Saturday Indesign has been back in Sydney, with beautiful blue skies providing the backdrop for a day of design insight, connection and fun. The annual Design Discussions series remains a staple of the event. Showrooms across all four precincts hosted panel talks on a range of hot topics, featuring a variety of voices in contemporary practice across architecture and design as well as experts from academia and industry.
Amidst an expanding program, the discussions in fact kicked off on Friday evening this year. Anterior XL and Krause Bricks hosted an SJB Special with Adam Haddow and Victoria Judge on hand to delve into their Billyard Avenue project. Joined by developer Pete Walsh and moderated by our Editor Timothy Alouani-Roby, they considered this Elizabeth Bay project specifically through a lens of permanence, longevity and durable materials such as stone in residential architecture.
Saturday itself then started with an early panel at CDK Stone, whose impressively proportioned showroom and warehouse hosted a full audience to hear about the resurgence of 1970s influences in contemporary interiors and Milan Design Week. Bradhly Le (RIZEN Atelier), Michael Drescher (DKO), Lara Patane (CDK Stone) and Maryann Schmidt (Hunt & Design) playfully explored these different topics in relation to the use of natural stone across residential, commercial and hospitality settings.
At Space Furniture, the question asked by moderator Sue Davies (Global Design Citizens) was about the dream career: is it designed or discovered? She was joined by Angela Biddle (FK), Jakob Reh (FK), Sally Campbell (BVN) and Lisa Fathalla (BVN) to delve into a conversation about ambition, opportunity and jobs in architecture and design in 2026.
Related: Ministry of Metals at Savage Design
Over in the Waterloo Precinct at Winnings, it was all about the blurring of typology lines. The Australian home – the idea of the Australian home – is changing, and a panel of designers with extensive experience in both residential and non-residential design brought their opinions to bear on the influences shaping it today. Led by moderator Sophie Lanigan, Grace Tham (GroupGSA), Kristen Whittle (Hassell), Emma Nunan (Winnings) and Barrington Gohns (Warren and Mahoney) discussed the relationship between residential design, wellness and hospitality, as well as what can go wrong when typologies are inappropriately blurred.
At Special Lights, a packed audience queuing out onto the street came to hear about perhaps the hottest topic in not only design but the wider world: artificial intelligence. Jet Geaghan (Woods Bagot), Kazjon Grace (University of Sydney), Katherine Turk (SJB) joined Timothy Alouani-Roby to provide different perspectives on how AI is shaping design practice today. This sharp discussion considered the scary big picture (is it going to kill us all? Probably not), but focused on contextualising this new technology in terms of politics, economics and labour relations in the workplace. The panellists set out a hopeful vision of how AI might free up designers to spend more of their time creatively, while emphasising that this desirable outcome is far from a given in the wider social context.
More poetic concerns were on the table at Nook Collections as the panel discussed atmosphere and lighting, with a particular emphasis on questions of emotion and wellbeing. Genevieve Wild (Wildly Illuminating), Jason Gibney (JGDW) and Ilan El (ILANEL) were joined by moderator Kate Goodwin for this rich discussion.
Curated by our editorial team, the Design Discussions series was only one part of a huge Saturday Indesign in 2026. Other showrooms also hosted their own extensive range of talks, activations and installations. Thank you to all those who came along as hosts, panellists and of course audiences!
