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Nature Works

> New Zealander Martin Hill has been spreading the message that sustainable design needs to be applied universally in order to preserve the natural environment.

Martin Hill is an internationally recognised communications designer, environmental artist, and photographer. His design work has been acknowledged by a number of awards in his home country of New Zealand, as well as international recognition, including a permanent exhibition at the National Biblioteque du Graphique in Nice. He is passionate about sustainable design and his firm belief that it should be integral to all design has encouraged him to spread the word: “I became so concerned about products causing environmental damage because of their unsustainable design that I turned my focus to understanding and communicating about solutions to these design issues. “By creating and publishing environmental art my message of sustainability by design

now reaches millions of people each year,” he says. He has spoken on the topic at a number of conferences from the first Eco Design Conference in 1992 at RMIT Melbourne to a recent talk at the Design Institute of New Zealand’s Sustainable Design Conference. “My life has been defined by adventures in wild places. Whether climbing difficult rock faces or just being absorbed by the natural wonders of nature, I have marvelled at the way nature works and evolution occurs. As a designer I recognise human lifestyles have become unsustainable and this can only be reversed through better design informed by the way nature works.” His sought-after photographs of the ephemeral sculptures he and his partner and collaborator Philippa Jones make from natural materials in the landscape are a celebration of the cyclical processes in nature as well as the wild places of New Zealand and the countries they visit on their travels. A new book of his work has just been published, and a large collection of his photography can be seen online at: www.martin-hill.com Martin Hill’s book, Earth to Earth – Sculpture inspired by nature’s design, is published by Hodder
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Kanuka Circle

These pliable sticks from some kanuka trees, which had been flooded at some stage by the high lake level, were put to use as a sculpture by pushing their ends into the soft clay of the lakebed. In the early morning the shallow water was still enough to create a reflection and complete the circle. In the distance is Black Peak, and Fog Peak – with its ever-present patch of snow – in Mt Aspiring National Park in Central Otago, New Zealand.

Martin Hill

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