The Best Little Design That’s Right Under Foot
The mid 1800’s were a time of opportunity in Australia. In 1857, a 29-year old Englishman named John Danks boarded a boat to Australia, looking for his chance. Using the skills he learned apprenticing in his father’s metal factory, John started his own metal manufacturing business in the fast growing city of Melbourne. After a few years of establishing and growing the business, John was joined by his son Aaron, with the two operating under the name John Danks & Son.
The business grew to be quite successful operating out of Melbourne and eventually Sydney, making money selling agricultural supplies, tools, pumps, piping, and windmills with pastoral names like Billabong, Little Bill, and the Coo-ee.
John and Aaron also opened a hardware store at 391 Bourke Street in Melbourne where it was reported one could purchase anything ‘from a needle to an anchor’.
They also made bells. In 1925 they turned out the first set of church bells made and tuned in Australia for a church in Mullewa, Western Australia.
There is one thing John Danks & Son produced, however, that indelibly left their mark upon the city of Melbourne perhaps as much as any company, designer, architect or otherwise, before or since. It can be found all over Melbourne, and is something you’ve probably come in contact with, yet never noticed.
Walking down the street is a frustrating endeavor in this day and age. One is forced to dodge and weave to avoid being run into by someone who’s walking with their head down, staring at their phone.
People have decided that using their eyes to watch where they are going when out walking around in public is overrated. Apparently the risk posed by running into stationary items, falling off kerbs, and avoiding busses, trams, and yours truly, is outweighed by the ability to fill every second of idle time with cat videos and emoji-confused texts.
Getting run into by distracted pedestrians is a problem and definitely an annoyance, but it’s one that I’d like to perpetuate for the purposes of this article.
So the next time you are out walking on the footpath, look down. Not at your phone in this case, look down at the ground.
Keep your eyes open and before long and you’ll probably spot my new favourite design gem that’s been hiding directly underfoot in plain sight.
Hopefully you’ll then begin noticing them all over the place.
Behold: valve covers, trap doors into the underground world of water pipes, gas pipes and all sorts of other stuff. When a water line runs to your building, for example, there’s typically a valve cover somewhere around the perimeter of the building which conceals the switch which will turn off said water. Don’t get any ideas…
Valve covers are largely functional, with only three main requirements: First and foremost, conceal and protect the valve or pipe beneath. Secondly, don’t cause someone to trip and injure/make a fool of themselves when walking past. Finally, be durable — outlast the footpath whenever possible.
What you’ll find, however, is that mundane functional valve covers can become interesting pieces of design in their own right.
They come in different sizes, shapes, and textures.
They portray history. You will not have to look too hard around Melbourne to find a cover adorned with the letters ‘MMBW’, a reference to the now-defunct Metro Melbourne Board of Works which used to manage the water and sewer for all of Melbourne.
They also tell stories, like the story of the little metal manufacturing shop started by an immigrant named John Danks.
John Danks’ endeavor grew and eventually made the Danks family wealthy, with both John and Aaron becoming prominent philanthropists of their time. Aaron donated some of that wealth to the church, which they invested in a little plot of land east of the city centre, land which would later become the home of Epworth Hospital in Richmond. In 1925 Aaron was knighted for his good deeds.
Success for the Danks family extended farther than John and Aaron. John’s great grandson David Danks did not join the family business, instead becoming a doctor. Pursuing an interest in the burgeoning field of genetics, he studied in London and at Johns Hopkins in the U.S. before returning to Australia. His research and efforts in founding the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute have led to him being called the father of clinical genetics in Australia.
The John Danks & Son’s hardware business lives on today, making up part of Home Timber and Hardware stores.
It also lives on, of course, through the valve covers which can be found dotted all over the streets of Melbourne.
Amongst the farm implements, knighthood, the church bells and the hospital, the most memorable, recognisable, and lasting remnants of one man’s journey from England to Australia are the little valve covers on the footpath that if you’re not looking down, you’ll probably miss.
Design means paying attention to function, and making things that work.
It also offers an opportunity to turn something purely functional into something more. Valve covers exist to do a limited number of things, one of which is being trampled on a regular basis and ignored. They’re also a great opportunity for someone out there who works in a mundane cast iron manufacturing shop who has been tasked to make something purely functional, to make something unique.
To make something that sits unnoticed in plain sight for 100 years and tells the story of an immigrant seeking opportunity, of windmills named Little Bill, knighthood, church bells, and the father of Australian genetics.
