Design Principles Pod

Hydroforming the Future: Gerard Dombroski's Exhibition, Inflation

• Sam Brown, Ben Sutherland and Gerard Dombroski • Season 2 • Episode 9

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What happens when steel becomes soft? When industrial materials take on organic forms? In Gerard Dombrowski's debut solo exhibition "Inflation" at Season Aotearoa Gallery, steel transforms into something unexpectedly fluid and inviting.

We turn the microphone on our own Gerard Dombrowski as he shares the journey behind creating "Inflation"—a collection of hydroformed steel objects that challenge our perception of what's possible with metal. The exhibition features approximately 19 pieces, including wobbly vases, rocking chairs, and cushion-like forms, all arranged as a garden-like landscape visitors can explore.

The conversation dives deep into Gerard's technique of hydroforming—welding steel shapes together, connecting a tap, and using water pressure to expand the metal outward into organic, bulbous forms. It's a process that combines precision with chance, creating objects that appear impossibly soft despite their metallic composition. The rocking chair stands out as a particular achievement: a hydroformed cube with natural roundness that creates a functional rocking motion, complete with cushions and surprisingly comfortable seating.

What makes this exhibition particularly fascinating is Gerard's background in architecture and how it influences his artistic practice. The conversation follows his ambitious vision to scale up the hydroforming technique to create actual buildings—a hydroformed shed as proof of concept, potentially leading to larger structures. This cross-pollination between art and architecture demonstrates how creative experimentation in one field can generate innovative approaches in another.

Beyond the technical aspects, Gerard reveals how the exhibition came together through spontaneous creation rather than detailed planning—a month of "full send in the workshop" that nearly resulted in physical collapse from exhaustion. His story reminds us of the intense physical and mental demands of bringing creative work into the world, especially when pushing the boundaries of materials and processes.

Check out "Inflation" at Season Aotearoa Gallery in Auckland before July 12th, and experience these remarkable objects that blur the boundaries between art, design, and architecture. Sit in the rocking chair, observe the garden of steel flowers, and glimpse a potential future where our buildings might take on unexpectedly organic forms.


Key Links:

  • https://www.seasonaotearoa.com/
  • https://www.gdw.nz/menu
  • https://artfair.co.nz/2025/07/02/meet-the-artist-gerard-dombroski-season/

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Sam Brown:

It's time to roll out the red carpet. Limited release 29 is a red IPA brewed with a complex wrist of malts and a big blend of heavy-hitting American hop varieties, showcasing bold citrus and berry fruit characters on top of a luscious red toffee malt cushion. Sounds like a lovely red steel cushion I've recently seen at Cesar Naltaroa in Auckland. Check out this drop like the exhibition before it's gone. Today we have the absolute pleasure of turning the mic on one of our own.

Sam Brown:

Gerard Dombrowski has his first solo show, called Inflation, on now at César Altearoa in Auckland and we couldn't be prouder of him. In this episode, Gerard takes us through his artistic approach from wire brushing inside a cube to scattering objects on the floor. His insight into the connection between art and architecture is not to be missed. Get down to season before the 12th of July to check out the exhibition and swag back on a wobbly chair Time to dive in. I'm super keen to pick your brain about the exhibition and how you put it together and how it's gone and all that sort of jazz. Also. I think it's worth probably just giving a quick congratulations to Ben Architect Ben, we haven't done that on the pod yet. Well done, buddy.

Ben Sutherland:

Stop it. No one even knew I wasn't.

Sam Brown:

Welcome to the club. We're now three architects, you can now speak with validity on this. On this show.

Ben Sutherland:

I've leveled up. Nah it feels good. It's like a chapter that took me 10 years to close, but yeah, got it done made it a little fun you get to pay all that, get to pay all those exorbitant fees and ramp up your insurance. I haven't done any of those things yet. Early days.

Sam Brown:

Going around to it.

Ben Sutherland:

Yeah, yeah, no, it feels good. It actually does feel good, nice bro.

Sam Brown:

Nice, oh, congratulations.

Gerard Dombroski:

And look at that sweet new beer.

Sam Brown:

architecture, branding yeah, I like it. Look at that T-shirt, yep.

Ben Sutherland:

Rolling the nice new kind of dolmen. Thanks, nice new kind of dolman. Thanks to the man himself Pretty sick. I'll get myself one of those. Sam, you've done a company brand recently. How do you compare yours to mine?

Sam Brown:

I like yours. Ours is a little bit different. Here's our little business cards.

Ben Sutherland:

Yeah, yours is fancy Mine is just a couple of guys. An illustration of two guys playing golf.

Sam Brown:

That was me and Johnny Dusty as the day after the dream, the day after the Southern NZIA Awards.

Ben Sutherland:

Knocking the ball about how we're a golf course. Yeah, big congrats to.

Sam Brown:

Arie Architects for naming that as well, and another one recently with Robin, robin, maria's yeah yeah, niche the well the well, sorry window and glass association of new zealand. Nice residential carpenter in wellington glazed home of the year. That's a nice award it's a mouthful. It's cool, though, yeah it's hard out.

Ben Sutherland:

Yeah, it's actually kind of cool to be. I'm sure there's got more to come as well. I'm sure it's nice.

Sam Brown:

I just reckon it's cool knowing that there's. You know, I wouldn't have never known there was glass awards out there. There must be. There's probably like plumbing awards and tiling awards and of random things out there, I imagine, do you reckon accountants have awards? Yeah, best Spreadsheeter yeah.

