Melbourne Design Week 2026 might have wrapped up some weeks ago, but New/Relic: Fixtures was one exhibition worth taking a look back at. It saw ten designers — across a range of disciplines spanning jewellery design, ceramics, and furniture design — invited to reimagine everyday fixtures found in homes across Australia. Curated by interior designer Chiara Hunwick of Hunney Studio and architect Isabelle Jooste of Minilo Studio, New/Relic was hosted by Le Space in partnership with Pepite Gallery.

“Hooks, handles and door pulls quietly shape how we move through a home,” say the curators, noting how these very objects have “long existed at the edge of our attention.” New/Relic shone a spotlight directly onto them, inviting viewers to celebrate the smaller everyday details that comprise the average home. 

Looking to inherited relics, interior designer (and co-curator of the exhibition) Chiara Hunwick referenced the most common item ordinarily passed down across generations: jewellery. “As the second daughter of a second daughter of a second daughter, I didn’t inherit the family keepsakes — so I’ve designed my own,” she explains.

The Incanto drawer pulls and charms are a domestic sort of jewellery, designed to bedazzle the everyday interior. They are a playful deconstruction of La Presentosa, a traditional filigree necklace from the Abruzzo region of Italy, where the designer has family roots.

Related: Curator Kate Goodwin surveys this year’s MDW

“Each charm and filigree handle carries the symbols of protection and devotion that the necklace has held for generations, now scaled up and reimagined as domestic fixtures/heirlooms worth treasuring,” shares Hunwick. 

Also looking to accessories, popular jewellery designer Millie Savage’s contribution to New/Relic was an extension of her creative practice. Embedding semi-precious stones into hand-crafted metalwork, her handles almost present us with an engagement ring for the home. Known for her work with clay, ceramicist Kayleigh Heydon’s contribution explores surface, texture and form to balance utility, material histories and sculpture as worthy companions for everyday residential life.

Meanwhile, Ka-Ra Studio’s Bits & Bobs drawer pulls brought new life to timber offcuts; “The designs are a continued exploration of the forms I use within my furniture practice, applied on a smaller, more intimate scale,” says Ka-Ra studio designer, Katrina Ramm. 

Interior and object designer Jordan Fleming’s Dot drawer pulls were perhaps the most familiar in the context of joinery hardware. The soft dished forms are not dissimilar to the scooped wardrobe handles found in most 1970s post-war residences across Australia. What makes these special however, is Fleming’s combination of brass and aluminium; they embody her ongoing interest in material contrast, weight, finish and method of assembly. 

Minilo Studio’s contribution explored a distortion from the everyday rectangular shapes often found placed on the walls of our homes. Whether it be windows, paintings or photographs, Minilo Studio architect (and co-curator of New/Relic) Isabelle Jooste declares that she “has always been perversely drawn to square wall fixtures and fittings.”

Approaching her set of wall hooks with an architectural lens, Jooste interrogated ‘the corner,’ asking what happens when it overshoots, inverts or folds back in on itself. While corners are often used to resolve surfaces and junctions in architecture, Jooste “decided to inflate the corners… The edges become progressively puffed and swollen, softening the strict geometry of the square.”  

After being caught between mass-produced hardware and fully bespoke commissions, Hunwick and Jooste successfully pulled together a set of fixtures that lie somewhere in the middle. The resulting collection is what they describe as “a considered and eclectic catalogue that sits at the intersection of ornament and function, [while being] locally made, craft-led and actually specifiable.” 

Melbourne Design Week
designweek.melbourne

Hunney Studio
hunney.com.au

Minilo Studio
minilo.com.au

Photography
Bec Grande Studio