Design News

Everyday objects seldom seek our attention. Soap, more than most, is made to vanish. With the OBA Soap collection, Danish designer Matias Moellenbach reimagines this essential, shaping it into a sculptural form that sits quietly between product design, ritual and art.

This September, Salone del Mobile Milano opens a new chapter as the SaloneSatellite Permanent Collection touches down in Jakarta, the first destination on its global tour.

New Zealand skincare brand Emma Lewisham has received an endorsement rarely seen in the beauty industry, with Nobel Prize-winning physician and molecular biologist Dr Peter Agre publicly recognising the company's scientific approach.

Renowned for its work in architecture for extreme environments, the Copenhagen and Hanoi-based studio presents EcoNeo: a 35-square-metre summerhouse that brings the principles of space-habitat design to daily life.

Returning from Copenhagen’s 3daysofdesign, interior designer Elena Parry shares the standout themes, installations, and ideas that shaped this year’s festival.

Fifty architectural projects across Auckland and Northland have been deemed the very best in Te Kāhui Whaihanga New Zealand Institute of Architects’ Regional Awards this year.

In Aotearoa, shade is seldom still. It moves with wind, sun, and seasons, calling for responsive solutions to the ever-changing environment. For architects, designers, and homeowners, this invites an intricate approach to outdoor living, where shelter is adaptive, intentional, and woven into the language of architecture.

Set within a vibrant Colombo suburb, this home by architect Vajini Pannila offers a contemporary reimagining of the tropical courtyard house.

From its studio in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, Monmouth Glass Studio crafts hand-blown lighting and vessels using traditional techniques that date back hundreds of years.

Driven by a passion for geometry and symmetry, Queenstown-based artist Stephen Burke weaves elements of structure and form into his art, inviting viewers to explore the dynamic interplay between light, colour, shape, and reflections.​

Guided by the conviction that art belongs to everyone, a new contemporary art gallery in Christchurch has quickly established itself as a must-visit destination.

The 2026 finalists are revealed. Vote for the project you believe should win the Readers' Choice Interior of the Year Award 2026.

To celebrate its 20th anniversary at Copenhagen’s 3daysofdesign, Muuto has unveiled a trio of special releases.

As bathrooms become increasingly restrained, it is the strongest forms that leave the greatest impression — the bath, the basin, the silhouette of a tap becoming the elements that define the spatial experience.

Bringing together four of the city’s leading fashion labels inside City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi, the Common Material marks the gallery’s first public opening in more than two years.

A soft, contoured seat against a geometric aluminium frame. A study of balance and clarity.

At M House by Ponting Fitzgerald Architects, the arrival sequence is deliberate — a slow arc around the building that allows the architecture to be read in full before entry. It’s a movement that begins at ground level.

Balancing equal parts whimsy and grace, the Fun Guy wall lights are crafted to delight.

Sculpting Everyday Rituals with Matias Moellenbach

Everyday objects seldom seek our attention. Soap, more than most, is made to vanish. With the OBA Soap collection, Danish designer Matias Moellenbach reimagines this essential, shaping it into a sculptural form that sits quietly between product design, ritual and art.

Emma Lewisham Receives Nobel Laureate Endorsement

New Zealand skincare brand Emma Lewisham has received an endorsement rarely seen in the beauty industry, with Nobel Prize-winning physician and molecular biologist Dr Peter Agre publicly recognising the company’s scientific approach.

Crafting the Interior of M House

At M House by Ponting Fitzgerald Architects, bespoke joinery is woven into the architecture. From the kitchen and concealed scullery to American oak panelling and custom bunk beds, Renalls Joinery brings warmth, craftsmanship and function to every space.

The New (Modular) Comfort

The role of the living room continues to evolve. It has become a place that accommodates almost every aspect of daily life — morning coffee, remote work, family gatherings, cosy evenings and impromptu entertaining. The challenge for furniture is not to simply look good; it must adapt, endure and support the changing rhythms of daily life.

Carin Wilson’s Five Decades of Design at Objectspace

A new exhibition at Objectspace, He maramara tupu aranga, brings together furniture, sculpture, archival material and design ephemera to honour the remarkable career of one of New Zealand’s most influential designers and advocates.

Suncraft’s Shaded Colour

In Aotearoa, shade is seldom still. It moves with wind, sun, and seasons, calling for responsive solutions to the ever-changing environment. For architects, designers, and homeowners, this invites an intricate approach to outdoor living, where shelter is adaptive, intentional, and woven into the language of architecture.

Full Circle with Spacebar Design

Spacebar Design was established with a clear vision: to design and create beautiful furniture and cabinetry with the entire life cycle in mind.

Set the Tone with Jardin

Colour shapes the presence of furnishings outdoors. It anchors a space, setting the atmosphere and grounding it in its surroundings. Outside, colour is less about contrast and more about the subtle ways it transforms experience.

