Designing for a Planet in Transition: Local Peoples’ Picks for MDW 2026
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Compound is reframing materials and systems, steering toward a regenerative, climate-positive future. Image courtesy of Compound — a regenerative design studio co-founded by Vasundhara Gaur and Simon Beirouti.
Article Summary
- Melbourne Design Week 2026 reflects a growing shift in design thinking, with many events focused less on sustainability as a concept and more on how designers can work within real ecological limits through regeneration, repair and circular systems.
- Highlights include exhibitions and workshops exploring algae-based materials, low-waste construction, circular furniture production and speculative climate futures, showing how design is responding to environmental instability in practical ways.
- Across more than 400 events, this year’s program positions design not just as problem-solving, but as an active tool for shaping resilient futures through collaboration, material innovation and systems thinking.
By Alexi Freeman
As Melbourne settles into the darker, more reflective rhythms of late autumn, Melbourne Design Week returns May 14 – 24 to cut through the seasonal gloom.
Split across 11 action-packed days, the city and its surrounds play host to an expansive program of exhibitions, talks, workshops, and installations.
Celebrating its 10th year, a clear shift is emerging as MDW continues to grow in scale — but more pointedly, sharpen in intent.
Rather than revisiting familiar ideas of sustainable design, many practitioners are testing what it means to design within ecological limits, not just around them.
From regenerative material systems to speculative futures forecast by climate instability, the program reflects a design community learning how to operate on a planet already in transition.
With a galaxy of over 400 satellite events on offer, the challenge isn’t finding something inspiring to see — it’s knowing how to cut through the noise.
Here, Local Peoples highlights a selection of nature-attuned events that offer thought-provoking glimpses into where design is headed next.
Bricks fabricated from 100% plastic waste by Pelagic Earth. GOLab, Brera, Milan Design Week 2025. Photo by Angelica Cantù Rajnoldi.
Build a Future: From Circularity to Real Zero in Construction (May 22-23)
What does “Real Zero” actually look like once you strip away the marketing gloss?
This two-day program, hosted by Breathe Architecture, transforms their CBD studio into a material library and meeting place — part workshop, part reality check.
Showcasing eco-conscious products and material experiments, including a curation from the recently launched Melbourne Materials Library, the program unearths biomaterials and low-waste production — not as abstract ideals, but as practical tools for rethinking how we build within circular systems.
Workshops and panel discussions aimed at architects, designers, and the sustainability-curious create space for knowledge-sharing and unfiltered conversations about bridging the gap between eco-ambition and real-world implementation.
Exhibitor, panellist and Pelagic Earth founder Philippa Abbott said, “The future of materials is here; we have sustainable materials that perform better than traditional materials and actively build circularity and sequester carbon. It’s now up to us as designers, industry, policy makers and the community to build with them.”
In a sector responsible for chewing through a hefty slice of the global emissions pie, this feels less like an industry showcase and more like a much-needed recalibration.
Compound brings together biodesigners exploring seaweed-based materials and the broader ecosystems. Image courtesy of Compound — a regenerative design studio co-founded by Vasundhara Gaur and Simon Beirouti.
Age of Algae: Seaweed, Systems and Regenerative Futures (May 15-24)
If an unsung hero is floating around the waters of regenerative design, it may just be (micro)algae.
Fast-growing, abundant, and remarkably versatile — algae take centre stage in this series of events curated by Compound — a regenerative design studio co-founded by Vasundhara Gaur and Simon Beirouti.
Spanning an exhibition, talks, and workshops at MPavilion, Compound brings together biodesigners exploring seaweed-based materials and the broader ecosystems they inhabit.
As Gaur explains, “Age of Algae explores seaweed as a catalyst – reframing materials, systems, and labour toward regenerative, climate-positive futures beyond extractive design models.”
Beirouti adds that the program is equally about building connection: “At MDW, we’re showcasing seaweed’s potential, and educating its uses while bringing together ocean system collaborators to challenge current pathways and drive regenerative change.”
Rather than positioning algae as a miracle green material, the project reframes it as part of a broader ecological conversation.
In a coastal city like Melbourne, where the bay is never too far away, this program reminds us that some of the most compelling material futures may already be washing up on our doorstep.
