A Cheery Bunch of Flowers /
A cheerful arrangement in Christchurch’s inner city
Beautifying the corner of Colombo and Lichfield Streets is a new six-metre-tall wood and metal sculpture entitled Dahlias. The Christchurch City Council commissioned the artwork to cheer up Cantabrians during the winter months, but even in summertime the seven massive flowers bring a smile to the faces of passers-by.
Andrew Veitch and Bevan Whiting operate out of a workshop opposite the Colombo Mall in Sydenham. A wooden sign above the roller door reads ‘Frontal Lobe’. On the far wall is an impressive clock constructed from bamboo cogs. It’s an eye-catching piece of engineering, functional yet decorative and it reminds me of a line on their website – ‘Designed to stand out, built to last generations and created to start conversations’. Such an impressive clock certainly checks all those boxes. Having studied their website and seen sustainability mentioned numerous times, I ask Bevan about this aspect of their business. In response, he points to a neatly stacked pile of timber. ‘That’s all old rimu from the University of Canterbury. We got a call from someone who asked if we could use it, and we jumped at the chance. We’re going to make it into a range of furniture. We prefer to use recycled materials as they have a unique history. All our products are designed with sustainability in mind.’
Bevan runs his hand over a large bamboo table, the centrepiece of their showroom. ‘We’re producing pieces we want the owner’s grandchildren to fight over in years to come. Whatever we do has to fit with our sustainability values. We had a customer come in the other week to commission a bespoke light fitting. He showed us a picture he’d torn out of a magazine. Sure, we could have replicated that, but Andrew and I knew we could do better. We discussed his options, and he agreed we could use recycled timber. The finished piece was so much better because it has a unique history storebought items lack. Engaging with the history of the materials is important to us – all our pieces of furniture come with their own story.’
Andrew tells me how the pair met. ‘I was working in Melbourne and decided to come back to Christchurch to set up my own business. My father introduced me to Bevan, who coincidentally was friends with my brother. Bevan and I hit it off immediately. We decided to start the business slowly, and each took one day a week out of our regular employment – Frontal Lobe Fridays we called them. Bevan’s father has a large workshop, so we based ourselves there until we outgrew the space. By then we’d got some success under our belts, so we decided to go full-time.’
Bevan is the creative drive behind their work. He’s always had an interest in working with timber, but only discovered the possibilities of bamboo in 2011. ‘After the earthquakes, I vowed to make more use of my creativity. I’ve always been a keen cyclist, so my first project was making a bamboo bike.’
People noticed his bicycle whenever he took it out. ‘I got a lot of attention riding it. People were always stopping me to ask where I’d got it. I’ve since made several others, including one I stained black. It looks great, but black hasn’t been a popular colour option because people assume it’s just made from metal; pale bamboo is the best-selling finish.’
After the bamboo bikes, Bevan turned his hand to
creating light fittings and furniture with a focus on highquality materials and natural finishing oils. Andrew explains, ‘We design beautiful products which will impact people’s lives in a positive way.’
When the Christchurch City Council commissioned the pair to create the Dahlias sculpture, Bevan and Andrew based the blooms on forms they had developed for light fittings. ‘I decided a large bunch of flowers would fit the bill of cheering people up and created a design which incorporated seven giant stems,’ Bevan says. ‘Our sustainability values meant we used local businesses for the manufacturing: Louis Slade at Slade Engineering made the stems and Clint at Custom Cutting Formes cut the 200-plus wooden shapes.
‘The blooms are all made from exterior FSC plywood, which has sustainable ethical production from source to supply, and the metal stalks are powder-coated. Each flower head is stained darker on the outside and fitted on the inside with an LED light on a slow rotation. Every time the sculpture is viewed, it will look a little different.’
The slow lighting changes were a deliberate choice. ‘We didn’t want garish multi-coloured flashing lights,’ Bevan explains. ‘We’re pleased with the subtle colour changes.’
The evening I visited the sculpture, the flowers ranged in colour from lilac through to bright pink. These colours have playful connotations; pink is said to encourage creativity. That’s no coincidence.
‘We’re keen to support positive mental health,’ Andrew says. ‘Our vision for this space is to make it somewhere positive for people to meet. We’ve incorporated a contemplative seating area underneath the flowers and have used material cut out of the flowers to construct the seats.’
‘The site, on the corner of Colombo and Lichfield Streets, is diagonally opposite a movie theatre. It’s a bustling location and installing the sculpture so close to Christmas gave us a few sleepless nights, I can tell you,’ says Bevan with a laugh.
‘It wasn’t easy getting the sculpture installed before the end of 2019, but it means we’ve started 2020 on a high. Dahlias has generated a lot of interest from the public. Someone I bumped into the other day told me how much they enjoyed seeing it peeking through the first floor of the Lichfield Street car parking building. We’d never considered how it would be viewed from up there, so that was a nice bonus.’
When I ask what’s next for Frontal Lobe, Bevan grins. ‘We got into shop fit-outs last year and I hope this year will see us doing more, and we’ll continue with the bespoke furniture. This time last year, we would never have guessed we’d be making giant flowers, so who knows what may come our way? We love our work. People who drop into the workshop often comment on our positive energy.’ Bevan smiles. ‘I think it’s because we’re having so much fun; it hardly feels like work at all.’
‘We design beautiful products which will impact people’s lives in a positive way.’