Monmouth’s Blown Glass

From its studio in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, Monmouth Glass Studio crafts hand-blown lighting and vessels using traditional techniques that date back hundreds of years.

Stephen Burke’s Lasting Colour

Driven by a passion for geometry and symmetry, Queenstown-based artist Stephen Burke weaves elements of structure and form into his art, inviting viewers to explore the dynamic interplay between light, colour, shape, and reflections.​

Art of Place with Ashe Gallery

Guided by the conviction that art belongs to everyone, a new contemporary art gallery in Christchurch has quickly established itself as a must-visit destination.

Electric Accents in Design

From Milan Design Week to Collect, London’s international art fair for contemporary craft and design, accent colour emerged unapologetically bold: vivid, high-voltage, and impossible to ignore.

Defining Forms with Plumbline

As bathrooms become increasingly restrained, it is the strongest forms that leave the greatest impression — the bath, the basin, the silhouette of a tap becoming the elements that define the spatial experience.

Ground Control: Peter Fell at M House

At M House by Ponting Fitzgerald Architects, the arrival sequence is deliberate — a slow arc around the building that allows the architecture to be read in full before entry. It’s a movement that begins at ground level.

A Lasting Partnership with Design: Plumbline and Interior of the Year

For more than 35 years, Plumbline has worked alongside New Zealand architects, interior designers and specifiers, helping bring thoughtful residential and commercial spaces to life. As a longstanding supporter of Interior of the Year, the New Zealand-owned company sees the programme as an opportunity to recognise excellence and champion innovation.

The Bathhouse by Kohler and Richard Christiansen

This immersive, multi-sensory installation was conceived as an elemental world — inviting visitors into a place where architecture, landscape, and serenity are experienced as a single, interdependent experience.

A Way of Living with Boffi

The XPL kitchen by Piero Lissoni for Boffi stems from the idea of reducing a kitchen to its essence: a pure, rigorous volume almost floating in space. The island, a monolithic architectural statement of its own.

A New Kind of Floating Suite

At the 2026 Venice Boat Show, Italian brand Velysum Venezia introduced a new vision for life on the water: a 12-metre luxury houseboat conceived as both vessel and retreat.

Defining Gestures with Matisse

Edra revealed its new collection in Milan to immediate international acclaim — with the Dilly Lamp and the Anywhere Sofa in particular capturing attention.

New Beginnings with Lof

Drawing on the qualities of New Zealand wool, Lof unites material innovation with design integrity to create pieces that cast a gentle light, soften the tactile experience, and quieten the acoustic landscape.

Cam Barrett: Recasting Light

Cam Barrett’s work draws on the language of organic form. His lighting series is marked by a quiet naturalism, with soft, rising lines that recall the movement of water.

Ground Control

At M House by Ponting Fitzgerald Architects, the arrival sequence is deliberate — a slow arc around the building that allows the architecture to be read in full before entry. It’s a movement that begins at ground level.

Work of Art by MDesign

At MDesign, Geoff Mackintosh creates furniture with a strong sense of purpose. From his Whanganui studio, he combines traditional craftsmanship with a practical, thoughtful approach shaped by years
of experience.

Philbe Design’s Bespoke Craft

True distinction is increasingly defined by what cannot be replicated. For Philbe Design, that idea sits at the centre of its practice: bespoke pieces that are entirely unique to the client and the space.

Grounded in Place

Two new projects intelligently embed Maoritanga values across architectural, interior, artistic and graphic design elements.

Alpine Clarity with Dulux

Luminous, natural, and light: the whites in the Dulux Colours of New Zealand range have become timeless favourites. These tried and tested colours have been used by architects and designers for over 20 years, and the newest white is equally as alluring: Dulux Mt Hutt.

The Architect as Collector

New Zealand architects have long occupied a privileged position in the art market: as buyers, commissioners, and collaborators. The recent sale of Sir Miles Warren’s collection at Webb’s Auction House made that relationship visible at scale.

Building Better Interiors: Laminex and Interior of the Year

As the 2026 Interior of the Year Awards programme gets underway, we caught up with Laminex New Zealand about its long-standing support of the architecture and design industry, the future of local manufacturing, and why celebrating exceptional New Zealand interiors matters more than ever.

Five Years of Kayu Studio

Since its arrival in 2021, Kayu Studio has shaped a distinct aesthetic, one that now finds new expression with the opening of its third showroom in Aotearoa. Here, the retail environment is reimagined as something more considered.

Dulux Announces the Colour Award Winners 2026

In a fittingly colourful gala event, the winners of the prestigious 40th Dulux Colour Awards celebrated the milestone occasion at the Sydney Opera House. Here are the standout New Zealand projects. 

Kovacs: Made Right Here

There’s a certain allure to pieces that are defined by a story of locality. In the case of the Kovacs collection, that story begins in Ōtautahi.

