Melbourne Design Week 2025: Event Highlights

From 15–25 May, Melbourne Design Week returns with over 350 exhibitions, talks, installations and workshops staged across the city and beyond. Now in its eighth edition, the festival continues to champion design as a tool for change, bringing together Australia’s most dynamic studios, thinkers and makers.

This year’s theme – Design the world you want – challenges participants to explore how design can heal, replenish and enable life. Presented by the NGV and supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria, the program ranges from large-scale public installations to intimate meals, deep-dive panels and collaborative exhibitions tackling everything from biodiversity to post-petrochemical materials.

Here are some events to check out:

A Material Endeavour – Aesop & OTHER MATTER

Aesop and pioneering materials studio OTHER MATTER have created four installations throughout the city centre that explore the possibilities of a post-petrochemical world, imagining a better, more sustainable future for the retail industry.

Melburnians are invited to embark on a self-guided expedition throughout Aesop city stores, beginning at Flinders Lane, then moving through Collins Street and David Jones Bourke Street before concluding at QV, where an interactive encounter awaits.

Collect a map at any of the four participating stores and mark your passage with a stamp at each location to receive an Aesop gift upon completion of the journey.

Separately, on Saturday 17 May, guests can partake in a guided tour led by OTHER MATTER Founder, Jessie French. Participants will gain a deeper insight into the installations and hear Jessie explain the basis of her collaboration with Aesop — each one echoing the 2025 Melbourne Design Week theme: Heal, replenish, and enable life.

More information: designweek.melbourne

Trent Jansen: Two Decades of Design Anthropology

Trent Jansen: Two Decades of Design Anthropology is a survey exhibition that celebrates Trent Jansen’s first 20 years of design practice, highlighting his evolution as one of Australia’s most innovative object designers. The exhibition will feature key works from throughout Jansen’s 20 years of professional practice, brought together for the first time and presented as part of the 2025 Melbourne Design Week program.

Through his distinctive approach, Design Anthropology, Jansen examines the past and reimagines a contemporary Australian identity. Grounded in Material Culture Theory, this methodology blends research, storytelling, and co-creation to produce artefacts that embody cultural values, ideas, and histories.

The exhibition follows Jansen’s journey from his early works, transforming road signs into stools, to groundbreaking collaborations with Indigenous Australian artists and designers, including Vicki West, Johnny Nargoodah, Errol Evans, and Tanya Singer.

More than collaboration, Jansen builds lasting relationships that extend beyond the final product, ensuring that the voices and stories of those he works with continue to shape narratives of Country, culture, and identity. These partnerships have produced objects that honour marginal histories and cultural narratives, telling relational stories that offer a new foundation for Australian identity.

Details

• Exhibition Dates: 15 May – 5 July 2025
• Reception event: Saturday 17 May, 3–5pm
• Location: Useful Objects, open Wednesday to Saturday, 12–5pm or by appointment

More information: usefulobjects.com.au

The Birds: Public Conversation, Moderated by MUMA Director Dr Rebecca Coates

Monash University Museum of Art | MUMA has unveiled The Birds as the Ian Potter Sculpture Court 2024–2025 Commission. Created by artists Jen Berean, Callum Morton, and Linda Tegg, working together within Monash Art Projects (MAP), this innovative temporary installation at Monash University’s Caulfield campus reimagines public art to support local biodiversity and continues MUMA’s dedication to experimental, interdisciplinary public art.

As part of Melbourne Design Week 2025, MUMA will host a public conversation on Saturday 24 May from 2–3pm, featuring The Birds artists, moderated by MUMA Director and public art expert Dr Rebecca Coates, exploring the new installation and what happens when the audience for public art is expanded to include birds.

The sculpture consists of six carved boulders of granite, bluestone, quartz conglomerate, and sandstone. Sourced from a stoneyard, the rocks had previously travelled from surrounding uplands, plains, and rivers. In early 2024, the artists studied bird activity using found birdbaths, which informed the final placement within the Ian Potter Sculpture Court.

