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2025 honours thesis
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homewares
archives
2025 honours thesis
Links
lessons from the reef,
a eulogy for colour
2025
This section showcases my 2025 Industrial Design Honours project completed at RMIT University. The full thesis report of which can be found embedded below. It investigates an urgent crisis unfolding across culture, industry, and ecology: a global desaturation.
This project argues that the catastrophic bleaching of our coral reefs is deeply mirrored above water, where contemporary design increasingly retreats into monochrome greys under the guise of minimalism. Here, colour is reframed not as a simple finish, but as a vital structural language shared by humans and nature.
The documentation below traces this journey from theoretical research into human perception to advanced material practice. This exploration culminates in a collection of delicate porcelain vessels, formed through a synthesis of traditional casting and robotic clay extrusion. Part elegy and part critique, the project serves as a poignant memorial to lost chroma and a call to recognise that the fading of our reefs and the greying of our culture are the very same story.
This project argues that the catastrophic bleaching of our coral reefs is deeply mirrored above water, where contemporary design increasingly retreats into monochrome greys under the guise of minimalism. Here, colour is reframed not as a simple finish, but as a vital structural language shared by humans and nature.
The documentation below traces this journey from theoretical research into human perception to advanced material practice. This exploration culminates in a collection of delicate porcelain vessels, formed through a synthesis of traditional casting and robotic clay extrusion. Part elegy and part critique, the project serves as a poignant memorial to lost chroma and a call to recognise that the fading of our reefs and the greying of our culture are the very same story.