Art and Heritage at The Central Art Gallery

Entering The Central Art Gallery is an encounter with layered histories. The former Canterbury College Library, a Gothic Revival structure completed in 1916, now holds a changing collection of contemporary art within its storied walls.

22 Mokoia by Piper Architects

With a design that draws on the language of ancient bath houses, the former Birkenhead Post Office building has been transformed into a contemporary wellness centre.

Inzide on Design, Sustainability and Interior of the Year

We caught up with Steve Aschebrock, managing director of Inzide — an Interior of the Year partner — to discuss the brand’s longstanding support of New Zealand’s architecture and design community, and the trailblazing sustainability initiatives shaping its future.

Flora and Clay by Shaw Road Ceramics

Amid the apple orchards of Ōrātia in West Auckland, ceramicist and sculptor Melissa Hastings crafts functional stoneware deeply embedded in the natural world.

Interior Instinct with Amier Home

Approaching interiors as an expression of the people who live within them, Amier Home encourages clients to build spaces around instinct, atmosphere, and the objects they genuinely connect with.

Harvest Light with Poppy and Sage

There’s an intriguing realism to Anieszka Banks’ Harvest series — candles that take their form directly from seasonal produce, translating the everyday into something entirely unexpected.

Sally Bulling’s Reflected Blooms

There’s an infinite energy to Sally Bulling’s work: it’s dramatic, elaborate, and infused with deep hues, rich metallics, sweeping gestures, and elaborate pours. There’s movement, intrigue, and an unexpected harmony.

Enveloping Living with Flexform

Flexform’s latest collection, revealed as part of the brand’s exhibition in Milan, The Private Lives of Objects, explores how individual pieces do more than simply occupy space — rather, they act as silent witnesses to daily ritual; repositories of memory, accompanying our lives with grace and discretion.

Yun Fu: Recasting the Good Life

New Zealand’s housing crisis is often framed as a technical problem of supply, regulation, or economics. As Yun Fu found out when trying to return home to Aotearoa, beneath those debates lie deeply held ideas of the good life.

Small Projects, Big Ideas

We survey our favourite shortlisted and winning Small Project Architecture entries from the 2026 Te Kāhui Whaihanga NZIA regional awards.

Sacred Geometry | St Patrick’s Chapel by Jasmax

St Patrick’s Chapel greets you at the front gate of Dilworth School in Epsom, Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland. Working with Dilworth’s chaplain and its headmaster, Jasmax has created a new spiritual heart for the school.

Harp Kitchen by Poliform

At Milan Design Week, Poliform transformed the storied halls of Palazzo Clerici. The 18th-century residence, layered with history and texture, became the setting for the brand’s newest kitchen systems.

L’Appartamento by Artemest with Obery

During Milan Design Week, Artemest’s New Zealand partner Obery Studio guided a group of designers through the brand’s L’Appartamento exhibition. We speak to Jane Mason and Lindy Messam of Obery about the experience.

Resident Abroad

Celebrating its 15th year, Resident returns to Copenhagen’s 3daysof design, continuing a new chapter for the New Zealand studio within one of the global design industry’s defining gatherings.

Custom Luxury with Eden Studio

Eden Studio works with the raw beauty of natural fibres to craft designer rugs and carpets that are made with intention, and refined in detail.

A New Glow for Nightworks Studio

From a new purpose-built headquarters in Christchurch to sculptural works shaped by playfulness and atmosphere, Nightworks Studio enters a new era under the direction of Kiri Morgan.

Soft Ground

A softer, more tactile language is becoming prominent in the global design story. In New Zealand, this direction is finding expression in interiors that offer a more profound connection to nature.

Painted Rebellion

Wandering Melbourne’s laneways, Rachel Rush was always fascinated by the juxtaposition of the static built forms and the ever-changing canvases of their walls.

The Pod Chair

A piece that captures the easy rhythm of holiday living and brings it quietly into the everyday.

The Art of Belonging

Muuto introduced its annual living space during Milan Design Week, this year exploring the interplay of feeling and function.

Jean-Marie Massaud: Flexibility is the New Luxury

We speak with internationally renowned French architect and designer Jean-Marie Massaud about the shifting definition of luxury, and how flexibility, restraint, and the discipline of subtraction inform one of his latest collections.

Sala introduces Sonar

Auckland-based movement studio Sala has expanded its Brown Street site in Ponsonby with the opening of Sonar, a new 150sqm reformer Pilates studio designed to refine both spatial experience and practice.

Alchemy by the Harbour

A Sydney harbour-side apartment is reshaped through material continuity, softened geometry and a considered approach to light, creating a composed interior that frames its expansive outlook.

A Global Lens at Aotearoa Art Fair

International artists feature strongly at this year’s Aotearoa Art Fair, with galleries presenting a range of global voices alongside local talent.

Orizzonte by Reflex

Drawing a continuous horizontal line through the room, the Orizzonte sofa is low and composed.