Alice Blackwood shares her highlights from attending and presenting at Perth Design Week, held from 20 to 27 March 2025.

We’ve long pondered the divide between Australia’s west coast design culture and the east. Living and working in different time zones does take its toll on day-to-day communications and business and, as a result, Western Australia tends to operate to the beat of its own drum. But that’s not to say that it’s fallen out of step. If there’s anything I discovered last week while visiting Perth Design Week, it was that the world’s longest city has plenty going on and is self-sufficiently building its own design capital with a wealth of professional talent and business acumen, as well as innovators and agitators of convention.

Perth Design Week, spearheaded by architect Sandy Anghie and designer David Smith, attracted a diverse cross-section of tapped-in locals, and there was a strong contingent of national brands with a WA presence, too. As a result, the program comprised numerous events, exhibitions, talks and more, presented by interior design and architecture studios, digital agencies, design retailers, architectural suppliers, artists… the list goes on!

Total Design: The enduring legacy of Knoll in contemporary spaces

Left to right: Alice Blackwood moderates a panel discussion between Amanda Ainslie, Davina Bester, Alexandra Ramundi and Kim Thornton-Smith at Living Edge. Photo: David Broadway

Early on in the week, Living Edge hosted a panel discussion presented by Knoll, with four leaders of industry invited to reflect on Florence Knoll’s ‘total design’ legacy, which encapsulates Florence’s multi-disciplinary approach to interior architecture, furniture and spatial planning. 

The panel comprised Perth practitioners Kim Thornton-Smith of Paper, Amanda Ainslie of Cox Architecture and Davina Bester of Statuo Group, joined by Singapore-based MillerKnoll workplace strategist Alexandra Ramundi representing Knoll. 

Sharing a panel with these experts was akin to a masterclass, as they discussed the importance of a holistic and ‘humanistic’ experience within workplace environments, returning to principles of spatial flow, legibility, and connection with the outdoors.

100 Years of INAX Japanese architectural ceramics, presented by Artedomus

Artedomus hosts guided tours celebrating 100 years of Japanese architectural ceramics at Perth Design Week. Photo: Renae Roberts

Artedomus, having recently opened its new Bayswater showroom, hosted a series of guided tours through its INAX100 exhibition. Celebrating 100 years of Japanese architectural ceramics, the showcase encompassed rare artefacts on loan from the INAX Tile Museum in Tokoname (Aichi Prefecture), including artisanal tiles crafted by Japanese tile masters and archival colour palettes that captured the technical innovations and aesthetic trends of certain eras over the past century.

Cultivated x Mark Tuckey Perth pop-up

The Cultivated and Mark Tuckey pop-up at Perth Design Week. Photo: Dion Robeson

Sustainability and future city development were topics high on the agenda, with Cultivated and Mark Tuckey making their Perth debut in a pop-up space located on King Street – a CBD precinct currently undergoing its own revitalisation. 

You could call this collaborative project a meeting of like-values, as designers Foolscap Studio aligned circular economy principles with retail design strategies. Reuse, restoration and salvaged materials dwelled in every detail, from the white recycled bricks which formed a topography of platforms for visual merchandising (these, sourced from the Vinsan Salvage Yard and destined to return there, too); to the plinths, made by Jack Flanagan using SaveBOARD, a material made from recycled Tetra Pak and soft plastic. This all sat beneath a canopy of drapery – the remnant fabric rolls from past Cultivated projects. 

The World’s Longest City photography exhibition

Photo by Harry Cunningham from The World’s Longest City exhibition

The photographic exhibition, ‘The World’s Longest City’ (running until 8 April), turned its back on the more commonly known parts of Perth to explore the city’s rapid suburban expansion. 

Photographer Harry Cunningham traversed Perth’s vast 150-kilometre corridor to document its sprawling suburbs, examining the visual and environmental impacts of the city’s growth. His pictures tell a story of barren streetscapes, mass-produced houses and endless roads – perspectives that challenge our more common view of a verdant, beach-side city.

From Emotional to Everlasting: A conversation with Ross Didier and Alice Blackwood, presented by Innerspace

Alice Blackwood interviews Melbourne furniture designer Ross Didier at Perth Design Week. Photo: supplied

A final, quick nod to Innerspace, who invited Melbourne designer Ross Didier of Didier design studio to speak on his 25-year career as a furniture designer. 

‘Idea is king’ for Didier, who generously shared stories of his research and investigations into the phenomenology of objects and the evolution of earth’s earliest life-forms, all the while wrapping his audience in the vibrant and sometimes nostalgic narratives that feed his creative process.

More to explore in Perth’s design scene

It is impossible to capture the full extent of Perth’s diverse design scene in a single story, so here are a few additional Perth studios and destinations to check out:

1.    Design for Wellness, presented by Rezen 

2.    Catch up on Juicebox’s ‘Your Brand Is A System’ presentation

3.    Holonic, which presented ‘How to design for the end of the world as we know it’

4.    Perth club, Lawson Flats, which hosted many of the design weeks’ events

5.    UniFor, which presented XYZ by Foster + Partners and artwork by architect Stephen McDonnell of Paper, and

6.    The recently opened design bookshop, Mount Street Books, West Perth.

Lead image of panel at Total Design by David Broadway.

Check out the program for Melbourne Design Week in May.