Ben Sutherland:

Fastest.

Sam Brown:

Exceller.

Gerard Dombroski:

Oh, I love those Excel videos. The.

Sam Brown:

Excel Award.

Gerard Dombroski:

Excelling at Excel Excel World Champs. Boom yeah, that's an accolade.

Ben Sutherland:

Look at us all doing stuff. So many puns, so many puns.

Sam Brown:

That's too good, but look at us all out there doing stuff.

Gerard Dombroski:

Professional.

Sam Brown:

Yeah exhibition.

Gerard Dombroski:

That was a good time yeah mate.

Ben Sutherland:

It was full on, it was good, had a couple. I have to say I made it to the opening evening and I was the first person in the door, I believe, or one of them, no wait. I was the third, after Gerard and Augie, and got to take like a photo of the Raw exhibition and damn, it looked good, I must say.

Sam Brown:

Gerard, tell us, give us the elevator pitch.

Gerard Dombroski:

for those that don't know about it, I don't know if you find yourself in Auckland before the 12th of this month. So by the time this episode comes out it's probably closed.

Sam Brown:

So you might be no we might try to get this out before it closes you reckon it might come out on the 8th.

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah, all right, so you've got four days. Get yourself down to Grey Lynn to season our Te Arawa gallery. It's my first solo, so I'd be pretty thankful to old J francis for entrusting me with a solo momentous occasion in my uh art career what is that?

Ben Sutherland:

what was the theme? Yeah, what is that?

Gerard Dombroski:

um, it's kind of wobbly objects, wobbly vases, so it's kind of like a landscape. It's almost a garden. So what is it? It's probably 19 odd objects. There's two chairs, sick chairs, four cushions, and then the rest are vases Of varying heights and scales and widths and shapes.

Sam Brown:

Long, tubular one. I love that. That one's sick.

Gerard Dombroski:

So we kind of arranged it as kind of like a culmination. So there's like an event, a climax, at the end and it drops off again afterwards. So we kind of laid it out so, as you're walking in the door, it's like quite an impact, and then you get to sort of walk through the garden. So, yeah, it was way more of a spatial experience than, like, I knew it was going to be spatial, but it was like probably more, more of yeah, it worked better than I was expecting it to do you reckon that that evolved during, like the making of the pieces, or was that more on the setup?

Gerard Dombroski:

both are pretty key. I think the setup. We just angled the heights kind of in order roughly, so it kind of peaked on the chimney one. If you're listening to this and you don't know what we're talking about, we're just talking about a whole bunch of bubbly objects, really. Yeah, so it's just a room full of hydroformed objects. But the way I put it together was pretty instinctually Like. We've talked about my design process quite a bit by now, so it's like didn't draw many. I drew some stuff at the very end, just before I was making the chimney as, like, how I wanted to arrange the space Was like I needed that vertical element in there.

Sam Brown:

Is that that sketch you put up on your Instagram?

Ben Sutherland:

No, that was no, that's just a drawing of the actual exhibition. But I don't know if that's entirely true, gerard, because you actually sent me a digital version of what your concept was, I guess, and it was definitely like scattered objects. Someone's walked in the door with a tray of vases, had fallen over and like it's kind of like scattered over the ground.

Sam Brown:

yeah, you showed us that at the end of the recording one day but, I, think at that time you were thinking that they were going to be candle holders, or was it always vases?

Ben Sutherland:

oh, it was a vase, was it always vases? Oh, it was a vase. Yeah, wait, is it vases? Or vases oh don't get into that Potato, potato.

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah, like there's definitely some yeah trying to figure out what I could fit on a sheet of steel as well, so there's a little bit of loose massing.

Sam Brown:

And on the back of your truck.

Gerard Dombroski:

That was just lucky. I don't know how you fitted them all on there. That one was not planned at all, I just got lucky.

Ben Sutherland:

Maybe do a bit of planning next time. Do your best and jib the rest, silicon the rest.

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah, because I was straight off the back of Mayfair, which I made a hydroformed table, and two stills that had a rock on it, which I was lucky enough to have an awesome couple buy that. So that meant I had one less thing that I was planning to have in my show at the previous time. So then I had like a month of full send in the workshop. Really it was pretty hectic, yeah nearly had a heart attack, didn't? Really didn't take a day off, just we almost died afterwards.

Sam Brown:

Let's not dwell too much on that, but worth probably noting. We'll get to that this man walks this man works hard, we'll get to that.

Ben Sutherland:

This man works hard. So, yeah, hydroforming for anyone out there who doesn't know is basically he welds all these objects in a shape together and then also welds a tap connection and then uses a water blaster to pump it full of water so the steel shape expands outwards in kind of an organic, random form, and then basically, yeah, cuts the tap off, welds it and cleans it all up and that's the object. Does that sound?

Ben Sutherland:

yeah, about right, gerard pretty much bang on, so yeah and I, I have to say I think like there was a couple of my favorite objects. Obviously the coffee table was like a easy win, but I think my personal favorite object was the rocking chair, where it's like basically like this big hydroformed cube so it was kind of cubed steel cube with some kind of roundness and that natural roundness from the hydroforming created like a natural rock and then just cut out the seat area and filled it full of cushions. Looked so cool and was actually crazy comfortable and the rocking worked so well.

