Adelaide Design Week showcases SA’s culture of craftsmanship and fabrication

There is something exciting and grassroots about an inaugural design week, and for the short 24 hours that Alice Blackwood was in Adelaide last week, she caught the lightning bolt of energy that was circulating among galleries, curators and designers alike. Here, she shares some of her highlights from every*where: Adelaide Design Week.

Design weeks are valuable for the engagement they bring to their local design communities, stimulating those internal networks and opening them out to a more general public who have an enthusiasm for design. Every*where: Adelaide Design Week (ADW) definitely achieved this broadening of the industry’s inner dialogue; the program gave ample opportunity to Adelaide designers, craftspeople, fabricators and makers to showcase the breadth of their skills and creativity in numerous formats, stretching out across exhibition spaces, workshops, retail spaces, public spaces, studios and more.

Alice Blackwood caught the “lightning bolt of energy” circulating at the inaugural Adelaide Design Week.

It was Thursday 21 August, design week was freshly launched and the energy was catching. As I circulated between venues, the yellow pop of the ADW program could be seen bouncing along in the hands of other event-hoppers as they traced their way around the city.

First stop, JamFactory

JamFactory has long been recognised as a nucleus of creativity and professional development for woodworkers, glassblowers, ceramicists, metal workers and jewellers. It’s been critical in building up Adelaide’s incredible network of skilled craftspeople, contributing to the kind of market confidence that has seen local makers, craftspeople and fabricators set up their own independent studios and workshops.

Hold Chair by Takeshi Iue was showcased by JamFactory at Adelaide Design Week 2025. Photo: Connor Patterson.

For ADW, JamFactory showcased three new chairs from its in-house produced jam collection. These included the Arc Chair by Tom Golin, head of JamFactory’s Jewellery and Metal Studio; Treble Chair by Stu Colwill, head of JamFactory’s Furniture Studio; and the Hold Chair by South Australian furniture and object designer Takeshi Iue. The Hold was all flowing lines and open structure in its reinterpretation of a classic Ming Chair. The design is light yet enveloping with its Tasmanian timber frame and ceramic button detail at the end of each armrest.

Arc Chair by Tom Golin. Photo: Connor Patterson.

Also very special was an exhibition of JamFactory icon, Aunty Ellen Trevorrow, entitled Weaving Through Time. Her works encompass traditional baskets and fish traps, large-scale sculptures and wearable works, representing the impressive span of her artisanship. They represent a cultural transmission of weaving carried down through many generations of elders and, through her work, bequeathed to future generations.

Weaving Through Time by Aunty Ellen Trevorrow on display at Adelaide Design Week 2025. Photo: Connor Patterson.

Second stop, MOTION

Equally, MOTION, a pop-up exhibition curated by Rachel Leppinus, captured a wide cross-section of 80 South Australian designers and makers, ready to move the viewer. To view the works as a whole reinforced so clearly South Australians’ artistry and skill in ceramics, woodwork and glass. Many pieces moved fluidly between artistic expression and functional design, combining natural materials in both their raw state and their refined, polished form. In this interplay, the makers demonstrated not only their skill in shaping materials into intentional design, but also their respect for allowing materials to exist in their purest, most authentic state.

Bauxite and Aluminium mirrors and Copper and Copper Ore Mirrors by Guy Keulemans + Kyoko Hashimoto on display at MOTION. Photo: Jonathan Van Der Knaap.

Highlights included works from emerging artist-designer Bridget Saville, furniture designer and maker Stephen Roy, stone fabricators Hand of Stone, maker of sculpture, craft, and functional objects Saturday Yard Work, and collaborative designers and artists Guy Keulemans + Kyoko Hashimoto.

Bridget Saville ceramic work on display at MOTION. Photo: Jonathan Van Der Knaap.

Third stop, Total Design: The Enduring Legacy of Knoll in Contemporary Spaces

What’s a design week without a lively panel discussion – the most eloquent form of storytelling and dialoguing? Estilo and Knoll hosted an evening that celebrated the late, great Florence Knoll, whose ‘Total Design’ philosophy of the 1940s and 50s lives on today in the most fascinating and enduring ways. Total Design speaks to an integrated approach to interiors, combining furniture, textiles and space planning, and with speakers Rosina Di Maria (Woods Bagot), Dave Bickmore (Studio Gram), Jon Goulder (Jon Goulder Studio), and Alexandra Ramundi (MillerKnoll), we were able to explore how this approach plays out through everyday practice.

L-R: Alice Blackwood moderates a panel discussion about ‘Total Design’ for Knoll, with guests Jon Goulder, Rosina Di Maria, Alexandra Ramundi and Dave Bickmore. Photo: Courtesy of Estilo and Knoll

Di Maria, a director of Woods Bagot and its first female leader in Adelaide, spoke to Florence’s immense bravery in introducing her highly functional, impactful interior design approach to corporate clients. As Ramundi notes, “Florence played a crucial role in reshaping the field of interior design by defining the interior designer as a new kind of professional…an expert consultant who understands and is in sympathy with modern architectural problems and solutions, and who is able to interpret the architect’s and client’s intentions and translate these into functional and pleasant spaces in which to work.”

Rosina Di Maria discusses the crucial role Florence Knoll played reshaping the field of interior design. Photo: Courtesy of Estilo and Knoll.

Bickmore spoke of the nose-to-tail approach that Studio Gram applies to its hospitality project work, in which every detail, down to the fork and knife, wraps into the holistic design concept and overall experience of a space – their very own version of Total Design. Goulder, one of Australia’s most revered furniture designers and makers, highlighted the quiet genius that dwells within Knoll’s pieces, which have endured across the decades to transcend both era and trend, and offer us a lesson in the ‘simplexity’ of good furniture design.

Visitors could peruse Knoll furniture during the ‘Total Design’ event for Adelaide Design Week 2025. Photo: Courtesy of Estilo and Knoll.

More to explore in Adelaide’s design scene

While Adelaide Design Week only ran for five days, there is still plenty happening. Check out these exhibitions and studios:

Frank Bauer’s exhibition at Samstag Museum of Art – until 26 September
Soda Objects
Shopfront Design Sprint, window frontage activation in Adelaide’s east end (Rundle Street) precinct
Shokunin Japanese design exhibition at Sedgwood Galleries
Clara Adolphs’ ‘Sleep Shadows’ and Drew Spangenberg’s ‘Containers’ at Hugo Michell Gallery – until 20 September
Mark Valenzuela’s Bantay-Salakay exhibition at ACE Gallery – until 20 September