Making LAYUP. Photo by Tom Skeehan
100 Chairs (May 14-24)
Our need for somewhere comfy to sit is one of design’s oldest and most persistent problems. This group exhibition, curated by Friends & Associates, returns to basics, inviting designers to rework a familiar object into something less predictable.
Set within the South Magdalen Laundry at the Abbotsford Convent, the show offers a chance to slow down, take a load off, and contemplate the future of sitting.
Among the standouts is LAYUP, a robotically fabricated chair by Composite Sydney x SKEEHAN Studio, 3-D printed from 100% waste plastic.
As Tom Skeehan explains to Local Peoples, “LAYUP isn’t just a chair; it’s a way of making” — a system that enables furniture to be produced locally, iterated quickly, and adapted without the constraints of tooling.
Rather than reinventing form, the project shifts focus to process. “We’re not trying to reinvent the chair; we’re testing a system” — one that challenges the legacy of mass production.
“Plastic furniture defined a generation”, Skeehan notes. This work invites us to reflect on what happens when that model becomes local, flexible, and circular.
Skeehan’s chair is a reminder that circularity doesn’t need to shout to be heard — sometimes it’s embedded in the objects we live with, one chair at a time.
Root shoe Hero, Nicholas Hadji-Michael. Photo by Miro Wilkinson.
The Future Wears the Weather: Speculating the 2076 Mountain Athlete (May 14-24)
Fast-forward to 2076, and the rules of outdoor performance have shifted. In this collaborative exhibition and workshop series between Nicholas Hadji-Michael, Saskia Medd, and Oscar Galgano, Outdoor Futures takes over the Salomon Emporium store to imagine a world in which climate instability reshapes not just environments but behaviours.
The program presents speculative prototypes and narrative fragments from a not-so-distant future — shoes grown from biodegradable root structures to adaptive gear designed for repair.
As Hadji-Michael puts it, “We can’t move toward futures we can’t imagine,” positioning the work as an attempt to make more resilient futures visible.
For Medd, the shift is cultural as much as material: “Mountain sports are typically performance-based. This project asks what it looks like to shift that attention towards ecology.”
Through the lens of Outdoor Futures, small acts of care begin to replace speed and endurance as markers of value.
Galgano frames the workshops as “the first step in people’s personal making journey, preparing for a future that will look completely different from today.”
At a time when activewear is virtually a legislated dress code, it’s a gentle reminder to tread more thoughtfully as we navigate the shifting sands of the natural world.
It’s 2100. Welcome to the Symbiocene (May 20)
While much of the program dips its toes to check the temperature, this one dives in headfirst.
Held in the NGV’s Great Hall, this series of talks invites audiences to step into the dawn of the 22nd century to consider how today’s decisions might shape life in 2100.
The Symbiocene — a term coined by eco-philosopher Glenn Albrecht — describes a future grounded in mutualism and coexistence rather than extraction. Across panels spanning culture, technology, and economy, speakers unpack overlapping disruptions of climate change, biodiversity loss, and social instability.
Hosted by Naomi Stead (RMIT University), Andy Marks (The Symbiocene Institute), and Ewan McEoin (NGV), the event culminates in an in-conversation with environmental designer David Holmgren, co-creator of permaculture.
Less prediction than provocation, Symbiocene asks: what needs to shift now to safeguard a harmonious future?
This year’s MDW program alludes to a subtle yet significant shift. Where design once positioned itself primarily as a problem-solver, it’s increasingly being asked to operate within larger ecological systems.
Across this curation of projects, there’s a clear move away from band-aid solutions toward longer horizons — from materials that regenerate to practices grounded in repair, reuse, and restraint.
It’s not always neat, and rarely easy, but regenerative design feels far more in step with the climate-changed world we’re already living in.
As MDW co-curator McEoin explains, “Design the world you want. That call-to-action matters because it positions design as a form of public value: a way to reimagine systems, propose alternatives, and test new futures.”
If this year’s program makes one thing clear, it’s that design’s role isn’t just to imagine a better future — it’s to roll up our collective sleeves and start shaping it, here and now.
