Design Take Over: Collingwood

Throughout Friday, Collingwood’s coolest showrooms hosted both WorkLife and LiveLife seminars. On Saturday, showroom hoppers experienced new collections, exciting installations, as well as delicious snacks, and sweet tunes provided by Melbourne’s local talent.

At Cafe Culture + Insitu was a special showcase of 6 local Australian designers – Anaesthetic, Anchor Ceramics, ChristelH, Didier, LifeSpaceJourney – and Savage Design (we were particularly fond of the Albert Lounge chair by Sydney based Savage design). There was also an Australian inspired cocktail cart and gourmet hot dog cart.

At AJAR, visitors could get a glance of the new flexible storage system Lauki, first released at Salone this year and otherwise never before seen in Australia. The showroom was also adorned with thousands of orange butterflies, and a make-up artist to apply red lipstick – a nice match to Dali’s Mae West inspired sofa, and Mae West Freixenet cava cocktails.

Interface’s inspired installation was a highlight – a towering woven canopy built into the cool warehouse space of the Allpress coffee roastery. The installation was made in collaboration with students at the Academy of Design Australia for the Project, using Interface’s stunning sustainable wools and fabrics. Visitors could weave pompoms, literally becoming entangled within the yarns. Coffee from Allpress and croissants from Melbourne favourite, Lune.

Darkon Lighting followed a fun carnival theme, with sideshow games, prizes, drinks, nibbles and design inspiration. A special HUB pop up at the James Makin gallery featured a landscape of light using Paris Au Mois d’Août’s delicate hand-made fabric volumes en masse. The memorable journey through the space framed a collection of artwork and objects selected especially for the event from both Hub Director Jaci Foti-Lowe’s and James Makin’s private collections.

At the Winspear showroom, visitors see and touch the new BISCUIT collection of hardwood floors designed by Patricia Urquiola, as well as food and wine inspired by the provenance and origins of Listone Giordano of Italy.

On Easey Street (actually) the specially curated Pioneer exhibition supported new, local and independent design, including Didier (including the delicious First Bite Collection), Franco Crea, ThinkLab by Luxxbox, Arko Furniture, Apparentt, indigenous upholstery fabrics at Winya, and lighting by Oxley/Butterworth. Tom Skeehan’s Hup Hup chair also featured, as well as lighting via Ross Gardam. The Pioneer space also played host to some industry discussion on replica thanks to the Australian Design Alliance.

At Rokeby Studios was furniture, flooring, finishes and fixtures, with Scandinavian Business Seating and Japanese bathroomware brand TOTO.

Want to know what went down elsewhere at #MID16? Check out the CBD precinct review here. And the Richmond precinct here.

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