Image: Melbourne Design Week 2026
Design
Week.
Returning from the 14th to the 24th of May, Melbourne Design Week 2026 celebrates its 10th anniversary with more than 400 events across the city, showcasing architecture, interiors, product design and emerging cross-disciplinary practices driving the future of Australian design. Read on to view our top must-see exhibtions and events or learn more about whats on during design week here.
Launch of the RMIT Regenerative Futures Institute
As society faces growing social, environmental and economic challenges, regenerative approaches are becoming increasingly vital.
To help drive this shift, RMIT University is launching the Regenerative Futures Institute, a new interdisciplinary initiative advancing regenerative practice through education, research and collaboration across design, science, technology and First Nations knowledges.
This launch event will introduce the Institute’s vision for interdisciplinary education, research and engagement, featuring a keynote by Leyla Acaroglu.
Learn more about this event here.
Image: RMIT Regenerative Futures
Why Factory Built Is the Future of Design
Forget everything you think you know about prefabricated buildings. The session opens with a visual showcase, no words, just stunning imagery of Australian Smart Building projects.
Bespoke architectural homes. Award-winning commercial buildings. Passivhaus-certified residences with near-zero energy bills. These aren’t compromises. They’re proof that environmental responsibility and design excellence are not in competition.
Join a conversation with three practitioners at the forefront of this shift. Together, they’ll explore how designing for fabrication changes the creative process, what climate resilience actually feels like to live in, and why the buildings we design today are the legacy we leave tomorrow.
Get the latest event information here.
The Great Outdoors: Design for Australian Living and Landscape
The Great Outdoors explores legacy in Australian design through material honesty, local production, environmental care, and connection to place, positioning furniture as enduring artefacts shaped by landscape and craft.
Presented within a living understory, Mark Tuckey’s new outdoor collection places furniture in dialogue with native ecologies, linking each piece to the systems that sustain its materials. Made from reclaimed and ethically sourced timbers, the collection includes the reworked Plinth range and new tables and seating for residential and commercial use.
Discover more about the event here.
Image: Mark Tuckey
Image: Circular Ceramics for Native Bee Habitat
Circular Ceramics for Native Bee Habitat
Presented by Slow Clay Centre
Circular Ceramics for Native Bee Habitat is a one-day hands-on workshop led by award-winning ceramic artist Julie Bartholomew, where participants design ceramic bee habitats using recycled studio clay.
The project supports native Australian bees, promotes sustainable ceramic practices, and launches a wider community citizen science initiative.
Learn more about this event here.
Image: Circular Ceramics for Native Bee Habitat
Measured Showroom Opening + Wellness in Design Panel Discussion
Measured will host an evening panel discussion on design and wellbeing, bringing together voices from architecture, interiors and landscape to explore how thoughtful design shapes restorative commercial and residential spaces.
Held on Monday 18 May 2026 at 6pm, the event includes refreshments, a prize draw for bathing sessions at Sense of Self, and access to Measured’s new Collingwood showroom during Melbourne Design Week
Find out more about this event.
Image: Meaured
Image: Imagining a Better World: Participatory Design Workshop
Imagining a Better World: Participatory Design Workshop
Imagining a Better World is a facilitated public workshop exploring how design can support communities to imagine and articulate thriving futures.
The workshop explores the space between present challenges and protopian possibilities, inviting participants to consider how imagination can function as a civic design method rather than as fantasy.
Learn more about this event here.
Image: Imagining a Better World: Participatory Design Workshop
Tide Table: A Seaweed Supper
What happens when the table itself begins to melt? Tide Table: A Seaweed Supper is a dining experience that explores seaweed as food, material and design medium.
Guests are welcomed with a warm beverage before gathering at tables that, over the course of the evening, become a disappearing shoreline. Melting ice installations form the centrepieces for a three-course supper, accompanied by coastal cocktails.
Nothing is cleared during the meal. The setting gradually transforms as ice melts and traces accumulate. Projection and sound elements shift throughout the evening, supporting the progression of the experience.
Learn more and book tickets here.
Image: Tide Table: A Seaweed Supper
Image: MUJI, Made. Presented by Muji Australia
MUJI, Made. Presented by Muji Australia
Presented by MUJI Australia, this exhibition explores how restraint, clarity and material consideration are brought into form. MUJI, Made. reveals how these principles shape the brand’s enduring approach to design, informing objects that are both universal and deeply human.
The exhibition reflects on how simplicity and functionality evolve through reduction and continual refinement, inviting a renewed appreciation for the quiet intelligence embedded in everyday life. It offers a contemplative space to consider creative possibilities without excess, guided only by what is necessary.
Learn more here.
Image: MUJI, Made. Presented by Muji Australia
