FashioNZ is looking forward to Urbis Designday, an all-day long event on Saturday 19th March that celebrates the best in creative thinking and practice that our country has to offer.

The 2011 format includes participants from areas of multimedia, architecture, Graphic Arts, furniture, landscape and fashion design, all working in partnership with 13 of Auckland’s leading design showrooms.

For the second year running, the creative pairings have been given a design brief to interpret within their installation.  For 2011, their brief is to reflect or interpret ‘State of Transition’.

In addition to this is the HP Future Designers, where top design graduates of the Media Design School from areas of Digital Media, Graphic Design and Creative Technologies design faculties will work with HP in a series of installations at the MINI Garage showroom.

This year’s collaborators are:

-           Halo NZ and Trelise Cooper Interiors
-           design denmark / Sylvia Sanford
-           Häfele / Esther Diamond
-           Poggenpohl / Make Something
-           Automation Associates / Matter
-           ECC / Scrap Wall
-           Antipodes Design Store / Luxaflex / Taylor Boutique
-           Kohler / Salasai
-           Essenze / NZ Design Collective (Te Rongo Kirkwood, David Trubridge, Anzac Tasker, Peter Collis and Brogen Avril)
-           Furniture Lab / Dulux / We Love Inc
-           Fisher & Paykel / The Alt Group
-           Media Design School / HP Future Designers at MINI Garage
-           Designer Rugs / Corporate Culture / Nathan Goldsworthy curating the Kiwi Icons rug range from (Dick Frizzell, Boh Runga, Kevin Roberts, Zambesi, Max Gimblett, Kate Sylvester and Codi Design)

So what can visitors expect this year? Halo NZ and Trelise Cooper Interiors will create an interpretation of Prince William and Kate Middleton’s honeymoon suite; the Antipodes Design Store in partnership with Luxaflex and Taylor Boutique will create a dynamic moving installation called ‘Reveal’ that will question and twist visitors perception of reality.

The collaboration between ECC and Scrap Wall of ‘ONE’ will celebrate the refined aesthetic, the silhouette of the classic and encourage the construction of the new; and visitors to the spectacular new premises of the Essenze showroom in Parnell will experience the visual feast of ‘Our Essenzial Colours’ a pathway through the works of celebrated designers David Trubridge, Te Rongo Kirkwood, Anzac Tasker, Peter Collis and Brogen Avril.
 
Designday guests purchase tickets online to attend, and for a $30 fee they will receive passes for free transport and access to all 13 participating showrooms. Guests are then taken on a leisurely tour of the showrooms from 10am till 5pm on Designday Saturday, 19th March. There is hospitality at almost every stop and shuttles to take everyone around.

Registration for Urbis Designday is essential. For more information or to purchase passes please visit: www.urbismagazine.com/designday