Melbourne Design Week 2025 – Our Top Must See Exhibitions & Events
Image: Melbourne Design Week 2025
Design
Week.
Featuring a showcase of 100 elegant and avant-garde contemporary lights, furniture designed for neurodivergent audiences and leading designers and brands from across the country, Australia’s premier design festival Melbourne Design Week is back from 15 – 25 May 2025 offering a vital platform for creatives to showcase boundary-pushing work and test new ideas. Read on to view our top 8 must-see exhibtions and events or learn more about whats on during design week here.
A New Normal Presented by Finding Infinity
Boyd Baker House, 305-307 Long Forest Road, Long Forest VIC, Australia
A New Normal returns with an epic 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 a range of projects in motion to help transform our cities. On exhibition are twelve projects with each architect selecting a room across the Robin Boyd/Roy Grounds compound.
A New Normal takes the opportunity to lay down the required policy to transform Greater Melbourne into self-sufficiency by 2030. This program of talented industry leaders is showcased through a series of guided tours, talks, lunches and exhibitions with limited tickets available each day.
Learn more about this event here.
Folk Senna Sauna Presented by Surrounding Objects
Thursday 15 May – Sunday 25 May, Sculpture Studio Gasworks Arts Park, Graham Street, Albert Park VIC, Australia
Folk Senna is the name of the first bentwood chair by Alvar Aalto (1928).
The chair was a response to an earlier Senna chair designed by Gunnar Asplund for the Paris Exhibition (1925) which was extraordinarily elegant, attractive; a masterpiece in joinery.
Aalto recognised the ergonomic human form could be achieved with a new method of pressing plywood making the chair economical and easily reproduced. It was the seed from which all of Aalto’s bent wood furniture would grow.
Learn more about this event here.
47 Easey Street Guided Tours: Sustainable Building Design
BAR Studio, 1st Floor, 47 Easey Street, Collingwood VIC, Australia
Developed by BAR Studio’s founders and designed by BAR Studio as a creative hub that includes their new HQ, 47 Easey Street is an exemplar of adaptive re-use completed in 2024. Built over two years by Revival Projects, the building was launched at MDW 2024.
On the small group guided tour hosted by BAR Studio, learn about the sustainable building practices that facilitated the preservation of this iconic building, giving it a new life, housing a vibrant, creative community.
Learn more here.
Life Line: Japanese Kumihimo Braiding
Project Room (10.05.68) at RMIT University
Building 10 (Casey Building) – RMIT University, Swanston Street, Melbourne VIC, Australia
Learn the Kumihimo braiding technique in this workshop, and begin documenting your life story through the creation of a tactile braid.
The Life Line Braiding project began in May 2023 when artist Vivian Qiu noticed how the braid intuitively captured her emotions and body sensations, becoming a way for her to document her life journey. The braid is more than 25 metres long and continues to grow over time.
This braiding practice is a simple yet powerful way for Vivian to process her experiences with grief, relationship changes, and personal growth.
In ancient Inca and Chinese cultures, before written language was invented, humans tied knots in pieces of rope to record important historical events and stories or to spread information.
Learn more about this event here.
Quiet Studio Presented by Autex Acoustics & Studiobird & Universal Practice
43 Derby Street, Collingwood VIC, Australia
Quiet Studio is an escape from the noise and pace of city life.
Designed by award-winning architect and artist, Matthew Bird, using Autex Acoustics carbon-neutral acoustic panelling with mindful activations from Sammy Prowse and Universal Practice, Quiet Studio transforms a Collingwood shop-front into a retreat from the sensory overload of daily modern life.
Everyday, we’re exposed to overwhelming stimuli — phone notifications, traffic, overcrowded spaces — often unnoticed but taxing to our senses. In response to the increasing norm of this overstimulation and the sensory science of human wellbeing, we bring you Quiet Studio, an experimental pop up space designed as a calming retreat.
Learn more about this event here.
The Okayama Project; The Simple Life- Presented by CIBI
CIBI, 33-39 Keele Street, Collingwood VIC, Australia
Presented at CIBI Design store, the exhibition and accompanying talks will reveal a curious, travelling pathway of design aspirations, reality and joy in bringing to life CIBI Okayama, Japan.
In valuing the simple life, CIBI Okayama recognises the ordinary as a good thing, an inverse aspiration for the many communities that harbour within our built up cities. CIBI’s role is not to export design upon a community and then walk away, but rather to live alongside, share our energies as a simple act of replenishment and contribution to a shared tomorrow.
Learn more about this event here.
Dancer Editions Presented by Coco Flip
Kennedy Nolan, 61 Victoria St, Fitzroy VIC 3065, Australia
Dancer Editions is an exhibition that brings together artists, designers, and architects to celebrate play, movement, and experimentation.
Coco Flip has worked alongside Melbourne-based architects in collaboration with ceramicist Belinda Wiltshire to develop a series of Dancer editions that will be auctioned to raise funds for Seed Mob.
The lighting collection Dancer takes inspiration from the Triadic Ballet, choreographed in 1920s Germany by Bauhaus master Oskar Schlemmer. Each Dancer piece aims to echo a sense of movement through form and pattern, bringing a strong and character-filled aesthetic using mid-fire clay and a bold black iron oxide finish.
Learn more about this event here.
Biolab: Biomaterial Workshop – Presented by Spiraro
Artist and textile designer Indy from Spiraro will lead a hands-on workshop, guiding participants through the process of creating biomaterials.
This session provides an opportunity to experiment with organic resources and develop a deeper understanding of biomaterials and their applications.
Participants will have access to tools and materials to shape and craft their own biomaterial piece, with step-by-step guidance throughout. Drinks, nibbles, and a welcoming space will be provided to encourage creativity and connection.
By the end of the workshop, each participant will take home their own biomaterial creation, along with practical skills for incorporating organic materials into their creative practice.
