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The About Futures Melbourne Design Week 2026 hitlist
With thirty-plus events on bio-materials, repair and circularity, this year’s design week highlights that sustainability concepts have beyond the fringe.
Traceability is the key to unlocking true circular design
Traceability is at the heart of the circular design. You can’t keep materials in play if you don’t know exactly what they are, where they came from, or how they behave over time.
Why systems thinking matters more than ever
When we talk about sustainability in design – whether furniture, buildings, materials or communities – the instinct is often to narrow our view: pick a green material, specify energy-efficient appliances, reduce waste. These are worthwhile efforts. But if we don’t widen our frame, we risk treating symptoms rather than shifting the system itself.
Interior Design
Integrating Sustainable Materials in Interior Design
Designers have a wealth of options at their disposal when it comes to incorporating sustainable materials into their projects. Understand the benefits and read tips for making sustainable material choices.
Compression and Release: James Walsh’s Anthropic Bench
Emerging industrial designer James Walsh has won the 2020 Australian Furniture Design Award (AFDA) presented by Stylecraft and the National Gallery of Victoria with a design that uses traditional techniques, reinvented in a modern form.
The ground-breaking work of Ty Syml
Welsh-based experimental design studio Tŷ Syml is proving what’s possible through material research and product design. Borne from a university thesis, the trio behind the studio are creating a new generation of products that are embedded with a cradle-to-cradle philosophy. And only a few years off the ground, the studio is now consulting with cities on how to be more sustainable. Here they share their design thinking and why an experimental approach is key.
Traceability is the key to unlocking true circular design
Traceability is at the heart of the circular design. You can’t keep materials in play if you don’t know exactly what they are, where they came from, or how they behave over time.
What Australia’s mandatory climate reporting means for design
And why architects and makers should start paying attention.
Smarter defitting: Understanding why better deconstruction can help close the loop
In commercial interiors, the focus, understandably, is on the beginning. The crisp fit-out, the promise of a new space, the energy of a fresh start. But it’s the end of the lease – when the space is returned that holds untapped potential. The defit stage, while often overlooked, is where the real environmental gains can happen.
Delve into the Archive
From hempcrete to biodiversity: Regenerative design in focus
At HIP V. HYPE’s ParkLife2 building, About Futures and B Local Melbourne hosted a relaxed but pointed conversation about regenerative design – covering nature-positive decisions, material selection, social connection and how stories can help shape how we build.
Join us in Melbourne for The Future of Design is Regenerative event
From carbon-positive buildings to biodiversity-led business models, the most compelling work in the built environment is no longer satisfied with ticking green boxes. The Future of Design is Regenerative is an event inviting the Melbourne’s design community into a candid conversation – hosted at HIP V. HYPE’s Better Building Exchange – this B Local Melbourne event will dive into what it really takes to design places that give back more than they take.
NGV’s new exhibition Making Good: Redesigning the Everyday puts bio-materials in the spotlight
From mushroom leather handbags to seaweed straws and air-purifying paint, the National Gallery of Victoria’s new exhibition is a love letter to the ingenuity of designers reimagining the materials of daily life.
10 exhibitions about bio-materials and waste to see at Melbourne Design Week 2025
Melbourne Design Week is now in its ninth year, continuing to grow in scale and ambition. I was lucky enough to attend the inaugural event as editor of Australian Design Review — and it’s remarkable to see the shift since then. This year, a surge of shows explores bio-materiality, waste and reuse with new urgency. Here are 10 exhibitions worth adding to your list.
Big Glow by Studio Truly Truly redefines lighting with a bio-composite wool
Studio Truly Truly’s latest lighting design for Rakumba, Big Glow is a bold material experiment fusing innovation and sustainability.
Coffee concrete – An award-winning material reinventing sustainable construction
Researchers at RMIT University have developed an innovative way to transform spent coffee grounds into a high-performance construction material, strengthening concrete while tackling the mounting problem of organic waste.
About Futures is an independent magazine documenting the homes, ideas and conversations shaping a new era of sustainable design.
The most exciting architecture being built right now is sustainable. About Futures covers the groundbreaking materials, the alternative building processes, and the people reimagining what home can look like when it’s designed for the future.
