Restore + Reimagine: the New Zealand Design Week 2027 theme

Design rarely starts from nothing. It starts with what’s already there: a building, a material, a system built for a different moment. NZDW 2027 takes that as its brief.

Restore + Reimagine is the theme for New Zealand Design Week 2027, running Monday 1 to Tuesday 9 March at the Design Depot, Shed 10. The festival looks at design that works with what exists, and what it’s built on, rather than starting over:

→ Adaptive reuse and circular materials, ahead of extraction and excess

→ Mātauranga Māori shaping how we build and live

→ Technologies chosen for the future ahead, not the path of least resistance

Open to studios and the design-curious alike, NZDW 2027 asks what gets restored, and what gets reimagined, for the people and places already here.