Gerard Dombroski:

That's definitely the most comfortable chair I've made, which was the intention that was. That was a win. That was one of the ones that was designed beforehand. That was in my mind. It's been part of mum's house project, so in my mind there'll be that one and then like a, a sofa version of it but she got dibs on that uh, well, hopefully it sells.

Ben Sutherland:

Yeah, she might get v2, but but wait, what was the sofa going to be like? Three times that? Yeah, just the same thing. Is it rocking as well? You got like three people sitting on the couch rocking back and forth, yeah.

Gerard Dombroski:

That's cool, that'd be kind of fun. All very annoying. Yeah, probably the latter, imagine two young siblings Worse than sitting beside each other in a car? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that scale I found was really fun to hydroform because it's quite a big shape, a lot of water.

Ben Sutherland:

When I made that, maybe one cubic metre of water.

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah, yeah, essentially, when I made that, like the whole rockiness became more feasible as a concept in itself, it's kind of a strong enough movement, an idea, to kind of tie an exhibition together. I thought so pretty much. Well, all of the objects are rocking objects and the tippier ones all have concrete in the base, or the smaller ones that, like a flower, may overbalance it, those have have concrete at the bottom as well.

Sam Brown:

Did you cast the concrete in then kind of like weld the form up around it, then hydroform it?

Ben Sutherland:

Pour some concrete in the bottom.

Sam Brown:

Or just pour concrete in the bottom, at the end.

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah, so I had to drill a hole to weld in the hydroform spout Sorry, the vase spout, because they're still functioning vases, but just with a little bit of welded tube in there. Because they're still functioning vases, but just with a little bit of welded tube in there, sure, so we just rammed brick mortar in there, nice.

Ben Sutherland:

The thing I liked about the ballooning effect of the hydroform is there was somewhat of like a negative detail around the bottom, so like that rocking aspect also created like a real nice kind of negative detail where it's like a shadowed line around the bottom where it kind of makes a shadow. A shadow, yeah, exactly a shadow line around the bottom that makes it seem like it's floating that was really cool.

Sam Brown:

Yeah, I like that. When you're making them dry, did you like? Do they ever just explode?

Gerard Dombroski:

definitely yeah. Yeah, some the shape might have corners that don't want to hydroform very well, like a tight inside curve will ultimately pop pretty quickly. Yeah, buttons tend to pop pretty quickly. Previously I've pretty much always done buttons, so this was like a liberation of buttoning which kind of allowed me to pump it up fuller and get like a rounder, softer, more cushiony sort of shape.

Sam Brown:

When you say buttons, what do you mean by that?

Ben Sutherland:

Like cushion buttons yeah previously I went to like little cushions.

Gerard Dombroski:

So I'd weld a rod through the middle and then, yeah, you'd get the puffing around the button point Right. But without that you just get a very full rounded object because ultimately, like, people use hydroforming to make spheres. So if you weld up a very basic circle net, if you turned all the triangles down in your computer model, so like a two circle caps and some cones, then you can pump that out into a perfect sphere if you pump it hard enough, right, crazy. So that's how it works.

Ben Sutherland:

What was PSI you're putting into that beast? Oh, I actually have no idea.

Gerard Dombroski:

I put a pressure reader on my first ever hydroform and I've never put one on since. What was your first one. Can you remember that?

Ben Sutherland:

It looked like a sie, a civ, so it's like four bar or something. And and, um, are we? Are you allowed to talk about some of your more ambitious future projects?

Gerard Dombroski:

yeah, that the scale of a gallery is really exciting, but at the same time it kind of fuels this need which initially was the.

Gerard Dombroski:

The yeah, like the whole point of the workshop in my mind initially was building research or the place you'd learn, but ultimately you'd want to tie it back into architecture. So I think, like I've pushed the hydroforming quite far now in the art sculpture realm and it would be pretty nice to push it into the architecture realm and I think it's just very feasible to. I need to do a little, maybe a small shed for a desk as a prototype for some other bigger potential projects we have coming up where we're looking to hydroform some more 30 square meter sort of size buildings.

Ben Sutherland:

That's a lot of water. Yeah, that's a lot of water, yeah that's a lot of water.

Gerard Dombroski:

That's a lot of water so we're, we're still in, like the feasibility side, I guess, of this, because it's I don't know, I don't know of any hydroform buildings that's like 90 cubic meters of water.

Ben Sutherland:

How many liters?

Gerard Dombroski:

is that.

Sam Brown:

A lot. You may as well like you just have this beautiful hydroformed building and then an Olympic swimming pool beside it and you just take the water from one end to the other.

Ben Sutherland:

I've been talking to a mate who has a farm You'd want to do it mid-winter, surely, so there's no drought. Yeah, your neighbors might not like you, yeah.

Gerard Dombroski:

As might not like you. Yeah, as long as you do it somewhere where you're not paying for water, ideally somewhere where I don't know, let's say it's 70 000 liters or something. You want somewhere where, if and when that a weld explodes, it doesn't compromise anything where all that water goes. Yeah, and then you're gonna have to have some pretty uh, I don know some tight health and safety measures in place.

Sam Brown:

You're not going to want to flood some houses out or something. Yeah, you probably don't want to Not really one to do in situ.

