Two new ways into New Zealand Design Week 2027

The Interior Awards showed us what happens when designers are given a real brief and a room full of people who care about the answer. Two new initiatives for New Zealand Design Week 2027 take that idea further, and neither of them has an entry fee.

The Open Brief

The 2027 theme, Restore + Reimagine, asks how design can work with what already exists. The Open Brief makes that literal.

We are looking for designers who can name something worth fixing and show us what they would do about it. You nominate your own problem. A building, a material, a process, an object, a block of shopfronts. Nothing is off limits and nothing is prescribed.

What you submit is a resolved concept, not a finished build. Drawings, a model, an object, a screen. Accepted submissions earn a space at Shed 10 across the closing days of the festival, and we cover the production of your display and market it to the festival audience.

There is also a $2,000 fund for the making. If your concept needs a 3D printed prototype, a material sample, a scale model, you can request a portion of it as part of your submission.

The jury walks the floor and judges the work in person. A winner and runners-up take home an NZ Design Awards trophy.

Open to all designers. No entry fee. Submissions close 11 October 2026, and we are taking late submissions until 31 October.

What changed since Launchpad

Regulars will recognise the shape of this. Launchpad ran at our 2026 festival as a curated showcase for emerging designers, makers and young studios, sitting in the Design Depot at Shed 10 as the first thing visitors reached after ticketing. It worked, and exhibitors paid a reduced fee for their metre of floor.

The Open Brief drops the fee entirely, adds the production budget, and asks for something more specific in return. Launchpad asked what you make. The Open Brief asks what you would fix.

The Depot Commissions

The second one is about the building itself.

We have scoped eight spaces inside the Design Depot for 2027 and we are asking designers to take one on:

• Concierge and arrival, including the photo moment
• The entrance
• The café
• A pop-up workspace
• A library
• A workshop and breakout space
• A retail shop
• The Interior Awards display

Propose one of them, or propose something that is not on the list. Whatever you build, keep the theme in mind. Demountable, reused, or with a life beyond 9 March.

There is no jury on this one. The people using each space decide, in a vote that runs across all three days and could include up to 3,000 attendees.

Expressions of interest close 31 October 2026. Concepts are due by the end of December, with production planning from January.

Why both, and why now

Two different questions, asked of two different people. The Open Brief is for the designer with an idea and nowhere to put it. The Depot Commissions are for the designer who wants to shape the space everyone else walks through.

Neither costs anything to enter. Both put the work in front of the festival.