Melbourne Designer Wins Furniture Award for Eggshell Lamps
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- Joanne Odisho, a Melbourne furniture designer, won the Australian Furniture Design Award with her Mod-u lamps, a collection of configurable blocks molded from a composite made of crushed eggshells and a biopolymer.
- Odisho collects thousands of discarded eggshells from local cafes, sterilises and dries them, then pulverises them in a Nutribullet before mixing the powder with a household biodegradable setting agent and pouring it into moulds to dry naturally for about a week.
- The resulting eggshell composite is cheap, durable, compostable, and requires no firing process or dyes, preserving the natural palette of eggs; Odisho first developed the concept during a 2022 RMIT school assignment to use food waste, initially experimenting with coffee grounds before they developed mould.
- The Mod-u lamps consist of dozens of re-arrangeable blocks that can be moved, rotated and alternated into different arrangements, functioning as a table lamp, a floor lamp or a feature piece.
- Stylecraft, a Melbourne furniture company founded in 1953, has run the biannual award since 2015, presenting the last four iterations with the National Gallery of Victoria as part of Melbourne Design Week; winners receive A$20,000 plus a collaboration to bring a design to commercial production and market.
- Jury member Tony Russell, who has reviewed more than 500 submissions since the prize's inception, said the product's versatility and its tactile, architectural form secured his vote, noting the 2025 theme 'living well, living small' challenged designers to enhance comfort and wellbeing in compact spaces.
- Odisho will now work with Stylecraft on developing and manufacturing a new design, saying she is considering either a variation on the lamps or a move into modular soft furnishings such as sofas.
Why it matters: Odisho takes home a A$20,000 prize and a guaranteed path to commercial production with Stylecraft for a material that can be mixed in a home kitchen from cafe food waste, offering a replicable model of circular design while giving Stylecraft a marketable product built from an unconventional bio-composite she has chosen to keep proprietary.
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