Gerard Dombroski:

Nah, maybe for a rural property. Rural property would be a mean one to prototype, yeah, but you wouldn't want to be near it either while it's filling up Boom. So there's, I don't know lots of little things to think about, but it's kind of where my mind goes immediately is jumping to those little problems.

Sam Brown:

It's kind of cool, dude, that you're looking at a way to transfer this, this learning and this knowledge, because one thing I thought about through all of of this is you've done so much of it, and quite intensively as well. You haven't grown tired of this line of inquiry yet. Yeah, stranger, yeah, it's cool. I mean I reckon it's awesome. It's kind of it's kind of cool to hear that you've that, you're you haven't grown tired of it, but more like quite the contrary, it's sort of growing. It's growing the the Euro ambition, which is pretty interesting.

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah, and I think I don't know I'm somebody who jumps right in Next year we'll be doing office blocks.

Sam Brown:

Hydroformed planet. I want to make it the biggest cube in the world. It's just what the Death Star was the Death Star.

Ben Sutherland:

The ultimate hydroforming goal the Death Star. The ultimate hydroforming goal the Death Star.

Gerard Dombroski:

Well, there's another idea of explosive forming which could be a chuck, a stick of dynamite inside.

Sam Brown:

TNT in there.

Gerard Dombroski:

My little brother's an armorer. So I wonder Maybe mining people would have more mining people. They would have more explosives people which you could probably get involved.

Ben Sutherland:

So there, dried ice and water, there's a possibility there.

Gerard Dombroski:

Have a play with the process a little bit. But yeah, I think seeing a just like in my mind, a very basic child drawing of a house like a gable with a window and and they go fat, yeah, then like you puncture through these like real crisp door and window, I think it's could be, and then it's in like polished, stainless or something. It's kind of too an appealing idea to pass up on yeah man needs to be, needs to be acted on?

Ben Sutherland:

I think to yeah prototypes will have to be done well I was thinking like the small full of water I was thinking the small scale one, the rocking.

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah, initially I want to build one just the size of the back of my ute, so I can fit it on the tray if need be, which would be 2.4 by 1.8 or something. You could just leave that with a curved underside and chuck it on a lawn or something, and then you'd build a timber floor on the inside. But then I think, spray foaming the inside walls it becomes like a container for that. Yeah, the hydroforming checks for leaks. So then you know it's 100 waterproof and then spray foam it to stop condensation and then like a thing, even maybe like a stucco plaster on the inside, like you'd sculpt it back so it follows the walls Totally.

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah, you wouldn't want to lose that natural form on the interior. It'd be such a shame though.

Sam Brown:

It seems like such a compromise. Yeah, Go inside and it's just like a generic box You're like oh.

Ben Sutherland:

Just put like a box in. It would be quite funny. I know someone with a farm.

Sam Brown:

If you need some water and space, Back to the exhibition, because I mean the architecture side of things we could talk about all day, but the exhibition side of things I mean particularly for, I guess, myself and probably you too, being pretty foreign to us how did you go about one deciding what to do? Like, obviously you've talked about this idea of it like being a, you know, a walk through a, through a garden and the idea like the growth and the in the come down type thing, but like did you just play around and kind of like what landed, landed? And then from that how do you go about even curating the show?

Gerard Dombroski:

I think there's. There's a real interesting story there. Like I had a month and a table that I was loosely planning on having in that was no longer going to be in. So it was like the race of getting as many hydroformed objects was kind of started. So I had my friend Sarah Bookman come down and she helped me for a solid week of we were just chopping shapes and hydroforming them. It was very playing. Yeah, it was really off the cuff. It was like no, except like there was a couple things like um wanted to make like a little reference to like the old chimney on dot cuts, so that big wedge tape written wedge sort of thing. It's like a motif that I've been playing with a little bit. That was like the first one and then we started making shapes and then I made like a little archway one and that just seemed very cute.

Gerard Dombroski:

So, then that led to a double arch bench.

Sam Brown:

Yeah, the aqueduct, one is sick.

Gerard Dombroski:

I really like that. Yeah, I loved that one. It worked out really well. I hope somebody takes that home.

Gerard Dombroski:

Another table that I have, which is another rock table, which I was initially building for the art fair, but then I realized I had way less space than I thought I had, and this one was a full-size dining table which is kind of like a lattice. It was like two bits of steel, two bits of steel, two bits of steel, two bits of steel, four bits of steel, four bits of steel. So it's like a reference to King Okuma's Bridge Museum, which is like a central pole, and then like layering up of timber that goes up and holds the building Real beautiful building. So this table has like and it's all stainless. So it's like a whole different language to like the cushion stuff.

Gerard Dombroski:

So then I was in my mind planning like a couple of those sort of layering up ideas and ultimately I ran out of time and I built the table but it was slightly wobbly in the corners. Everything sits on a 38mm solid, stainless bar which is like you pick up the bar and you're like there's no way I'm bending this, and then, as soon as you build a table, then you press on the end of the table you can see the bar wiggling a little bit. Damn, it's amazing how much a little lever arm will do to something. Yeah, yeah.

Sam Brown:

How heavy is?

Gerard Dombroski:

that table Pretty heavy. The top's what 2.2 by 9 or 9.50, 3 mil. So there's a lot of steel there.

