Joseph Licciardi was born in Catania, Italy, in 1953. He arrived in Australia in
1970 where his career in retail design began at Georges department store,
Melbourne. His skills as a modernist furniture designer developed, and later he
became the founder and director of three design-based companies that each challenged traditional views of design and manufacture in Australia.

After studies in Art and Architecture at RMIT and Prahran College, Melbourne, Licciardi held a ‘three-man’ show of ceramic, sculpture and furniture at Gryphon Gallery, Melbourne University.

Licciardi founded Lidi Australia (1976), VetroSystems (1991), co-founded Idiom Corp Design (1984), Omvivo (2003), Intentions S.r.l. (Italy 2006)

Joseph Licciardi’s design and manufacture encompasses over 30 years Work. He has designed and manufactured furniture, whole domestic and commercial environments, sculptures and artistic installations.

Observation of the space as a contemporary living environment continually inspires Licciardi who, thereafter, seeks to define clean and elegant answers to apparent needs.

The most vivid example being when a profound observation, by Massimo Morozzi in the early 80’s, on the fact that the developed world is using water (thanks to efficient reticulation) in a way that allows people to wash cleanly with a continuous supply (water flow) like never before… as such he (M.M.) proposed a flat basin.

The product shown was not, yet, attractive but the idea was fundamental to instill a spark of inspiration to Joseph Licciardi who saw the potential of a total change of the uninspiring and fundamentally “19th century” bathroom design world.

In 1986 he created the first concepts of the “wet areas” with the culmination in the early 90’s of the design and manufacture of the first “wash planes” and “shallow vessels” that trough the exposure to the public in Trade Fairs around the World influenced a new aesthetic. The realization that water was been wasted at an unsustainable rate motivated him in using water saving devices that would save up to 75% of current consumption from the mid 90’s.

His Iconic products like the Le Cob bathtub and Washplane collection are available in most Countries.

Current projects include pieces of furniture and objects that are made as a response to a need to interpret the use of material, products and/or methodologies.

Some like the “layers” table for the Ecosmartfire company, was conceived and made within a workshop space putting together discarded or “unloved” pieces of steel and transform a few shapes in to a “Fire Table” that would both celebrate the apparent levitation of somber material and the ethereal Fire… delivering a desirable object from unwanted scraps.

Research and study continues in to a variety of disciplines… from architecture to food.

Designed by Joseph Licciardi

• Vision