales in 2003. As a poet, she is widely published and won the 2014 Ron Pretty, and Bruce Dawe poetry prizes; co-won the 2013 Winning Ventures, and 2011 Gwen Harwood, and was shortlisted in the Tom Howard, New Millennium, Fish, Montreal and other poetry prizes.