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah, and then you've got the layering up of lots of steel fins as well. It looks beautiful. It's on the basis of a bit of white marble cut off of one of Joe Sheehan's Fetch Street sculptures, so there's like a really nice story to the table. And then I had six stools that I was planning as well, which were like circle drums, circle walnut drums, so like just perfect circle tubes, which I have all the material for now Been a month to build, so pretty much everything in that show and then that table and chairs. And then I was in my mind I needed like more steel fin things to offset, to like to read, within that landscape of hydroform objects to place these other things. I think, yeah, running out of time essentially was the best thing for me because I left my own devices. I just make too many things and I think the show is good because it is restrained and that it's like one object, two materials, red, red and stainless and then it's just like like the landscape and the flowers kind of get to speak to each other.

Sam Brown:

Yeah, and I can see it being because it's quite. I mean, it's a beautifully cultivated space, but it's not an enormous space, right? So you could see it filling up pretty quickly and almost being overwhelming.

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah, it's 16 metres by like 4.8. So that was intimidating. It was like there's a lot of space there and yeah, I guess that empties big like really big yeah yeah, but I didn't really factor in that the first five meters doesn't really have lighting. So, yeah, my calculations were incorrect in the first place.

Sam Brown:

Yeah, did you play around a lot with arrangements and plan before you got there?

Gerard Dombroski:

no, I had a sketch which was like just imagining this sort of scattering of objects, but that didn't have the point and the tapering down that was just like full scattering. Scattering kind of happened with francis when we were just arranging it, the gallery curator, yeah, and that happened quite quickly. We just arranged it and it was like, oh yeah, that's actually pretty awesome, let's just leave it like that.

Sam Brown:

That was relatively stress-free did francis have quite a bit of input into the curation, or was it a bit of a like a collab between you guys, or was it more driven by them, or loosely?

Gerard Dombroski:

but it was, I guess, mainly. It was like gerard, where do you want to put your things? And yeah, yeah, I guess it stopped before it stopped. Yeah, it stopped me doing anything stupid yeah, that's quite nice to have that freedom.

Sam Brown:

I've always wondered how that works with solo shows, how much the like gallery curator dictates versus how much the artist gets to dictate. Like obviously you as the artist have a vision, but curators are curators for a reason. That's the equivalent of. I've always found this funny. When I'm on a shoot with Simon Devitt and I'll be like I think this will be a nice shot and he'll be like he'll hear me. He'll be like okay, that shot never comes through the proofs. You think you know, but the experts also know yeah, I guess we're.

Gerard Dombroski:

We're also blessed, then, with elder sam hartnett taking some nice photos of the gallery, which is, yeah, it's pretty cool to have those photos. Yeah, all around pretty stoked. Um, I think whilst I built it all in a month, it was probably best that I only had a month, because I would have kept going to over complicating and then jade and francis would have to step in more and be like no draw, that doesn't work with that, because I get a little bit excited. I'm like you get on this little rampage in the workshop where I don't know you just have so many ideas and you're like make, make, make must make more. Oh, this idea is awesome. This idea is awesome. I was thinking about making hooks and like pictures like I used to when I'd sell an object to somebody.

Gerard Dombroski:

Um, give them a little bit of steel with like a real crude plasma cut drawing, so like a little sketch or just something absurd. This is just like a real gross scribble, but in steel. So then, I was like oh man, I should do some of those, but I think all of these things would be cool exhibitions by themselves, like a bunch of steel drawings.

Sam Brown:

Yeah. So that begs the question do you have another show planned? Not? Currently but uh, take, take, take some time off there's, there's many in my mind.

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah, I guess that then leads us to the probably overdoing it for a month and then kind of having a weird thing on the side of the road way to Wanganui for the night. But yeah, I think I may have just overdone it on the weird spasm.

Sam Brown:

Working front. Word of warning to listeners overworking is a real thing. Exhaustion will fuck your shit up. Basically, yeah, what are we supposed to do? We're supposed to record and I was like yo, are we recording tonight? And ben's like I don't think so. Pretty sure gerard's in the hospital and I was like what? Yeah?

Gerard Dombroski:

it's hard to know where the limit is sometimes, though. Yeah, that got that. That took me out for like a week and then, like, with some weird dizzy spells if you work too hard, and then I got a cold for a week, so I've been out for a couple. Yeah, starting to get back on the tools, nice Rearing to go.

Sam Brown:

More making.

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah, rearing to whip into this. First the small scale shed, which I think will be a proof of concept for the bigger ones, and then I have ideas around the skin. You want to be the structure, but then how do you engineer that formally? And then do we know any engineers that work actually in software? What I'm thinking of, solidworks. I think it's incredibly close to like real life geometry.

Ben Sutherland:

No way you need a gun engineer someone who's like super well, probably young, but super design focused, but also understands the parameters, or just an absolute cowboy, someone who really doesn't understand the parameters but is willing to put their name down to anything well, yeah, I mean like it's somebody retiring works a treat.

Sam Brown:

Yeah, it's interesting. Like you know, you talked about that proof of concept thing. How could you not just do that? Surely there's like a business you have to test it. Well, that's right, exactly right Get a brand to break.

Gerard Dombroski:

Well, building a mock-up, so it will be tested.

Sam Brown:

Yeah, exactly right. I don't know, take it to brands or something and get them to chuck it on the-. Do they have a wiggle machine? Yeah, it's not like it's going to fall down in an earthquake. No, no.

Gerard Dombroski:

It's going to be strong, but at some point we have to formalize it and convince.

