For one morning only, Glassworks in Auckland’s Ponsonby will be transformed into an immersive showcase of contemporary New Zealand design, as BAYA brings together five emerging creatives working across art, furniture and objects under one roof.
On Friday 30 October, BAYA HOUSE Vol. 2: House Warming reimagines Glassworks in Ponsonby as a sequence of layered domestic spaces. Conceived as a house rather than a traditional showroom, the installation gathers five designers working across furniture, sculpture, lighting and objects, each room grounded by a rug from BAYA’s latest collection.
Styled by Kayla Jurlina, the spaces invite visitors to encounter design in context, exploring the interplay of material, form, and texture among the objects we choose to live with. The concept is intentionally playful, allowing each designer to respond to their surroundings through their own creative lens. Home of Architecture’s digital editor, Katie Delany, spoke with BAYA’s Mason Feehan about what to expect.
What inspired the concept of BAYA HOUSE Vol. 2, and how has it evolved from the first iteration?
The first BAYA HOUSE celebrated our refreshed Auckland showroom and the launch of our Summer 26 collection. We loved how naturally people settled in, and that feeling became the starting point for Vol. 2. This time we’ve stepped outside our own walls and invited five New Zealand designers to share the house with us. It’s part of an evolving story for BAYA. Through our journal, we’ve always championed makers we believe in. This time we’re giving them a room. Each room centres on a BAYA rug and a maker’s work, so it’s no longer just our story. It’s a house of makers we’re inspired by, and for the first time, we’re opening the doors to the public, too.
What was the thinking behind creating a series of domestic spaces at Glassworks, rather than a traditional showroom?
Furniture looks one way in a showroom. It feels another way at home. We want people to take their shoes off (literally), sit down, lie back, put a record on and see a rug doing its real job: under a table, beside a bed, in the middle of a living room. Glassworks gave us one open space with different corners, so we could build a loop of rooms and domestic experiences that guests move through.
How did BAYA’s collection inform the creative direction of House Warming?
Every room starts with a rug. We picked one hero piece from our latest Summer 27 collection for each space. We built everything else around it, the maker’s work, with the help of Kayla Jurlina’s creative direction and, most importantly, the experience within it. The collection’s texture and warmth set the tone for the whole house. It feels relaxed and lived-in, more like visiting a friend’s place on a Friday morning for toast and coffee than going to an exhibition. That’s where the name House Warming comes from, and we’re literally serving just that.
What drew you to the five young New Zealand designers exhibiting?
Each works with their hands and materials with a story, much like BAYA. They’re all at a point in their careers where the work feels fresh and personal, and we wanted to give each of them their own platform (or in this case, a room) to show it.
Levi Hawken greets guests in the hallway between the spaces. Like family photos hung by the front door, his sculptures, shaped by skate culture and Brutalist architecture, sit on plinths in pride of place, where people pause on their way into the house, as they would when arriving at a friend’s for dinner.
In the living room, Matan Fadida, a multidisciplinary designer with a sense of humour, has made a custom puffer cushion, trays and stool. They surround a ramp plinth covered in a BAYA rug, where you’re invited to lie back and play his favourite Xbox games.
In the dining room, Courtney Petley shows her animals, each carved from a single piece of native timber, alongside a working kitchen, a nod to busy mealtimes with children and toys at their parents’ feet.
Carina Webb of Frangere Studio opens up the office, a working studio and archive alongside her debut fungi-inspired collection, Fun Guy. It shows how a creative person comes up with their next idea, and a reminder that most of these makers’ first ideas started at home.
Upstairs in the loft, Sophie Poelman of Lof turns New Zealand strong wool into knitted lighting. Dive into a bed of cushions, look up at her work and daydream to one of her favourite records.
What do you hope visitors will take away from this event?
We hope people leave with a few new names to follow and a sense of how good it feels to live with things that are made well and made by hand. Mostly, we want them to slow down for a morning: have toast and a coffee, wander through, stay a while, and see a home through the eyes of the people who make the things in it, appreciating the incredible makers we have in Aotearoa.
BAYA HOUSE Vol. 2: House Warming is open on Friday 30 October 2026, 7.30 am–1 pm, at Glassworks, 70 Mackelvie Street, Ponsonby, Auckland. Free entry.
