Australian architectural hardware specialist Bankston has added four new pieces to its award-winning Super Collection, extending its collaboration with Adelaide’s Sans-Arc Studio.
When Bankston released its Super Collection in 2021, designed in partnership with Sans-Arc Studio, the launch didn’t go quite as smoothly as the company’s CEOs, Emily and Steve Bradley, had planned. “We had events organised for both Sydney and Melbourne,” Steve recalls. “The night before, both cities went into lockdown. So we never really got the chance to show everyone the range with the right kind of fanfare.” Four new additions to the collection not only extend its appeal but “let us celebrate the original pieces as well,” he says.
The extension also represents Bankston’s commitment to fostering and nurturing long-term relationships with its creative partners, in this instance, Matiya Marovich of the Adelaide-based design and architectural practice Sans-Arc Studio. “We’re not creating these seasonal, Instagram collaborations that come and go,” Steve explains. “When someone partners with us, they become part of our brand and that is demonstrated with this new collection: we did it five years ago but now we’re revisiting it, extending it, maturing it.”
Bankston has since collaborated with Melbourne’s Edition Office and Brooklyn-based Civilian on the Casts and Hemisphere collections respectively, but Marovich was the first creative to work with the Bradleys after they took over Emily’s father’s company, TradCo, in 2015. And while he may not have been given complete creative freedom – given factors like existing technology and manufacturing capabilities – the Bradleys encouraged Marovich to think decidedly outside the box. “Because it was our first collaboration, we didn’t have a lot of perimeters around what it would be,” says Emily. “Our brief to him was, essentially, we love your vision, we want something that hasn’t been done before – the industry was really stale and everyone was just copying everyone else – and we knew that Matiya could deliver on that.”
The first iteration of the Super Collection comprised “five pieces that were not the same design replicated across five different applications,” Marovich explains. “What we had were five connected but different pieces that could speak to one another. Now, coming back to it, we’ve taken each one of those pieces and expanded them using the same design language.” The Radical Design Movement of the 1960s was the “conceptual underpinning” of Marovich’s approach, reflecting the movement’s focus on creating everyday objects that were “surreal, fun, silly, playful and beautiful.”
The four new pieces – the Futurismo DDA Lever, Futurismo Pull, Zzzigurat Cupboard Knob and Zzzigurat Cabinet/Finger Pull – continue that design narrative, with a focus on versatility and inclusivity. Those qualities are embodied in the DDA Lever, which was the prime catalyst for the extension (the DDA refers to the Australian Disability Discrimination Act). “In hospitality projects, you need to have disabled access doors and the handles are usually a boring tube that bends around,” Steve explains. “Matiya does a lot of hospitality work and was frustrated that he couldn’t use our products in those projects – so we decided to re-create the Futurismo as a disabled access door handle that is beautiful. It was a way of enhancing the collection as well as contributing to that design landscape and providing a solution for access requirements that isn’t boring.”
Like every new collection Bankston releases, the extended Super range has brought its own set of unique challenges. “With each creative partnership, we’ve had to source new manufacturing partners, we’ve had to introduce new materials,” says Emily. “But we learn so much in the process. Our new product development team, led by someone who’s been with us for 30 years, will say, ‘Oh, what are you bringing to us now?’ But I know they secretly love it because they learn so much, too.”
For Marovich, Bankston’s willingness to not only embrace those challenges but to push the envelope is what makes the partnership so valuable. “I’ve been working for myself for 10 years and you have a lot of clients over that kind of period,” he says. “And the best clients are the ones who are either creatives themselves or understand how to support the creative process – and that’s not everyone. Steve and Emily understand how to get the best out of someone.”