Sam Brown:

What about? Here's a question for you. What about lightning strikes? How do you?

Gerard Dombroski:

How do you deal with those, just ground it, just earth it, just earth it. But you also won't, whatever you do.

Sam Brown:

Do not touch the outside of the house.

Gerard Dombroski:

I guess I need a big enough earth there. It's just a jet stream bloody caravan ultimately, isn't it?

Sam Brown:

Or just put it on rubber. That's a really good point.

Ben Sutherland:

It is basically like a jet stream, some rubber stilts, so like tires for a caravan, I guess Just a bit of rubber separation, yeah, base isolators.

Sam Brown:

Yeah.

Gerard Dombroski:

Cool.

Ben Sutherland:

Yeah, isolators, yeah Cool yeah. Yeah, like a rocking house with base isolators, so it doesn't rock.

Sam Brown:

This comes back to our everything house episode.

Gerard Dombroski:

Surely everything inside the house also has to be hydroformed. Well, funny, you ask. I've been thinking about like hydroformed nose and forks was something I wanted to put in the show. I made a couple of plates of hydroform, some plates. Well, you just get like weird chubby handles, like just kind of comical. That's my other recent research is if you're going to weld a shed then you kind of have to be certified. So they've been looking into welding certs, oh right, and I'm going to send some tests away to the testing people to see how dangerously far away from my weld's been good enough for weld cert. So then that can inform as to whether I have to get somebody else to weld up a shed or not.

Sam Brown:

What are they testing for that, like how strong your welds are, and that sort of thing?

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah, they'll do an X-ray because it'll be stainless. So they'll do an X-ray and then a breakage test, I think Right. And then you have to do it supervised. You essentially follow a recipe of what you're doing Interesting, but it doesn't sound as terribly difficult as I anticipated, because I guess I've never had to weld anything structural before. I just weld chairs and vases. Yeah, usually you don't forget a building consent for a vase.

Sam Brown:

Yeah Well, how would you go about getting, I mean, I guess, if it's under that, well, it's under 70 square meters. Now, you know, you can kind of skirt the realms of consent there?

Ben Sutherland:

Not really. It still needs to technically be complied To meet the building code.

Sam Brown:

Yeah, it there still needs to technically be compliant To meet the building code. But where in the building code does it say that you can't build a house completely out of steel? There's just durability and stability clauses, right.

Gerard Dombroski:

I don't think that's an issue. I think the only issue is being a certified welder and having an engineer. That's okay with it. Give you a producer statement Worst comes to worst, you build it. You weld up a roll cage essentially inside of it. Give you a producer statement Worst comes to worst, you build it. You weld up a roll cage essentially inside of it. And that's easy enough.

Sam Brown:

You know how I talked about the Disney, not the Disney, the Guggenheim, bill Bauer, and how it's just basically latticework all behind it. It'd still be kind of cool. Then you could create that cavity void and fill that with foam in your lattice works structure it's a bit of a shame though, isn't it like? It would lose its purity the idea is don't do that skin as structure.

Ben Sutherland:

Call it a day. No one wants to see an ugly. I don't want to see one of those things in a car, let alone a house you'd never see it like it'd be spray foamed over yeah, either way.

Gerard Dombroski:

You'd never see it Like it would be spray foamed over yeah, either way, you'd never see it. Wow, yeah, that's our contingency plan anyway.

Sam Brown:

Nice. Is this just for lulls, or have you got like a client of mine, or is it probably just?

Gerard Dombroski:

I've weirdly got a couple of people interested. I think it's epic that people want to entertain this kind of thing.

Sam Brown:

Has that come through the exhibition or has that just come through other channels? Both one of each Cool, Nice man, that's awesome.

Gerard Dombroski:

You don't want to count your chickens. Yeah, what I really love, I'll make a little shed.

Sam Brown:

What I really love and you sort of talked about it when you were thinking about what items to create, you were using architectural motif as a design driver for your art show, and now you're kind of using your art show as a design driver for your architecture. That's sort of like this nice thing.

Ben Sutherland:

So I really like that.

Gerard Dombroski:

It's a nice see-saw yeah yeah, I've just been um writing some interview questions, answers to some interview questions, for a write-up on the show, and I've been kind of talking about that how it started in the workshop as doing that reference to the architecture, but then architecture references Like my spiky table was like a reference to Ishigami's, one of Ishigami's buildings on that university in Japan, and then, yeah, vice versa, you get the same influences going back and forth.

Sam Brown:

What architecture was the inspiration for the pool noodle couch? That was door stops.

Gerard Dombroski:

It was like giraffe stoppers. I built this, Was it not pool noodles? No, no, it's made out of pool noodles. Yeah, yeah. Initially I had that project in my mind for like two years and I was planning on making it out of so and comical looking draft stopper snakes with like googly eyes and yeah, the breed stoppers where you put them to like sail off the underside of the door.

Ben Sutherland:

Yeah, the old school, yeah, hilarious.

Sam Brown:

Tie some snakes together in a world where design speaks louder than words, what story does your space tell? At Autex Acoustics, they believe great design is more than aesthetics. Every product they create strikes a perfect balance between form, function and sustainability. Made to enhance how space sounds, looks and feels, from using recycled materials to pioneering carbon negative wool, their commitment is to help you shape environments that inspire people um, how, like zaha modeled, they engineered one of her buildings purely on software because it was like too complex to engineer.

