How a discarded rowing vessel morphed into a sculptural circular lighting piece.

A damaged rowing shell has found new life inside a sculptural lighting piece by Melbourne industrial designer and artist Edward Linacre, transforming family history and discarded materials into an intimate act of circular design.

When a rowing boat named after your mother reaches the end of its life, most people would archive the memory and move on. For Linacre, the vessel became the beginning of something special.

Created by Edward Linacre Studio in collaboration with Fergus Linacre, Quad Skull lamp reimagines the remains of the Annette Linacre, a quad scull rowing boat damaged beyond repair, into a limited-edition floor lamp that sits somewhere between functional object and emotional artefact.

The boat carried deep personal significance long before its transformation. Named after the Linacre brothers’ mother, Annette, the vessel honoured both her and the rowing program she passionately supported over many years. After the damaged shell was recovered, the brothers began dismantling and repurposing its components piece by piece, preserving its story through design.

The resulting work carries the skeletal elegance of the original craft. The rowing riggers form a cantilevered structural frame, while the oar blades have been converted into lamp shades that diffuse a soft indirect glow. Connecting braces from the boat’s rigging system cradle a vivid yellow power cable, turning a once purely functional detail into a deliberate visual gesture.

Reframing waste through design

That attention to overlooked material sits at the centre of Linacre’s wider practice. The IDEA-winning Edward Linacre Studio operates across lighting, installation, sculpture and circular material research, developing projects that challenge conventional perceptions of waste and value. The studio’s body of work spans recycled plastics, reclaimed architectural components, biomaterials and adaptive reuse projects for both galleries and commercial spaces.

Quad Skull lamp feels especially intimate within that broader philosophy because the material carries emotional memory alongside physical history. Every mark, fitting and structural element remains tied to a former purpose. The lamp unashamedly amplifies its previous life instead of disguising it.

“All waste, all materials and all seemingly insignificant components overlooked or unappreciated should not only be valued, but celebrated through acts of reuse and recycling by design,” Linacre says.

That ethos has become a defining thread throughout Linacre’s recent work. The studio has built major installations from misprinted books, discarded warehouse lighting and recycled plastics while collaborating with architects, galleries and cultural institutions across Australia and internationally. Projects for the National Gallery Victoria, Louis Vuitton and the Australian Government have positioned the Melbourne practice at the forefront of experimental circular design.

An object charged with memory

Yet despite that growing international profile, Quad Skull lamp retains the immediacy of a personal studio project. There is no grand technological narrative or polished sustainability rhetoric layered over the object. Instead, the piece finds power through restraint and emotional clarity.

The decision to leave all additional components sourced from leftover materials from previous Edward Linacre Studio projects reinforces the lamp’s closed loop narrative. Nothing feels ornamental for ornament’s sake. Every element carries evidence of another life.

Only two editions of the piece were produced, with one gifted to Annette for Mother’s Day, completing the emotional circuit between object, family and memory.

Within contemporary Australian design, where circularity risks becoming an aesthetic shortcut, Quad Skull lamp offers something more grounded. It proves adaptive reuse can operate with emotional intelligence as much as environmental intention.

The Quad Skull lamp was originally designed for the exhibition, ‘Clubhouse’ by Ellen Keillar, Found Golf, Up There Store for NGV Melbourne Design Week 2026.

Photos: Francesco Vincenzi, Organic Photo.