How to get up close and personal with 10 of Australia’s best interior designers

If you’re on the hunt for interior designers Melbourne has produced, Melbourne-based design practice Hecker Guthrie has been announced as the winner of the $30,000 triennial Rigg Design Prize for 2018. An installation of the top 10 shortlisted entries is currently on display at the National Gallery of Victoria - offering a chance to sample the work of some of the best interior designers in Australia.

 “The Rigg Design Prize is the highest accolade for contemporary design in Australia,” says NGV Curator, contemporary design & architecture Simone Leamon. This year with a theme of “Domestic Living”, the award is highlighting interior design and decoration. “In doing so, we have invited ten of who we believe are the most interesting, creative and progressive interior designers and decorators from around Australia.”

Each interior designer has created a purpose-built room and a common theme throughout is the drive to create a refuge from the crushing weight of the digital world and the hectic lives we lead.

1. WINNER - Hecker Guthrie, Richmond VIC 

Celebrating the table as the base of a room from which to bring people together and bind them, international judge Shashi Caan said of Hecker Guthrie's winning entry "Using only two elements - the simple form of the Parsons table and terracotta as material - the Hecker Guthrie project demonstrates the power of design restraint and curiosity at play."

Visit: https://www.heckerguthrie.com/

"A testament to the potential and capacity of design, this project inherently addresses our societal need for smaller footprints for today's responsibly designed domestic space.:

Shashi Caan International Judge of the Rigg Design Prize 2018

2. Danielle Brustman, Melbourne 

Taking design cues from the 1980 cult classic film Xanadu, among other influences, Melbourne interior designer Danielle Brustman brings a little fantasy into our homes.

Visit: https://www.daniellebrustman.com/

3. David Hicks, Melbourne 

"Panic Room" is David Hicks' answer to the overload of social and information media in the world and our quest for perfection.

Visit: http://www.davidhicks.com/

4. Flack Studio, Melbourne 

Melbourne-based interior designer David Flack draws on our national anthem with his concept of "We've boundless plains to share" - venturing to reveal Australia's current "golden age" of interiors and architectures where many have the wealth to create custom interiors and architecture that are a rare luxury when parts of the world are in crisis. 

Visit: http://flackstudio.com.au/

With the top ten finalists also taking in five of the country’s top interior designers Sydney based, Leamon explains that, “These are designers who occupy the world of ideas but also are deeply grounded in practice and practicality.”

Walking room to room in the space, visitors to the FREE exhibition will experience both the abstract and the practical concepts of interior design which NGV Director Tony Ellwood AM says asks, “What does it mean to be living in an interior space in the 21st century in our country?”

5. Amber Road, Sydney

Yasmine Ghoniem and Katy Svalbe draw on their multiple heritages - Egypitan, Latvian, Australian and time lived overseas to bring about a "nuanced, kind of understated hyper efficient, charming minimalism."

Visit: http://www.amberroaddesign.com.au/

“People will find it fascinating to get the opportunity to really delve into the minds of interior designers who have through long and hard about what makes the perfect room,”

Tony Ellwood AM NGV Director

6. Arent & Pyke, Sydney 

Juliette Arent and Sarah-Jane Pyke have created a restorative space called "Home: Feast, Bathe, Rest" in which to replenish, restore and retreat the human soul.

Visit: http://arentpyke.com/

7. Richards Stanisich, Sydney https://richardsstanisich.com.au/

Richards Stanisich address "Our natural needs in a digital world" with this other-worldly display of textures, light and pared-back surfaces in answer to the modern environment of over-stimulation.

Visit: https://richardsstanisich.com.au/

8. Scott Weston Architecture Design, Sydney 

Weston's "Wunderkammer" is a sequence of six rooms displaying dioramas with coloured highlights in artwork, sculpture and collectables gathered throughout his lifetime.

Visit: https://www.swad.com.au/

9. The Society Inc by Sibella Court, Sydney 

Collected objects tell stories and spark discussion in Sydney-based Sibella Court's "Imaginarium" is concept for her redesigned room, inspired by sixteenth-century "cabinets of curiosity". 

Visit: https://thesocietyinc.com.au/

10. Martyn Thompson Studio, New York 

Rounding out the top 10 is Martyn Thompson Studio. "I’ve always loved to create a sense of lived life in my photography and wanted to bring a new dimension of this for the MTS interior installation for the Rigg Prize," said New York-based Thompson on his Instagram feed. 

Visit: http://www.martynthompsonstudio.com/

“I think interior design is absolutely at the heart of our future”, says International judge Shashi Caan. “Interior becomes the single vehicle where all design comes together”

  

Visit the NGV website for more information.