Established in 2012, the Ian Potter Sculpture Court Commission invites artists to develop site-responsive works that activate the public space outside MUMA at the Monash University Caulfield campus. The Sculpture Court, designed collaboratively by Kerstin Thompson Architects, Simon Ellis Landscape Architects, and Fiona Harrisson, received the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects’ urban design award in 2011.

About the Artists

Linda Tegg – An artist whose work engages with the interplay between life and the built environment, Linda Tegg creates immersive installations that foster biodiversity in human-centred spaces. Her interdisciplinary collaborations have included co-creative direction of Repair for the Australian Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale and Wetland, presented at Perth Festival in 2024.

Jen Berean – An artist, architect, and Associate Director of MAP, Jen Berean’s collaborative practice with Pat Foster (Foster Berean) has exhibited widely in Australia and internationally. Their work interrogates the hidden systems that shape our built environments.

Callum Morton – A leading Australian artist and Professor of Fine Art at Monash Art, Design and Architecture (MADA), Callum Morton is also the Director of MAP. Morton has exhibited nationally and internationally since 1987 and represented Australia at the Venice Biennale in 2007.

• Public Conversation: Saturday 24 May, 2–3pm
• Location: MUMA, Building F, Monash University, Caulfield campus

More information: designweek.melbourne

A New Normal

A New Normal returns with five days of festivities at the Boyd Baker House, Long Forest. This unique experience brings together leading architects and creative practitioners from across Australia to showcase twelve projects, with each architect selecting a room across the Robin Boyd/Roy Grounds compound.

The event outlines the policy pathway to transition Greater Melbourne toward self-sufficiency by 2030. The program includes guided tours, talks, lunches and exhibitions with limited tickets available daily.

A New Normal debuted at Melbourne Design Week 2021 with speculative designs from Melbourne’s leading architects. Following its success, the initiative has expanded to Sydney, Perth and Guadalajara, with many of the original projects now progressing toward real-world implementation.

Exhibitors include: Public Realm Lab, Baracco+Wright with Monash Architecture Students, Kosloff, MUIR, NMBW & Esther Stewart, NH Architecture, OPENWORK & Kerstin Thompson Architects & Josh Riesel, Oculus, Winsor Kerr & SBLA, Breathe, and Architect Brew Koch.

Presented in partnership with the Robin Boyd Foundation, Hope Street Radio, and Long Prawn.

Details

• Monday 19 May: Built Projects and Projects Underway
• Tuesday 20 May: Landscape, Water and Biodiversity
• Wednesday 21 May: Energy, Transport and Retrofit
• Thursday 22 May: Net Zero Architecture
• Friday 23 May: Circular Economy

Ticketing: Each day ticket includes return transport from Melbourne to Long Forest, access to all exhibitions, scheduled talks and workshops, lunch by Long Prawn & Hope Street Radio, and evening snacks and drinks.

More information: designweek.melbourne

Dining On Design: A Three Course Design Dialogue — Presented by Alice Blackwood

Join Leyla Acaroglu and Alice Blackwood for an evening of design dialogue over a curated Smith & Daughters dining experience featuring seasonal plant-based dishes.

This event invites professional designers to engage in meaningful conversations about design’s role in tackling some of today’s most urgent challenges—Food System Futures, Climate Impact of Design and Construction, and Building Resilience in a Changing World.

The meal will be accompanied by conversation cards, encouraging guests to explore fresh ideas and perspectives. It’s a night for connection, exchange, and imagining new ways forward through design.

Participants

Alice Blackwood – Strategic storyteller, design editor, journalist and Editorial Director at Artedomus. Alice has contributed to Indesign, INDE.Awards, Open House Melbourne, and other major platforms spotlighting architecture and design in Australia and beyond.

Leyla Acaroglu – Award-winning designer, TED speaker and founder of Disrupt Design, UnSchool and Circular Futures. Named UNEP Champion of the Earth in 2016, Leyla works internationally to activate systems change through sustainability education and innovation.

