Australian Design Review: Design Week
Excerpt — Australian Design Review, “Melbourne Design Week 2026 turns the city into a living lab”
….. “At the centre sits Taking Shape, a large-scale group exhibition bringing together 20 Australian artists and designers whose practices interrogate utility, materiality and social responsibility. Furniture, textiles, lighting and spatial interventions collide in a tactile survey of contemporary Australian design thinking. Repurposed materials and refined craft processes anchor the exhibition, giving physical form to broader questions around sustainability and cultural memory.
The wider Est x WRAP program expands that dialogue into public participation. Families can step into storytelling workshops with First Nations artist Peter Hood, while a weaving session developed with the Australian Tapestry Workshop channels creativity into playful experimentation. Elsewhere, chef Johnny Hasan’s Root to Stem dining experience reframes waste through food, drawing on circular approaches and cultural knowledge to shape an intimate culinary encounter.
The program reflects a wider shift unfolding across MDW, where designers are increasingly looking beyond finished products and toward systems, rituals and relationships…”
