Derek Wrigley b. 1924

  • Architect (Furniture Designer / Cabinetmaker),
  • Artist (Sculptor)
Wrigley practiced architecture in the UK and Australia. Formerly employed as a lecturer Manchester College of Art, UK, lecturer at NSW University of Technology (now UNSW). He had several domestic architecture commissions in NSW. As an exhibition and furniture designer, he designed the UNIVER chair and settee for Aristoc. He was an original member of the Australian National University's Design Unit initiated by Fred Ward.
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Derek Wrigley (1924–) studied architecture and town planning at Manchester
College of Art & Design and Manchester University from 1940 to 1946. He
emigrated to Australia in 1947 and spent the next eight years lecfuring in
architecture at the NSW University of Technology, initiating the first Building Science course in Australia. In 1950-51, he travelled to the UK, US and Hawaii to visit architecture schools. From 1949 to 1954, he designed and built two solar houses for himself, at 13 and 15 Burne Avenue, Dee Why. In 1957, he moved to Canberra to join furniture and industrial designer Fred Ward in the Design Unit of the Australian National
University and in 1962 became the ANU’s University Architect. initiating the concept of Total Design covering site planning, architecture, interior, landscape and graphic designWhile in Canberra, he designed and built more solar houses: at 14 Jansz Crescent, Griffith ACT (1958), RMB 901, Little Burra Road via Queanbeyan NSW (1975) and RMB 625 Candy Road, Burra NSW (1985, with Ben Wrigley). He was a founding member of the NSW and ACT branches of the Melbourne-based Society of Designers for Industry in 1955. In 1980 he was made a Life Fellow of its successor organisation, the Design Institute of Australia. He was also a co-founder of the Industrial Design Council of Australia in 1956 and a councillor for 30 years afterwards. He remains an activist for better quality design, more sustainable and solar housing (particularly retrofits). and designing buildings and equipment to suit disabled people. In 2004, he wrote and self-published the book Making Your Home Sustainable. In 1977, he retired from the ANU to design furniture for the High Court of Australia. He founded the ACT branch of Technical Aid to the Disabled in 1979 and was awarded the Order of Australia for his services to the disabled in 1982.
Sources
—Architecture and Arts and the Modern Home. 1955. ‘People: Derek F. Wrigley’. February. p11.
—Derek Wrigley Design website www.derekwrigleydesign.id.au
—Wrigley, Derek. 2004. Correspondence recorded by Davina Jackson, October.
—Rosenfeldt, Ron. 1999. The History of the DIA. www.dia.org.au/history/dia_history.html

Writers:
Date written:
2015
Last updated:
2015

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Date modified Nov. 15, 2016, 9:44 a.m. Nov. 24, 2015, 11:07 a.m.
Roles
  • Architect (Furniture Designer / Cabinetmaker)
  • Artist (Sculptor)
  • Architect (Furniture Designer / Cabinetmaker)