Now in its tenth iteration, the Melbourne Design Week program, presented by the NGV, is ever-expanding, all organised under a simple provocation: design the world you want.
With more than four hundred events spread across eleven days and the breadth of the state, a recurring criticism of design festivals at this scale is that growth comes at the cost of risk. Melbourne Design Week has resisted this urge. Emerging from the industry itself, experimentation remains a guiding principle and the very thing that makes the festival worth exploring.
We’ve selected 12 exhibitions from the 11-day festival, but there are many, many more examples of exhibitions, talks, and workshops to explore, including the Art Book Fair, which runs in tandem with Melbourne Design Week. Worth mentioning are Synthesis by Studio Shields, All Heaven Broke Loose by KOEH Studio and Taking Shape presented by WRAP & Est. and Industry presented by Isabel Avendaño Hazbún with Raven Mahon.
Studio Yeodong Yun for Table Manners | Photography by Georgia Smedley
Table Manners
Presented by Union Magazine, Object Massive, and Streifen | Florian Home, Carlton North
I would be remiss not to include Table Manners, an exhibition that narrows its focus to the objects we repeatedly and intimately bring to our mouths. The presentation gathers designers, both local and international, who have each produced a singular set of cutlery distilled by the guiding principles of their practice. Streifen’s exhibition design, paired with Object Massive, and works from Hamish Munro, Snelling Studio and Studio Yeodong Yun, makes Table Manners set to whet the palate.
E63rd chair by Nicholas Johnston (2026) for 100 Chairs | Photography courtesy of Nicholas Johnston
100 Chairs
Presented by Friends & Associates | Abbotsford Convent, Abbotsford
Each year, Friends & Associates presents an exhibition at scale, and shows us unequivocally that quantity is not the only king. Though there are actually more than 100 chairs at the exhibition, the name tells us exactly what we’ll see from emerging designers through to works by Adam Goodrum and Daniel Emma reflecting the egalitarianism of the collaboration and equal value of designers’ work.
A Sense of Occastion by THOMAS MAXAM Studio | Photography by Matthew McQuiggan
A Sense of Occasion
Presented by THOMAS MAXAM Studio | NHO, Fitzroy
A Sense of Occasion takes the champagne bucket as its subject, an object so familiar it has become almost invisible, and hands it to nineteen designers, including Adam Cornish, Brahman Perera, Jordan Fleming and Adriana Hanna, among others. The provocation has an unyielding lightness to it–design for the enjoyment of it, with curiosity and play. The result is an exhibition that asks what happens when designers are released from problem-solving and given permission to simply make something that raises a smile, or a glass.
Toile lamps by Marlo Lyda | Photography by Tess Kelly
Solo Exhibitions Worth Noting:
Dean Norton, Tom Fereday, Marlo Lyda, Julian Leigh May
Worth noting separately are four solo exhibitions, each a considerable undertaking in their own right. Marlo Lyda presents But Wait, There’s More at Abbotsford Convent, a series of sculptural lighting works in toile that are hand-stitched and quietly humorous. Tom Fereday shows Arum, also at the Convent, an inquiry into sand casting and the transformation of raw material. Dean Norton presents Between Planes at Hotel House in Fitzroy North, combining mirror and glass to investigate reflection and spatial depth. Julian Leigh May presents HOST at MA House Supply Store in Collingwood, a collection of objects designed around the ritual of gathering. All four are singular and considered, and the design community (and beyond) showing up for solo practitioners is, in itself, worth a lot.
You’ve Got Mail presented by Athanasia Spathis & Sean Brickhill for Melbourne Design Week 2026.
You’ve Got Mail
Presented by Athanasia Spathis & Sean Brickhill | Above Mitty’s Newsagency, City Centre
What is and was sent by mail, air, sea, road, embeds itself deeply in our histories; objects and letters passed from one hand to another, distance, anticipation, arrival. You’ve Got Mail focuses on the letterbox, familiar to all and at once, overlooked. The contemporary relic will be reimagined by designers like Olivia Bossy, Kenny Yong-Soo Son alongside works sent by mail from over 20 international artists including Peter Shire, Micah Lexier and Seongil Choi.
Lost Profile Gallery will present APART: Applied Arts, Then And Now | Photography by Timothy Kaye
APART: Applied Arts, Then And Now
Presented by Lost Profile Gallery | Lost Profile Gallery, Brunswick
Lost Profile Gallery’s contribution to the festival places contemporary Australian designers alongside vintage and antique works, finding the middle ground between past and present that the applied arts have always occupied. Among those showing are Martyn Thompson, Michael Gittings, Heidi Chaloupka and Nicholas Aylward Studio. Lost Profile Studio will also launch Sentimental, a new collection of brass and green onyx pendants informed by a visit to the Palazzina Cinese in Palermo.