Gerard Dombroski:

I think like solid works. If you 3d scanned the shell of, like the house, solid works is like a pretty powerful tool for stress analysis, right, which is dangerously close to real life, what it, how it actually performs. Yeah, so I imagine like the software. Now, that is pretty comparable. If you type in what gauge steel, so then you just you basically just try to find an engineer that works in solid works well, I know one chat gpt if there's any listeners out there?

Sam Brown:

if there's any listeners out there that uh that aren't chat gpt that are proficient and solid work.

Gerard Dombroski:

Chat gpt is always listening don't do it, man yeah, this I was talking about this the other day I think like the little hydroformed house is like the first proper, like delving into trying to create an architecture that AI probably wouldn't come up. That's a big positive for me about this line of inquiry, if we can keep things down that road Unrobotable yeah.

Sam Brown:

Yeah, I quite like that idea. Keep it, keep it away, keep it away, keep it random enough that it can't be learnt.

Gerard Dombroski:

Basically Is that it yeah, that's what I think, which goes back to the design process conversation and Holtrop basically tricking himself into designing things using outside influences. What does he do? He made a building out of like a scribble. You just pick out lines out of a scribble or like ink droplet drawings and then you're like, oh, that's my floor plan. It's very strange, arbitrary sounding things, but fun processes too.

Sam Brown:

I kind of like that idea of falling into a solution. It's sort of like you said when you started doing the stuff for the exhibition you were just welding up random shapes and blowing them up and seeing kind of where they led to.

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah, I guess our parameters were like we want a certain amount of this sort of size and then like Set yourself some broad guidelines or whatever and just see what lands in the middle.

Sam Brown:

I found that quite interesting. I'm preparing that talk for PULO on Friday. Is it a live talk? It is live. Yeah, I was pegging it around how you kind of develop yourself as a designer a little bit and the reason why I asked Gerard, how long are you going to take this line of design inquiry? Because a thing that I'm planning to talk about and that is how we've taken that modular line of design inquiry not to the end of its capability but to the end of where I feel I can be not necessarily bothered with it anymore, but I've explored it enough to satisfy that itch. Now I want to try something else. So it's interesting to hear you say that you're still intrigued by the hydroforming thing. I like that idea of you falling into a new line of idea or design inquiry, like you talked about just before.

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah, it is interesting how long it's kept me entertained, because I do sometimes have a tendency to jump from idea to idea. But I'm definitely not like a Sean Godsell where I'm iterating something in a certain aspect, certain lane it looks like it.

Sam Brown:

You are iterating though. Yeah, I definitely am. All of it's iteration I think I have several lanes of iteration.

Gerard Dombroski:

There's lots of ideas all going at the same time.

Sam Brown:

This one's just sort of the front runner at the moment. Yeah, it's one of the spinning plates. I find it interesting preparing these sort of the front runner at the moment. Yeah, smaller spinning plates. I find it interesting preparing these sort of talks because it makes you review your work critically, yeah, and your journey critically as well. I think you very rarely have the opportunity, or afford yourself the opportunity, to sit back and go wherever I come from. How did I get here? What process did I use? Where, where are we going? And it's quite nice being forced to do that in a way and then being like ah, you kind of start to discover a little bit more about yourself as a designer and, I think, your practice as well, which is kind of cool.

Sam Brown:

Yeah, it's the same as like teaching, like sometimes you learn more, more about what you're trying to do through teaching others totally yeah, exactly, I think that's where that sort of that draw to to be involved with uni kind of comes into it as well.

Sam Brown:

Like you said, gerard, like you, you can glean really good ideas from, from the people that you're supposed to be giving ideas to, in a way you know there's minds we're trying to free yeah, well, the I mean I think the reason that the reason that you probably can get pretty good ideas from them is their minds are free, sounds are all clouded and you'd be intrigued like.

Gerard Dombroski:

Sometimes it's the opposite. Sometimes people's ideas are very locked into the conception of a house. I was brought up in a suburb of gj gardeners. When I think of the house, this is was brought up in a suburb of TJ Gardens. When I think of a house, this is what a house looks like. So when you're trying to convince people to kind of expand your thoughts and really open ideas up, sometimes it's more of a struggle to push people to actually free themselves. I was intrigued by that when I was teaching. I have another strange picture I emailed off to somebody the other day. I was thinking of a modular chapel, so like a outdoor wedding venue. You could have like a shipping container with some panels which you could just erect into an open a-frame. So it a real crisp white steel tube frame with some sort of feather-like sheets of steel played on the sides. But then you just have modules, so 1,200 wide based on a sheet of steel, you just have like a bank of six or seven of them.

Sam Brown:

Bam, so you can make it bigger or smaller, depending on how big your wedding is.

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah. Or if you've got an outdoor wedding and then it rains, you're like, oh no, what do I do? Well, bam, pop up this expanding chapel. Who did you send that to? May I ask?

Sam Brown:

I've got a friend who's a wedding photographer, just cold called out in the blue have you got an idea. It's not a bad tactic that out in the blue. Have you got an idea?

Gerard Dombroski:

It's not a bad tactic. That's exactly what I did. I emailed them yeah. I love that. Well, they double as a marquee company. The first people I'll likely email more For me. I just want another avenue of creativity, yeah, and this other idea that I have floating around in my head. But I think business-wise Simi has legs.

