Sydney Design Week 2025 Highlights Community-Focused Design with Talks & Workshops

Powerhouse has announced the Sydney Design Week 2025 program, presented across the city from 12 – 24 September. This year’s festival, titled Community Design, places people at the heart of design. The program features renowned national and international designers whose work creates connection and fosters resilience, through a series of talks, tours and industry workshops.

Now in its 29th year, Australia’s longest running design festival continues to bring together the world’s leading architects and designers. This year, the program includes community leaders and creative practitioners across Western Sydney to create a festival that reflects the distinctive contemporary and cultural design of the region.

Pritzker Prize-winning architect Francis Kéré will launch the week in a public conversation with Incidental Architecture co-director Daina Cunningham and Western Sydney high school students, discussing how sustainable design can transform schools into places of comfort, culture and creativity. His work — internationally recognised for responding to heat, climate and community — begins a program that is deeply rooted in sustainable public design.

Internationally acclaimed Beijing-based architecture studio OPEN, led by architects Li Hu and Huang Wenjing, will deliver a keynote at the UTS Great Hall. Known for their conceptual and ecologically attuned architecture, OPEN will explore how public spaces can reconnect people with nature, themselves and each other.

The week also features leading Dutch architectural photographer Iwan Baan, who has captured the interplay between iconic architecture and everyday life around the world. Baan, whose work includes projects by both Kéré and OPEN, will offer rare insights into his expansive global practice.

From Bangkok to Bonnyrigg, the 2025 program embraces a global-local dialogue. Thai landscape architect Kotchakorn Voraakhom joins Living Lab Northern Rivers’ academic director Professor Elizabeth Mossop, Sydney Water’s Phillip Birtles and CHROFI director John Choi to explore how cities can adapt to rising waters — drawing on urban case studies in New Orleans, Bangkok and Sydney.

Multilingual type designer Vincent Chan will present work exploring the cultural identity of letterforms, while a day of ceremony and dialogue led by local cultural leaders at Bibbys Place in Bonnyrigg will offer space for shared reflection and storytelling.

Design innovation takes centre stage at the Advanced Manufacturing Readiness Facility in Bradfield — Australia’s newest city — where workshops, tours and talks with Industrial Design Xchange (IDX SYD), Australian designer David Caon and architecture studio Hassell will introduce festivalgoers to the future of Australian manufacturing.

Holdmark Property Group Chief Operating Officer Kevin Nassif said: “Design has the power to unite, adapt and imagine new possibilities for the way we live. We’re proud to support a festival that puts community at the centre of creativity.”

Powerhouse Chief Executive Lisa Havilah said: “Sydney Design Week 2025 celebrates the power of design to bring people together. This year’s program highlights the role communities play in shaping public spaces, and how design can respond to place, climate and culture in meaningful ways.”

Sydney Design Week 2025 is presented with the support of Principal Partner Holdmark Property Group, Foundational University Partners University of Technology Sydney and Western Sydney University, Festival Partner City of Parramatta and Accommodation Partner Ace Hotel Sydney.

PROGRAM INFORMATION

More info: powerhouse.com.au