Brisbane’s design community gathered at the Miele Experience Centre on Wednesday 30 April for the official launch of the 2025 Interior Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) and a first look at its newest award: Enduring.

Miele Experience Centre Brisbane on 30 April 2025

Hosted in partnership with Miele – IDEA’s Overall sponsor and the sponsor of the new Special Award – the evening was an opportunity to reflect on design’s great potential for longevity.

Miele’s Australian leader of project sales Leo Wallin welcomed guests and revealed the first details about the Enduring award, which is now accepting entries for exceptional projects at least 10 years old.

“The new IDEA Enduring category celebrates interior design projects that have stood the test of time and continue to be just as relevant and influential today as the day that they were completed,” he said.

Miele’s Australian leader of project sales Leo Wallin

Wallin reaffirmed Miele’s own commitment to the values underpinning the new category and its legacy of long-lasting products. “It is fitting that we are sponsoring this award,” he said.

IDEA 2024 winners host panel on enduring design

Moderated by IDEA 2024 Gold Medallist Dr Natalie Wright, the evening’s centrepiece was a robust panel discussion exploring the concept of enduring design. Wright, herself an interior design educator and advocate, set the tone by recalling her early career experiences and the emotional connections formed between people and spaces.

“I look forward to continuing to advocate for our profession’s role in facilitating environments that positively impact health, wellbeing, sustainability and inclusivity within our communities,” Wright said.

Dr Natalie Wright

Joining her were Davina Rooney, CEO of the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA), and Brenton Smith, director of Bates Smart, the IDEA 2024 triple threat winner of Designer of the Year, Overall Project of the Year and the Public Space category for the Australian Embassy in Washington DC.

Australian Embassy in Washington DC, designed by Bates Smart, won the IDEA 2024 Overall Project of the Year and Public Space category

“We won [the competition to design] the first embassy in 1960 and then, fast forward, we did another international competition and we won the embassy that we’ve just finished,” Smith explained. “We’ve got a long history with the Washington Embassy and I think this is a really interesting project to talk about because it really ties beautifully into this whole idea of design and endurance – so maybe in 10 years’ time I can put it in for that award.”

Left to right: Bates Smart director Brenton Smith and GBCA CEO Davina Rooney

What does ‘timeless design’ look like?

At a time when many interior designers are striving to create ‘timeless’ spaces, Wright asked the panel to reflect on what this actually means. What does ‘timeless design’ look like in Australia in 2025?

“It’s a really interesting, tough question because I think it is somewhat subjective,” Smith said. “If you asked anyone who lived through Art Deco, they’d probably say Art Deco was timeless. If you asked anyone who lived through modernism, they’d say modernism is timeless. I think timeless is really about the moment of architecture that we’re in.”

Noting he didn’t think designers necessarily set out to create timeless projects, Smith attempted to pull out the “basic ingredients”.

“I think what we do is we look at the brief, we start to create a narrative, we look at the location and we start to form an idea,” he said. He used the iconic Queenslander typology as an example, applauding its sense of place, form and function. 

“It responds to its climate beautifully and the narrative is about the landscape on which it was built. And I think if you start from that position, you will inevitably create timeless design.”

Narrative, place and permanence

Much of the discussion centred on the importance of narrative and place as foundational elements of timeless interiors. Drawing on the Australian Embassy in Washington, Smith described how enduring design is rooted in cultural storytelling and material integrity. “If you’ve got a strong narrative and it’s about its place, you’ve already got the foundations of something great.”

The embassy’s copper façade was chosen to reflect Australia’s mineral wealth, while its interior used blackbutt timber. “It was really about creating that sense of Australia in DC,” he said.

Rooney, who had visited the space, recalled how the layered design made her feel instantly at home. “There was Indigenous art on the walls, taken into the cushions and the rugs… You’re so far away from home, but you feel strangely comforted.”

Rooney also referred to Stockland’s head office fitout as an example of timeless design she was involved in. Designed by the now NSW Government architect Abbie Galvin in 2007, the office has outlived the typical six- or seven-year lifespan of a workplace fitout, a feat Rooney attributed to its design narrative, which was centred around the children’s novel The Folk of the Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton.

“People fell in love with the story and so against all odds it has endured,” Rooney said.

Not all sectors are made equal

Despite the Stockland office exception, the panellists acknowledged that not all sectors are equally suited to enduring approaches. 

“Civic buildings and those kinds of places are absolutely great places for enduring design because I think they’re built for that lifespan. But the F&B scene is a little bit like fast fashion,” Brenton said, referencing the public’s ever-evolving dining preferences.

Workplace design, too, offers opportunities, particularly when they are aspirational environments that draw elements from hospitality and residential design, encouraging people to return post-COVID. “You now have to earn the commute,” Rooney said.

The panellists acknowledged some commercial drivers are at odds with the need for sustainable design. For example, there has historically been a tendency to discard office fitouts and furniture at the end of a lease.

“About 50 percent of materials we use go into construction or fitout,” Rooney said, referencing “terrifying” global studies and calling attention to Australia’s low circularity rate of just 4.4 percent. Smith was, however, hopeful that repurposing is front of mind for more clients now.

The environmental and social impact of enduring interior design

Wright closed the discussion by highlighting the dual impact of enduring interiors: reduced environmental cost and increased social value. Rooney pointed to data from the retirement living sector, where thoughtful design led to significant improvements in mental health and wellbeing. 

“The reason why I think this is so critically important is when I speak to designers around the country, this is what everyone gets out of bed for – the spaces that create those moments that matter,” she said. “But at the moment, we’re not very good at valuing them, which sadly means we’re really good at value-engineering them out. So I think there’s this moment for the design community to lean forward. We’ve got the frameworks and, in the UK, there’s requirements for measuring in property for social return on investment.”

Drawing on the past to rewrite the future

As the IDEA program enters its next phase, the Enduring award invites the industry to consider not just how we design, but why. To achieve timeless appeal and sustainability in future projects, it helps to reflect on the spaces that have already stood the test of time. The IDEA Enduring category seeks out and celebrates these achievements by designers from around the nation, discovering what continues to make these spaces successful in the process.

Entries to IDEA 2025 are open – enter now here. Learn more about the IDEA Enduring award here.

Photography by Stephen Henry.

IDEA 2025 is brought to you by Overall Sponsor Miele, alongside category sponsors Crafted Hardwoods, Cult, Designer Rugs, ForestOne, MillerKnoll, Laufen and Zenith.