Melbourne Design Week 2024

Melbourne Design Week (MDW) returns in its eighth year to celebrate design across Melbourne, Australia’s design capital from 23 May – 2 June 2024. The program is driven by ideas and provides a platform for designers, educators, businesses and the community to come together to share ideas, show and sell new work, and consider how design can be used as a force for good in an increasingly complex and precarious world.  

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Melbourne Design Week highlights the capacity for design to transform our environments – each year asking participants to ‘Design the world you want’. Responding to this call-to-action, designers use their skills to drive positive change, reimagine existing systems, and offer innovative solutions to pressing global challenges. 

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Each year three pillars, which address the opportunities and challenges that designers are presently facing, underscore this call-to-action. In 2024, the Melbourne Design Week pillars are: ecology, ethics and energy.  

Ecology: Ecology explores the entangled relationships between beings and things: humans, animals, objects and environmental systems. Ecological design responds to the physical environment and considers its influence. 

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Ethics: Designers address societal issues to contribute positively to their communities. Ethics aligns design with the values of society by providing and provoking frameworks that guide actions, behaviours and choices. 

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Energy: Society is transitioning into a new era led by renewables, including solar, hydro- and wind energy alongside human power. How can designers harness new technologies and transform systems to both power and empower through design? 

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As we look to the future of our city, suburbs and regions – and further to a global community with shared responsibilities – innovative design becomes a key to a better tomorrow. Melbourne Design Week 2024 is the time to look together towards the world we might make through design.