Sam Brown:

I like the boldness of that as well Chapel marquee Because I think you've said it before, Gerard, and it's another thing that I've come to think of a lot is waiting for the right client to explore an idea. It's just never going to happen. So you kind of need to push that stuff onto people. Instead of waiting for someone to come and get it. You've given it out there, and that way you almost guarantee the right fit in terms of a client, rather than having somebody come to you and then be like, oh, I've got this crazy idea. What do you reckon they're like? Oh, I don't really know, yeah, I promise True.

Gerard Dombroski:

There's plenty other. But if you don't ask, you don't know wedding companies that I can pitch it to yeah well, I also did it without any pictures, so it was like yeah, so you just tried to describe it, yeah can you communicate this with words so that'll be the real imagine? If that goes ahead, and I didn't even give them a picture. Like do you then like create your own hire company for rentable church chapels?

Ben Sutherland:

rentable wedding venues. You might have to test it yourself first, mate Well that's generally the way I do things, isn't it?

Sam Brown:

Yeah, if you can't find the right client, be the right client.

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah, you could build one module and then you just I've done it before you build one thing and then you move it in the photograph, so then it looks bigger.

Sam Brown:

Yeah. Easy, don't even have to build one module Until somebody's like hey, I've got this big wedding coming up.

Ben Sutherland:

I need like 16 of your modules. Get them to put down a deposit and you just build 16 or 15 more.

Sam Brown:

We've all heard how much Gerard can get done in a month.

Gerard Dombroski:

Just have a big weekend, you know.

Sam Brown:

Yeah.

Ben Sutherland:

Sounds like it was a month on, two weeks off, though. Yeah, yeah, I was out, that's just oil rig work, isn't it?

Sam Brown:

Yeah, yeah, I'm in the mines. Yeah, you probably could be coming home from work looking like you've been in the mines. That much grinding it does, man.

Gerard Dombroski:

There was a couple of days where I started making that chair that's the one thing I had started making before and it had rusted over so I had to wire brush that and it took me like a day of wire brushing. Wire brushing inside of a cube. Oh my God. Yeah, shit was everywhere Gross. No air was safe, oh, that's crumbly. That was a very dirty shower.

Sam Brown:

The painted ones? Are they mild steel, not stainless?

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah, they're all electro-galve, with the exception of that chair which for some silly reason I didn't buy electro-galve. Everything seems to rust in my workshop, so try to buy electro-galve or stainless where possible. I guess the red oxide as well is like a New Zealand reference. I think it's classic New Zealand colour. Lots of sheds and lots of primers back in the day were probably red oxide.

Sam Brown:

Yeah, any old building you pull it apart, it'll have red oxide steel in it.

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah, somewhere around there's some red oxide. Yeah, I think it's a story with a bit of colour and I've painted the edges ever so slightly a different colour just to kind of accentuate that shape. But that came about because after I hydroformed it I kind of dry off the water and then, because there's a ground back edge where you weld, grind the electro-gal off, then you're left with a bit of raw steel which will flash, rust real fast if it's wet. So then I just put some zinc spray paint primer on there and then I kind of created a grey surface with a slightly darker grey in the corners and then, just hanging out in the workshop with me, I kind of became quite into that accentuated edge kind of seem to emphasize the pillowy-ness a little bit.

Gerard Dombroski:

Cool Another happy accident, yeah, so the whole thing was lots of happy accidents, moving as you go, which, yeah, it was really fun.

Sam Brown:

What's the name of the show?

Gerard Dombroski:

Inflation A Happy Accident yeah.

Sam Brown:

Inflation, the Happy Accident. Yeah, inflation, nice Season.

Gerard Dombroski:

Gallery Season Gallery. If you go, make sure you give things a little prod, see it wobble See it wobble, are you allowed?

Sam Brown:

to sit in the chair.

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah, as long as you haven't got sharp studs on your pants or a dirty bum.

Sam Brown:

Nice.

Gerard Dombroski:

It's pretty comfy, so have a seat.

Sam Brown:

Do you know if you've sold many pieces?

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah, we've sold nine things, so far Cool.

Gerard Dombroski:

Sold a good chunk. Nice man, well done. People like things enough to want to take them home and live with. One funny one was a guy on opening night kicked one of the cushions accidentally, just because it was packed in there, and then one of the everything's on the ground, so you're kind of asking for it, yeah, and they was like, oh, no, I kicked it and they I think in the end he argued that it was fate. It was like no, no, it wants me. He's like can I drill a hole in the back of it and mount it on the wall? And I'm like, yeah, sure, yeah. It's like can I drill a hole in the back of it and mount it on the wall? I'm like, yeah, sure, yeah, it's just like a roughly 400 by 400 stainless, which I think would be a beautiful wall hanging.

Sam Brown:

Yeah.

Ben Sutherland:

Yeah, it's a great idea.

Gerard Dombroski:

Yeah, I want to put things on the walls, but yeah, I wanted to really be a bit relentless on the floor surface.

Sam Brown:

Nice that he checked with you that it wasn't going to compromise your vision or anything. Yeah, it's very nice.

Gerard Dombroski:

There were a couple of beers. Yeah, it was a whale of a night. That was very fun. There was a lot of people there, very stoked that lots of people came. So if you're listening to this and you came, big, big thanks.

People on this episode

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Ben Sutherland

Host
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Sam Brown

Host
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Gerard Dombroski

Co-host