• Date: Tuesday 20 May, 7–10pm
• Location: Smith & Deli, 107 Cambridge Street, Collingwood VIC
• Tickets: $90 (dinner only) / $110 (dinner with wine)

More information: designweek.melbourne

Rewilding Melbourne: Reimagining Our Living Landscape — Presented by Collectivity Talks

As Melbourne faces climate pressures, this panel explores how Indigenous plants and Traditional Owner knowledge can reshape our cities to be more resilient, biodiverse, and culturally aware. The conversation centres on rethinking landscaping practices and recognising First Nations approaches to caring for Country.

Participants

Bob Earl – Co-founder of OCULUS, Bob is a landscape architect with 35+ years of experience in public space design across Australia and internationally.

Claire Farrell – Plant scientist and Director of Burnley Campus, University of Melbourne. Claire leads innovative projects like the Woody Meadow and Arts Precinct Plant Trials.

Dr Jen Mason – Wamba Wamba and Dhudhuroa descendant, cultural heritage specialist, and Postdoctoral Fellow at ANU. Jen advocates for Indigenous-led conservation and storytelling.

Nicholas Reece – Lord Mayor of Melbourne, with deep public sector and policy experience. Former Deputy Mayor and long-time advocate for sustainable infrastructure.

Genevieve Brannigan (Chair) – Founder of Communications Collective and Collectivity Talks, Genevieve is a strategic communicator with extensive experience in design, property, and the arts.

• Date: Thursday 22 May, 6–7.30pm
• Location: Woods Bagot, 498 Little Collins Street, Melbourne VIC

More information: designweek.melbourne

ClimateRelay: Building — Presented by Climate 360°

ClimateRelay: Building is a hybrid event exploring climate solutions in the built environment. It begins with a series of six pre-recorded interviews, presented as a dynamic highlights reel, followed by a live interactive panel that responds to the video content.

Interviewees share their insights into climate adaptation across six interconnected disciplines. The panel discussion delves into structural barriers—such as governance, industry silos, and entrenched norms—and explores how cross-disciplinary collaboration and systems thinking can unlock change.

The event is hosted at the newly completed Regenerative Futures Studio at Woodleigh School—designed by Joost Bakker with McIldowie Partners and Sam Cox—a living, solar-powered ecosystem and education facility with aquaponics, native plantings, and immersive learning spaces.

• Date: Saturday 24 May, 11am–1pm
• Location: Futures Studio, Woodleigh School, Langwarrin South VIC

More information: designweek.melbourne

Biolab: Biomaterial Workshop — Presented by Spiraro

Led by Melbourne-based biomaterial designer Spiraro, this hands-on workshop invites participants to create their own biomaterials using organic resources such as seaweed, food waste and bacterial leather. Drinks and nibbles will be provided in a welcoming, creative setting.

The session encourages experimentation and conversation, offering insights into sustainable material futures and the tactile experience of making with living and salvaged matter.

Participant

Spiraro – A Naarm/Birrarung-ga-based artist working at the intersection of biomaterials, sensory design and sustainability. Their practice combines rust, seaweed, food waste and textiles to question the life and memory of materials. The name ‘Spiraro’ comes from the Latin word spirare—to breathe out—capturing the meditative pace of their process.

• Date: Sunday 25 May, 3.30–5.30pm
• Location: Shell Space, 8 McIver Street, Brunswick VIC

More information: designweek.melbourne

Regenerate — Presented by Tait

Australian outdoor design company Tait explores native grassland regeneration through a suite of immersive and educational installations. Regenerate highlights the urgent need to restore grassland ecosystems—which now cover less than 1 percent of their original footprint—while showcasing new, long-life product design.

Creative collaborators include Alchemy Orange, a First Nations-led botanical design studio, and TERRAIN, an initiative founded by artist-researcher Cristina Napoleone. The exhibition will also feature a preview of Tait’s upcoming collection by industrial designer Adam Goodrum, designed with refurbishment and longevity in mind.

Participants

Cristina Napoleone – Artist, curator and founder of TERRAIN, Cristina works across ecological ethics and more-than-human design with a background in geography and climate communication.

