The 2023 program for Melbourne Design Week is now live online, and it’s taking over the city, as well as the state. Here’s a taste of what’s to come.
The Silo Project presented by Josee Vesely-Manning, with designers pictured left to right: Pascale Gomes McNabb, Marta Figueiredo, Danielle Brustman and Bolaji Teniola, photography by Annika Kafcaloudis.
April 17th, 2023
Melbourne Design Week (MDW), Australia’s largest annual international design event, is returning 18-28 May with a lineup of innovative and engaging projects. Presented by Creative Victoria in partnership with the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), you’ll be able to engage with the program through exhibitions, talks, films, tours, and workshops across the city and regional Victoria, too.
Led by NGV’s Department of Contemporary Design and Architecture, 2023 edition will continue to explore the theme of “Design The World You Want” and introduce three thought-provoking pillars of Transparency, Currency, and Legacy.
Leading brands and showrooms putting on a MDW show include APATO, Articolo Lighting, BACHLI Furniture, Castorina & Co, Coco Flip, Cult Design x Mater Earth Gallery, Domestic Fantasies, Flack Studio, Fred International, GLAAS Inc, Modern Times, Mud Australia, Open Room, and pépite.
The NGV’s own program highlights will see the Melbourne Design Fair return, at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre 18-21 May. There’s also the crowd-pleasing Melbourne Art Book Fair which will have publications galore at the Stallholder Fair in the Great Hall at NGV International.
NGV director, Tony Ellwood AM, says MDW is integral to Australia’s design sector, platforming and celebrating innovation across the industry “spanning furniture and collectible design to food technology, sustainable material exploration, and the medical field”.
Also on show at MDW is Melbourne Now showcasing more than 200 Victorian-based designers and artists. As part of this exhibition are panel discussions about how Melbourne-based designers, brands, and manufacturers are contributing to the dynamic landscape of applied creativity in Melbourne.
MDW has grown in scope and scale from 100 programs in 2017 to more than 350 in 2022. Over 55,000 people attended the 2022 festival, making it Australia’s leading and largest design event. Will 2023 beat previous records? We shall soon find out!
Melbourne Design Week runs 18-28 May 2023.
Melbourne Design Week
designweek.melbourne
We think you might like this story about The Project at Saturday Indesign 2023.
A searchable and comprehensive guide for specifying leading products and their suppliers
Keep up to date with the latest and greatest from our industry BFF's!
Highly responsive and light on its feet, K.I.D was created to address the need for commercially focused suppliers with a commitment to careful, enduring craftsmanship.
Living Edge definitely has the edge when it comes to supplying furniture for the education sector. With a plethora of brands and collections at their fingertips, Living Edge provides the perfect solution for any learning environment.
Specified at Eleven Eastern, a state-of-the-art commercial development in Melbourne, Verosol blinds have helped create a work environment that is both energising and sustainable.
The Futures Collective returned to Villa Alba Museum for Melbourne Design Week 2023. This event united a cadre of designers under the umbrella of three thought-provoking pillars — Transparency, Currency and Legacy.
Byron Bay: just the name conjures so much. Everyone has a Byron memory fuelling a rose-tinted ideal of chucking it all in and moving to the coast. Enter Pixie, the new restaurant designed by Flack Studio.
With outstanding track records in design, Genevieve Hromas and Juliet Ramsay have been working on the found and the formed with OKO OLO.
The internet never sleeps! Here's the stuff you might have missed
Byron Bay: just the name conjures so much. Everyone has a Byron memory fuelling a rose-tinted ideal of chucking it all in and moving to the coast. Enter Pixie, the new restaurant designed by Flack Studio.
In this comment piece, Lindy Johnson, director of Lindy Johnson Creative, urges architecture to communicate its value. Johnson says that architects are needed more than ever but their value is highly underrated — and that we’re all the poorer for it.
In the town of Oatlands, Cumulus has delivered Callington Mill Distillery. It’s a new venue that manages to be visually striking and functionally adept at the same time as engaging sensitively with the important local heritage.
The Australian pavilion at this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale involves confronting questions of decolonisation in architectural form and history. Unsettling Queenstown looks at the ubiquitous presence of British colonialism.