Alistair: Posted on Sunday, 1 December 2013 10:25 AM

It has been a long time between our blog posts, so this is a little bit of a shout-out that we are still very busy around the Melbourne suburbs helping families with their Mid-Century Modern homes of the 1950’s, 1960’s and 1970’s.  Since our last blog post we have had an extensive buying trip to Italy and France, moved into our groovy new studio space, taken on some new staff, and have lots of lovely new clients.

Fairfax Domain journalist, Jenny Brown, recently published an article entitled “Mad about Melbourne’s mid-century homes” about Modernist homes winning fans for their unique qualities. Secret Design Studio was very pleased to have this this blog recognised in the context of alerts for upcoming houses.
http://canberratimes.domain.com.au/real-estate-news/mad-about-melbournes-midcentury-homes-20131130-2yiom.html

So while Secret Design Studio does like to highlight upcoming Modernist properties, especially in Melbourne, we generally don’t post them to this blog, but prefer the immediacy and accessibility of Facebook, which we update on a daily basis.  So I thought it would be useful to provide a link to our Facebook site as well as other resources mentioned in Jenny’s article.

So you have found the blog for Secret Design Studio, which is the blog for our small design consultancy that specializes in all things Mid-Century Modern including retrovations, town planning, interiors, furniture, colour selections, helping source the right suppliers, tradesmen and even retro caravans! We have done it all, been there, done that, and have helped lots of other people as well.  Our facebook address (where the real estate links are posted) is:
https://www.facebook.com/SecretDesignStudio

Secret Design Studio also runs a wonderful (free) online resource to help people to get a better understanding of the many flavours of Mid-Century Modern with over 3000 online images on our Pinterest site:
http://www.pinterest.com/secretdesign/

These images are categorised into collections so it should be fairly easy to target into what your interest such as bathrooms, kitchens etc.
We are also on Twitter, but are using that less and less:
https://twitter.com/Secret_Design

The second blog that Jenny mentioned was “Grass-trees and Butterfly Chairs” which is run by the lovely Jason Davidson of Genus Landscape  Architects.  Jason is as passionate about Mid-Century Modern design as Secret Design Studio, especially Australia Modernist Landscapes, and working together as a team we pretty much can cover everything, as Secret Design Studio doesn’t do landscape design.

The blog with Jason’s featured real estate is: http://australianmodernistlandscapes.com/, but is called “Grass-trees and Butterfly chairs – Australian Modernist Landscapes and applications for today”.  Jason usually features homes from his home turf, Beaumaris, and I often provide a link into his blog from Secret Design Studio’s Facebook page when he posts a new house.

I always find his blogs interesting as he will write about the landscape and how it relates to the house, which is an important part of the inside/outside living style for mid-century modern houses. There is also a parallel Facebook page here:
https://www.facebook.com/AustralianModernistLandscapes?ref=stream

If you would like to see any of Jason’s work take a look at Genus Landscape Architects’s website at:
http://genusla.com.au/\

One site that Jenny didn’t mention was “Modernist Australia”, possibly as it doesn’t have a Melbourne focus, but covers the whole of Australia.  Like Secret Design Studio they are transitioning from the traditional blog style to Facebook, and their last blog posting was Mid-2012, http://www.modernistaustralia.com/, however it is still worth a read for some interesting information and links.

For the current “Modernist Australia” real estate listings for Melbourne and the rest of Australia got to:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Modernist-Australia/177969575568358.

Some of our existing clients aren’t on Facebook, and I have been wondering how many other people out there will read this blog, but would never read what is posted on our Facebook website?  Should Secret Design Studio concentrate our limited blog tiime on this blog or facebook? I would be interested in your thoughts?

Alistair McLean
B.Sc(Arch), B(Arch)Syd
Principal
Secret Design Studio
0448 579 707