For the 10th edition of Melbourne Design Week, more than 100 chairs by numerous designers are on display in an exhibition curated by Friends & Associates. Chosen from an open call, each designer’s chair had to meet two criteria: being made in Australia, and being able to be sat on. The chairs range from traditional timber dining chairs to more experimental designs—one transforms into a table, another is a horse, and one is just a little Satanic. The exhibition, titled '100 Chairs,' is on show at South Magdalen Laundry, Abbotsford Convent in Melbourne until 24 May, as part of Melbourne Design Week.
Innovative Designs on Display
Steer by 陳鴻軒 Chan Hung Hin
In 1954, the renowned industrial designers Achille Castiglioni and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni designed a stool using a tractor seat. Hin’s Steer chair takes a leaf from their book, using ready-mades to create sculptural furniture from three sets of bicycle handlebars. By setting ordinarily moving parts into fixed forms, Hin explores how everyday objects can be reconfigured into new modes of sitting.
Re-Stitch Low Chair by Adam Goodrum
From one of Australia’s most well-known furniture designers, the iconic Stitch Chair made its debut in 1998. This chair joins pieces of 2mm stainless steel using an integrated hinge that allows it to be folded flat for easy transport or storage. This year, Goodrum launched Re-Stitch, a series that refines the precision engineering of the hinges, making larger pieces like this low chair possible.
Rest Up Buttercup by Kelly Thompson
Embroidered into the blue velvet seat of illustrator and interior stylist Kelly Thompson’s chair are gently instructive words: “Sit for a moment, remove your shoes, slide off your socks, press your feet into the floor, feel the earth beneath you.” The whimsically frilled backrest with its red love heart contrasts the industrial stainless steel frame, embodying the chair’s invitation to find comfort amid life’s difficulties.
Horse Chair by Tim Meakins
Is it a horse? Is it a chair? Designer and artist Tim Meakins says it’s absolutely both. Made from playground construction material, this adult-sized chair invites you to embrace silliness as you sit in it—or ride it into the sunset. Look closely and you might find hidden smiley faces and characters flanking its body.
Pillow Talk by Ash Allen
Ash Allen’s chair plays with illusion, transforming a soft, plushy cushion into something solid through galvanised steel. “This is what happens when a mechanical engineer who likes making furniture does an upholstery course,” Allen jokes. The piece builds on his interest in steel mesh, drawn to its affordability, stretchability, and suitability for outdoor use.
FFF#1 by Barnabas Dean
Stainless steel tubing often takes a back seat in chair design, but Barnabas Dean—who specialises in custom performance car parts—leaned into it. A skilfully welded chunky steel grid puts the industrial material front and centre, while a fluffy yellow faux fur backrest and overhead red-tinted light create a warm contrast. Dean says it is a chair that “sits in that in-between—hard and soft, harsh and gentle—everything held together in one slightly strange whole.”
Pleased to meet you… by Bieëmele (Scotty Bemelen)
In 1968, the Rolling Stones released Sympathy for the Devil. Fifty-eight years later, Australian designer Scotty Bemelen was listening to it while working on a chair exploring similar themes. Hand-carved from Oregon timber with tufts of recycled Icelandic sheepskin and a finely crafted brass rose, Bemelen says the horned piece “alludes to the devil—history’s handiest scapegoat—articulating that we are all a blend of good and evil.”
Windsock Chair by Makushla Harper
Whether on a hike, at the beach, or travelling the world, this handy little chair can accompany you. Designed by recent industrial design graduate Makushla Harper, the chair is made from nylon and folds up tightly to fit into a bag. To take the weight off your feet, unfasten the valve and buckle, let the wind fill the chair with air, then close its roll-top seal and take a seat.
Tufted Chair by Richard Greenacre
About 100 navy blue ceramic tiles are attached to a three-legged steel frame to create this understated chair, which asserts its uniqueness through remarkable detailing. Up close, one notices the complexly tiled and steel-studded joints mimic the upholstery technique of tufting. Exhibition co-curator Dale Hardiman says “the work he makes is simply like no one else in the world.”
TURN by Sandra Githinji Studio
Kenyan-Australian designer Sandra Githinji and her team explore how materials and culture converge as they migrate, through a chair made entirely of reclaimed timber posts from a staircase balustrade. Salvaged from a suburban Melbourne house, the timber is meranti—a species historically imported from south-east Asia. The designers cut the posts in half, revealing the timbers’ usually hidden grain. The chair’s low seat is inspired by the culture of Kikuyu people from central Kenya.
Stitch Chair by Foolscap and Alpha60
In 2024, Ellie Violet Bramley wrote that “corsets were having a moment.” Two years on, that moment continues. The Stitch Chair’s acid-green lacing draws inspiration from corsetry, resulting from a collaboration between fashion label Alpha60 and interior architecture studio Foolscap. Its aluminium frame and backrest sit in a quilted, puffer-jacket-like cover perfect for Melbourne’s winter.
Framed by the Square… Lukas Fong
Hidden in the poetic name of this tall timber chair is a set of instructions. Unscrew the three circular brass knobs on the armrests and rear, and the chair comes apart into four distinct pieces that can be reconfigured into a long, low table. The elegant simplicity grew from Lukas Fong’s year-long BA graduation project, inspired by the contrast between traditional Cantonese Ming chairs and informal Macanese street dining furniture.
Linenfold Chair by Oliver Wilcox
Linenfold is a skilled carving technique that makes timber resemble draped fabric, popular in Europe from the 14th to 16th centuries. Designer and antiques collector Oliver Wilcox says it “emerged when linen was rare and timber was abundant. Today that hierarchy is revised.” Using reclaimed timber and trying linenfold carving for the first time, Wilcox highlights the preciousness of wood.
Slate by Blaklash and Skeehan
With sweeping curved timber armrests, a suspended leather seat, and a steel frame, this chair invites you to recline. It grew from a collaboration between Erin McDonald, a Mandandanji woman and associate director at First Nations design studio Blaklash, and Tom Skeehan, co-curator of 100 Chairs. Playing with tension and suspension, it shows that “flexibility and strength exist together.”
Frame Work No 4 Chair (AKA Ned Kelly) by Matthew Tambellini and Holly White
When interior architect Holly White and graphic designer Matthew Tambellini began collaborating on commercial projects, they were surprised by how much their practices overlapped. So they started a project just for fun. Leafing through old sketchbooks of packaging designs and floor plans, they made drawings and small paper models. Over time, a chair with a hint of Ned Kelly “just started to appear,” White explains. They used the Japanese finish of yakisugi, which seals timber through charring.