MarbleWood by Other Matter for Tactile Dialogues: Fragments of Matter | Photography by Rafet Grima
Tactile Dialogues: Fragments of Matter
Presented by Made by Morgen & Ryan Fernandes | Made by Morgen, Brunswick
Now in its second year, Tactile Dialogues has already found its footing after a standout 2025 exhibition. Curated by Ryan Fernandes and presented from Made by Morgen’s Brunswick showroom, the exhibition gathers a group of Australian practitioners whose work is grounded in direct material research. Jessie French, Jon Goulder, Sarah Nedovic, Jordan Fleming and Billy Crellin are among those contributing. “Much of what we encounter in design today is presented as a polished image,” he says. “Through Tactile Dialogues, we wanted to create a platform that reveals the process, experimentation and alchemy that happens when a maker works directly with matter.”
Bolaji Teniola for Felled presented by Craft Victoria | Photography by Connor Patterson
Felled: Reimagining Timber Supply in Contemporary Craft Practice
Presented by Craft Victoria | Craft Victoria, City Centre
Felled takes timber as its subject and finds it full of possibility. Six makers including Andy Ward, Bolaji Teniola and Kyoko Hashimoto x Guy Keulemans work with material that falls outside conventional supply chains: waste timber, banksia pods, and invasive trees destined for pulping. The exhibition sits within Craft Victoria’s Conscious Craft initiative, and marks the final exhibition curated by Eliza Tiernan at the organisation. Craft Victoria has a rare and consistent skill for finding and platforming makers from across the country. That is worth acknowledging, and this exhibition is very much worth attending.
Lamella chair by Richards Stanisich and Meg Ashforth for KEEP, presented by the American Hardwood Export Council | Photography by Tim Robinson
KEEP: Forever Objects Designed by Six Australian Architects
Presented by American Hardwood Export Council | Cult Design, Abbotsford
It is less common in Australia than elsewhere for architects to design furniture, which is the premise curator David Clark has built this exhibition around. Six practices, including Edition Office, Kennedy Nolan and Lineburg Wang, have each produced a piece in American red oak, cherry or maple, extending their design thinking into the intimate scale of an object.
A Fritz Hansen Coat Tree coat rack is transformed into a low table by bernebeifreeman as part of Transformative Repair | Photography by Traianos Pakioufakis
Transformative Repair
Presented by Useful Objects | Useful Objects, Collingwood
Useful Objects has only been open a few years and has already established itself as a space worth paying attention to. This exhibition is the culmination of six years of research led by Dr Guy Keulemans and Dr Trent Jansen, bringing together emerging and established practitioners to reinterpret broken objects through repair and reuse. Adam Goodrum, Marlo Lyda, Lucy McRae and Lucy Simpson are among those contributing. It is also the final public exhibition in the project, which gives it a weight beyond the work itself.
MUJI, Made for Melbourne Design Week 2026, with creative direction by Marsha Golemac and Colby Vexler | Photography courtesy of MUJI
MUJI, Made.
Presented by MUJI Australia | Gertrude Glasshouse, Collingwood
Creatively directed and curated by Marsha Golemac with Colby Vexler, this exhibition brings together a selection of MUJI products alongside new responses by Australian architects, designers and makers including Andrew Walter, Olivia Bossy, Kim Bridgland and OKO OLO. Golemac has a consistent record of producing exhibitions worth clearing some time for. MUJI Made, foregrounded by restraint, reduction and material consideration, looks to be no different within a space that feels almost purpose built for the triad of Marsha Golemac, Colby Vexler and MUJI.
Material Truths
Presented by SKUPA x Elliat Rich | Kennedy Nolan, Fitzroy
Taking its name from the Croatian word for ‘together’, SKUPA approaches furniture as a framework for gathering, a philosophy extended through a thoughtful collaboration with designer Elliat Rich. Centred around SKUPA’s solid timber pieces, Material Truths explores furniture as something relational: forms that rely on adjacency, tension and interaction to fully resolve. Rich’s practice, grounded in the socio-ecological landscape of Mparntwe (Alice Springs), brings an added layer of material sensitivity and speculative thinking to the installation, considering how objects might foster presence, participation and trust.
Material Truths by SKUPA in collaboration with designer Elliat Rich for Melbourne Design Week 2026 | Photography courtesy of SKUPA