Fiona Lynch Office
(est. 2013, Melbourne)

Volker Haug Studio
(est. 2004, Melbourne)

Fiona Lynch established her own interior design studio in 2013, bringing her painterly command of colour and texture, and a signature spirited minimalism to architectural and interior design projects as well as bespoke furniture, lighting and joinery. With an emphasis on ecological responsibility, Lynch uses natural materials and sculptural elements, finding harmony between the raw and the refined.

On display at Melbourne Now is Lynch’s collaboration with Volker Haug Studio, a decorative lighting design practice whose detailed and elegant pieces are imbued with playfulness and individuality. Volker Haug Studio specialises in customisable decorative lighting ranges, as well as working on site-specific projects and limited-edition works. The studio’s unique and adventurous pieces explore unconventional materials and methods while retaining a clean and rational aesthetic.

Ton tall, designed in 2021 and manufactured in 2022, was first exhibited in Futures Collective, an exhibition of sustainable design at Kew’s historic Villa Alba conceived by Fiona Lynch and Fiona Lyda for Melbourne Design Week in 2022. Here, Lynch re-imagines Volker Haug Studio’s sculptural table lamp, Tableton, in a standing design. Made from polished gunmetal, polished aluminium or raw aluminium, works in the Ton series are all poured as a single piece of metal using traditional sand-casting methods, which impresses textural elements into the material’s surface. With sustainability in mind, Lynch has used an existing cast to reconfigure the original, here made with raw aluminium. This lamp is part of Fiona Lynch Office’s first capsule collection, which expanded upon the studio’s commitment to sustainable materials, producing pieces with waste materials and local fabrication.

Lynch was named Design Anthology’s Female Designer of the Year in 2021 and hailed as one of the ‘true design influencers in the world’ by Germany’s Architectural Digest. She has been nominated for various prizes at the IDEA Awards, winning Best Public Space (2021), Best Retail Interior (2017) and Designer of the Year (2016). Other recent accolades include two commendations in the Australian Interior Design Awards (2021), Best Restaurant Design (2021) and Best Bar Design (2015) at the Eat Drink Design Awards. Lynch received an international design travel scholarship from DIAlogue on Tour (2019) and won three awards (including Designer of the Year) at the Belle Coco Republic Interior Design Awards (2016). Her work has been featured in publications across Australia, Europe, the United States and beyond.

Volker Haug Studio’s designs have been widely exhibited across Australia and internationally, appearing at Milan Design Week (2022, 2019), Melbourne Design Week (2022, 2021), Denfair (2022, 2018), Lexus Pavilion (2019, 2018) and Business of Design Week Hong Kong (2018).