What better place to set a furniture-making challenge than in the workshop of one of Australia’s most iconic industrial designers of today. Known for his simplistic and sophisticated pieces, accentuated by a splash of fluorescent colour, Mark Tuckey creates his furniture using recycled timber materials.
Already quite familiar with the Mark Tuckey brand, “he is one our favourite designers,” says Chantelle, the contestants got excited once they knew they had the opportunity to work with Mark in his workshop. Inspired by what was around them, Shelley asked the blockheads to design and build an original and creative piece of industrial furniture that utilises wheels and will be used in their apartments back at The Block. With the usual $5000 up for grabs, the twins were determined not to let team Super K reach a hat trick. Sketching some very unique and interesting ideas to begin with, it seemed that this challenge was going to result in a few pretty amazing, and certainly ‘unique’ pieces.
All deciding to build tables, the contestants visited second hand stores, as well as timber and steel yards to try and get the edge on each other. Brad and Dale chose an old balustrade spray painted fluorescent orange for their legs, whilst Kyal and Kara got some rustic yellow castors for their wheels. Chantelle and Steve fixed a trolley to one end of their table and a ladder to the other to create their legs, and the twins put together a beautiful timber table with three planters built into the centre.
Looking like a rather smooth-sailing challenge (other than the usual sisterly bickering and releasing of ‘hot air’ from the boys), it was in the last minutes when everything fell apart for Brad and Dale. Not securing one of their recycled balustrade legs to the table top properly meant the boys were out of the running.
“Greatly impressed with the creativity” of the contestants, Mark Tuckey had to choose only one winner and handed the crown back to Kara and Kyal for their third win in a row.
It looks like Kyal’s carpentry skills paid off once again, much to the frustration of Alisa and Lysandra, and Chantelle and Steve. Nearly in tears, Alisa confessed that she didn’t feel like she was getting the acknowledgement that they deserved.
What do you think? Should the twins have won this challenge or are they just having ‘a moment’?
