The perfect potato cake, a peek inside the National Archives, the origin of the match, and copying nature to build our lives

Once regarded as a fringe movement, more designers and architects are looking to nature-based systems to build our lives while reducing carbon emissions. Claire Beale, Executive Manager at LCI Melbourne and a former Design Institute of Australia President, takes us through the Three Bs of organic design; biomorphic, biomimetic and biophilic. The National Archives of Australia records and stores key events and decisions that have shaped Australian history and after one heck of a move has opened the doors of its new facility. With enough shelving to stretch from Canberra to Cooma the purpose-built facility is environmentally controlled, environmentally friendly and energy-efficient. Jonathan Green takes a stroll through its corridors with Sean Debenham, Assistant Director Storage and Lending to check out what’s in there. You sick of potatoes yet? We’re not.  Annie Smithers continues Kitchen Rudimental this week by tempting us to have a crack at making potato cakes (that’s a potato scallop for any Queenslanders and New South Welshfolk). And Colin Bisset takes a strike at the little magic fire stick with a red tip for this week’s Iconic Design. If civilization started when we learned how to create fire then what a link to our beginnings the arrival of the humble match was.