RORY UNITE

He packed up is things – and his family – and high-tailed it to Bali to live, work and create in an environment like none he’d ever experienced. Rory Unite lives and breathes among rural Balinese rice paddies and as a result has adopted a new approach to furniture design.

RORY UNITE has a background in set design for blockbuster films like The Matrix and The Great Gatsby, but finds experimenting with the design languages of Australia and Indonesia a much more thrilling prospect.

Moving to Indonesia several years ago with his wife and two young daughters was a monumental change for Rory Unite, with over 4600 kilometers of distance between Sydney and Bali. While most Australians venture to Bali for booze-filled adventures, Rory and his family were drawn by the striking appeal of John Hardy’s iconic Green School, where their two daughters are now enrolled, and the opportunity for Rory to explore the vast opportunities available across the country and region. The problem? Rory didn’t speak a word of the local language.

“Well I ended up over there because I had a project on – one of the Boathouse restaurants – I started working with Andrew Goldsmith to do the signage, and he started talking about doing a furniture collection with a really handmade element,” says Rory. The Boathouse Group spans several distinctive beachside restaurants with a pared back style to match their rich food offerings. Rory’s signature blue and white rattan umbrellas decorate the outdoors while the bar and dining areas are peppered with his Omni stools, chairs, and trestle tables.

“A friend of mine said, ‘Why don’t you go to Indonesia and find some workshops so you can develop the range?’” remembers Rory. “Through a crazy set of events, I ended up meeting a young Danish guy, a total furniture gun, and we started doing these exploratory missions through Java.”

PREVIOUS | RORY HAD NEVER BEEN TO BALI UNTIL HE MOVED THERE IN 2013, AND WAS “AMAZED AT HOW COOL IT WAS”. OPPOITE | RORY’S TWO CHILDREN ISLA (EIGHT) AND FRANCESCA (SIX) ARE LOVING A VASTLY DIFFERENT APPROACH TO LIFE IN BALI. ABOVE | RORY AND HIS WIFE NICOLA ENJOY THE GRASS THAT’S ALWAYS GREENER.

ABOVE | IT’S A FAR CRY FROM THE BRICK-VENEERS, TERRACED-LINED STREETS OR QUARTER-ACRE BLOCKS TYPICAL OF SUBURBAN AUSTRALIA – BUT RORY AND HIS FAMILY HAVE FULLY EMBRACED THEIR NEW HOUSE. OPPOSITE | THERE’S STILL SO MUCH TO THE LOCAL CULTURE THAT THEY HAVE HAS YET TO LEARN.

While his family is based in Bali, Rory spends his weekdays nestled in his Java workshop where he works with local craftsman to design, prototype, and manufacture his pieces. Not an easy prospect when he initially had to contend with not only a language barrier, but also a completely different approach to design. “Going over there, I didn’t speak a word of Indonesian, and we had to work together,” says Rory. “The local makers attempted the prototypes, and we had to sort of bring it all together and make it work the way we needed it to work.”

“They come from such a different world and way of working – there’s a different way of seeing how things are done,” he marvels. “We started to develop this language together, and I kept thinking, wow! What would happen if we brought all these guys together, and we started doing projects together? So now we’ve got a workshop with a huge capability across all sorts of mediums and processes.”

Having studied set design at the National Institute of Dramatic Art, Rory began working on a number of blockbuster films at Fox Studios. While he enjoyed the beauty of creating temporary objects for the likes of The Matrix and The Great Gatsby, he eventually hit a ceiling. A chance conversation resulted in his

“The fact that the local craftsman have this knowledge [of production] that we don’t have a clue about over here in Australia anymore is fascinating.”

enlistment in renovating his in-laws’ residence, prompting a passion for more permanent design. For Rory there’s nothing more thrilling than having the freedom to immerse himself in the process of making, and the tactility that becomes available when carrying a project through from inception to the final product.

“What’s amazing about Indonesia is they’ve got such a history of craft and such an instinctual knowledge of materiality. You have to go down that path and really work with that because I think that’s what makes the objects unique,” enthuses Rory, “the fact that the local craftsman have this knowledge [of production] that we don’t have a clue about here in Australia anymore is fascinating.”

“Coming through design colleges in Australia, everything is on computer. It’s rigid and there’s a distance from the materiality of what you’re doing,” he explains. While studying sculpture at Sydney’s College of Fine Arts, he found that he was often unable to take a hands-on approach to making due to a litany of Occupational Health and Safety restrictions. “In Indonesia, it’s completely the opposite – I’m fully integrated in the workshop dealing with problems on the ground.

Everyone who’s into design and making, they should be in a workshop environment actually touching and feeling, working through ideas on the spot.”

“Design is a language that crosses all boundaries.”

When he isn’t flying between Bali and Java, Rory makes frequent visits to Sydney and Melbourne, kindling conversations with fellow Australian designers along the likes of Trent Jansen, Emma Elizabeth and Tom Fereday of Local Design, and Tom Skeehan. The dream for Rory is a future where ambitious Australian designers can come across to the Java workshop and spend quality time developing their ideas, and vice versa.

“I’m really excited about collaboration and cross-pollination of ideas, and connecting Australian design with Indonesian design and craft practices – you know, tapping into carving, tapping into hand-weaving and the handmade,” says Rory. His conversations will hopefully pave the way for the Australian designers to make a visit to Java, although he does acknowledge that he has to contend with the Australian design community’s current love affair with local design and disdain for offshore making. But this is a debate he is more than willing to have.

“Maybe it is controversial, going to Indonesia, but it is also local. We keep everything local there,” Rory muses, “I see it more as a resource, because design is a language that crosses all boundaries. It shouldn’t be something that’s exclusive, it’s something inclusive, and people should see it as an opportunity to learn. I guess my hope for it is to break that mould and get everyone to look sideways.”