Shahn Stewart – A Yorta Yorta woman and founder of Alchemy Orange, Shahn crafts large-scale installations and delicate works inspired by Country and Indigenous knowledge systems.

Adam Goodrum – One of Australia’s most acclaimed industrial designers, known for iconic Tait collections including Volley, Trace and Xylem. He’s a DIA Hall of Fame inductee and multiple award winner.

• Exhibition dates: 15–24 May
• Location: Made by Tait, 211 Smith Street, Fitzroy VIC
• Opening: Thursday 15 May, 9.30–11am (booking required)

More information: designweek.melbourne

Bio(me): Reimagining Biomaterials and Waste — Presented by Spiraro

Bio(me) is a group exhibition exploring how artists and designers are rethinking waste and material use through biomaterials. The show includes mycelium, kelp, textile offcuts, plastic, rubber, food waste and other organic or salvaged materials, confronting the fragility of ecosystems and permanence in design.

Emerging and established contributors engage with decay, transformation and sensory engagement, opening up possibilities for more ecologically attuned creative practices.

Participants

Lichen Kelp, Heather Lee, Josh Riesel, Mandeep Singh, Nic Quantock-Holmes, Spiraro, Markus Body, Sehaliah Du Ressac, Not Sew New, Rochelle Morris, Lela Turner, Imogen Davis, Sophia Slaney-Marsch, Gianna Christella Hayes, Emily Yuting Chen, Angela Louise Powell, Rebecca Campbell, Grace Jung, Sierra Vance, Sari Walker-Woods, Lachy Siu, Tara-Rose Kirkpatrick, Yvonne Rambeau, Minjeong Park, Richard Greenacre, and Mechelle Shooter.

Details

• Exhibition dates:
• Thursday 15 May – 10am–4pm and 6–8pm (Opening Night)
• Friday 16 May – 10am–4pm
• Saturday 17 May – 10am–4pm
• Sunday 18 May – 12–4pm
• Location: No Vacancy Gallery, QV, Level 3, 34–40 Jane Bell Lane, Melbourne VIC

More information: designweek.melbourne

Catch: Stories of First Nations Fishing from the Artbank Collection — Presented by Artbank & Agency Projects

Catch brings together selected works from the Artbank Collection that reflect First Nations fishing practices and cultural design, from bark paintings and fibre works to sacred sea maps and functional fish traps. The exhibition celebrates ancient relationships with water and highlights the significance of these cultural forms in past and present life.

Participants

Gloreen Campion, Lorna Jin-Gubarrangu, Yvonne Koolmatrie, Manuwa, Jennifer Kemarre Martiniello, Djutjatjutja Munuŋgurr, Marrnyula Munuŋgurr, Dhukumul Waṉambi, Mr W Wanambi, Kim Wandin, Adrienne Watson, Lisa Waup, and Freda Wayartja Ali.

Details

• Exhibition dates: Thu 15 – Thu 22 May, 10am–4pm daily
• Special events: Agency x Artbank Breakfast Talk – Thu 22 May, 8.30–9.30am; Opening Night – Thu 22 May, 5–7pm
• Location: Artbank, 18–24 Down Street, Collingwood VIC

More information: designweek.melbourne

Into the Trees with Georgina Reid and Costa Georgiadis — Presented by NGV

Hosted by Wonderground editor Georgina Reid and Gardening Australia presenter Costa Georgiadis, this panel explores the cultural, ecological and social value of trees in Australian cities. From climate mitigation to community connection, the discussion looks at how urban forests are essential infrastructure—and how we can better care for them.

Participants

Georgina Reid – Writer and founder of Wonderground, Georgina is known for essays and reflections on nature, culture and care. Her book The Planthunter explores beauty, chaos and the emotional lives of plants.

Costa Georgiadis – Landscape architect and TV host with a passion for sustainable living and ecology, Costa champions organic growing and community connection through nature.

Details

• Date: Tuesday 20 May, 6–8pm
• Location: NGV Great Hall, 180 Saint Kilda Road, Melbourne VIC

More information: designweek.melbourne

Learn more about Melbourne Design Week: designweek.melbourne