Day of Design

For a day of leading edge design, networking, and creative inspiration, not to mention goody bags, beer and wine, and transport provided between venues by an Audi fleet, Urbis Designday is such good value …

You need to plan ahead to survive Urbis Designday.

Have a good breakfast- or secure an invite to the media kick-off at Ironbank with hot coffees, Veuve Cliquot, danishes and fresh fruit patters – in readiment for what must be the most inspiring day for anyone interested in design in NZ.

In fact, at only $20 admission for a day of leading edge design, networking, and creative inspiration, not to mention goody bags, beer and wine, and transport provided between venues by an Audi fleet, it’s such good value we kept commenting why there weren’t crowds at each event; it was so peaceful and calm one could really enjoy each exhibit.

Audis drove guests between the installations in style. Below: Outside Matisse in The Strand, Parnell.

Below: Tim Lightbourne of Invivo pours a glass at Kohler/Zambesi.

Creatives enjoy a lot of crossover. Artists in one genre are usually gifted in many of the arts and this day is the perfect way to exercise all parts of your hemisphere at once, with fashion, art, music, multimedia and architecture coming together.

On Saturday 20 March, top creatives linked with 13 showrooms resulting in unique installations around the city with the theme "Off the grid." We managed to do half of them in 3.5 hours, with a 6-month old baby, so I’d allow a good 4-5 hours to do them all.

Below: Megan, Lily and Anya dipping marshmellows into the chocolate fountain at Matisse.

Our day began with Nicole Stock of Urbis welcoming guests to Ironbank where a red ribbon cascaded down the building to an Audi below. After a talk by the architect on the green design of Ironbank, we were taken to the basement and shown the automated stacking carpark. Just incredible.