Urchins by Alex Miles
It is nearly a decade since Alex Miles became a Woven Image Imagination Partner. Using our indoor-outdoor fabrics Zip and Quiz, still popular in our textile collection today, Alex created Urchins – a unique piece of public art, a nod to nature and one-off celebration of colour, texture and form.
The aim of this collaboration was to bring imagination to life in its fullest form, showing off the unique attributes of the textile, to excite and inspire the architecture and design community.
Zip and Quiz are high-performance, UV resistant commercial textiles, suitable for both indoor and outdoor use. The fabric's geometric patterns and bold colourways made a strong statement when the ‘urchins’ were placed along the dark rocks of the stunning Tasmanian coastline.
"Thinking about how we use fabric outdoors, ideas came to mind of dwellings or shelters in their simplest form - tepees, yurts, tents, shells. In keeping with nature, simple, functional and beautiful. Initial designs, based on traditional tepee structures, led to an exploration of more unconventional forms; rounded, organic objects recalling jellyfish, caves or sea pods. They are shelters for surfers, hidey holes for kids, objects for the curious." (Alex Miles)
Alex Miles is a Hobart-based graphic designer whose work often takes her happily beyond the traditional bounds of her profession. With a love of the outdoors and a passion for all forms of design, the opportunity to work with Woven Image’s vibrant range of outdoor fabrics was a unique one – and one we both celebrate many years on.