Want to celebrate the festive season the ethical way? Then this is your guide on the best way to do just that this holiday season without losing the fun of gift giving. So, whether it’s being generous with your money when it comes to charities, avoiding plastics and single-use items, or simply buying from a maker or small business instead of the big corporations, give ethical shopping a go this year. Here are 10 suggestions for gifts to give in 2025.
1. Jess Sellinger is a Brisbane-based artist who works with Australian clay and glazes, making sculptures, vessels and furniture objects by hand in her studio. Jess also donates to local charities and has a yearly charity giveaway. The Wave Wall sculpture is $450. jesssellingerceramics.com
This year’s IDEA Awards highlighted some remarkable work from 2025, including a Brisbane restaurant full of novelty, an earthy house renovation that did more with less and the adaptive reuse of a former mechanic workshop into a creative studio.
Central by J.AR Office, the IDEA 2025 Overall Project of the Year. Photo: David Chatfield.
At the 2025 Interior Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) in Sydney, there were several outstanding projects, but no project was awarded more than Hong Kong-inspired Brisbane restaurant Central, designed by J.AR Office. J.AR Office’s Jared Webb got up on stage no fewer than three times, for Emerging Designer of the Year, the Hospitality category and Overall Project of the Year, complete with palpable amazement and wild hair flying. At one point he said if he’d known this would happen he would have had a haircut. Simply called Central, the restaurant is situated in a basement in Brisbane’s CBD, with an illuminated gridded ceiling and the chef positioned in the centre of the space creating a sense of real drama, juxtaposing the precision of the grid against the roughness of the walls.
Tasmanian designer Isaac Williams presented his Cork Rebirthed Dine chair as part of the NGV Rigg Design Prize 2025, which this year focused on designers under the age of 35.
Cork Rebirthed Dine chair by Isaac Williams, exhibited at Rigg Design Prize 2025.
The Cork Rebirthed Dine chair is part of a series that Isaac is working on called Rebirthed, in which functional objects are created from discarded objects or materials.
One of eight townhouses in Sydney’s Rose Bay, this home has come alive thanks to a new interior focused on connection with the outdoors, and a considered curation of furniture and mirrors by MAC Design Studio.
The living room with Camaleonda sofa, design by MAC Design Studio. Photo: Milly Mead.
The townhouse is laid out over four storeys, with a ground floor for the living spaces plus outdoor terrace that leads up to a second storey terrace, first floor with bathroom, laundry, study and guest bedroom, and a top floor with a main bedroom, bathroom and balcony. The base build is by Architect ESS.
Developed over five years by Sydney designer Caity Duffus, Mycelia House is a home cultivation system that includes a 3D-printed terracotta vessel for growing oyster mushrooms.
Mycelia House is a terracotta grow system for oyster mushrooms in the home.
Earlier this month, Caity spoke at ‘Sensing Technologies’, a Sydney Design Week event hosted by Powerhouse Museum at the Advanced Manufacturing Readiness Facility in Bradfield, curated by Keinton Butler, Industrial Design Xchange (IDX) and Ed Ko.
Made in Melbourne with 100 per cent non-petrochemical organic ingredients, OM Windows is a window treatment made from algae-derived polymers and locally-milled pigments by Melbourne studio Other Matter.
OM Windows by Other Matter
Other Matter is led by artist Jessie French, who was joined by Pollyanna and Elliot to create a small practice that became a company just over a year ago. At their studio in Melbourne, they spend a lot of time measuring and adding ingredients, heating and stirring materials in big pots, she explained during a panel discussion I attended recently at Jia CURATED in Bali.
There were once crocodiles here, when this was an abandoned theme park. So the story goes as we wander the grounds of Jia CURATED, a design event in Bali from 14 to 18 August that brings together design, architecture, art installations, cultural performances and food in one jam-packed long weekend.
Jia CURATED speaker series with Jeremy Smart (Design Anthology), Marcello Massoni (Gaya Ceramic), Jessie French (Other Matter) and Patrick Luwia (Suaru). Photo by me.
The founders of the event, Budiman Ong, Rudi Winata and Yang Yang Hartono, take the time to show us journalists around on the first day, when some of the exhibits are still under tarpaulin. The space is rough and raw, dotted with old buildings from the theme park days, mostly in crumbling concrete. The graffiti is everywhere and impressive, a hangover from its use as a skate park by local kids. And there is the ever-present Balinese jungle, with trees and vegetation of all sorts encroaching on the space.
As tempted as I am to call New Bahru a new shopping mall, it is so far from the regular Singapore shopping mall as to deserve another designation entirely. Built in a Modernist building that was once a school, New Bahru is now home to more than 40 small shops, restaurants, cafes, creative hubs, wellness and fitness centres (and even serviced apartments). And it is championing Singapore design and creative entrepreneurship in an entirely new way.
New Bahru exterior. Photo: Finbarr Fallon.
First of all, the building. An example of Tropical Modernism, New Bahru was originally built in 1969 as a teachers’ training college and then became Nan Chiau High School until 2000. After that, it was used for various offices and other functions, until The Lo & Behold Group stepped in with a vision to create something entirely new.
Ambling along the streets of Paris, I can’t tell you the joy of coming face-to-face with the curving glass facade of department store Samaritaine. Having enjoyed the work of Japanese architecture studio SANAA in the Art Gallery of NSW in Sydney, it was delightful to realise that this is also their work, completed in 2020. The size and scale of the building directly matches the surrounding buildings, all of which are that classic Haussmann size – bigger than a house, smaller than a skyscraper. These singular proportions are what make Paris Paris. At the same size, Samaritaine stands out for its materiality – undulating glass waves that create an opacity to the interiors while matching the size of the fenestrations of the buildings opposite, reflected as ghostly apparitions in the glass. Inside, a glass atrium contains a mini forest, softening the whole building and its contents.
La Samaritaine by SANAA + LAGNEAU Architectes + Francois Brugel Architectes Associes + SRA Architectes. Photo: Jared Chulski.
Interestingly, this not my first experience of delighting in a glass facade in Paris. Designed by Jean Nouvel, the Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art in the Raspail also has a stunning glass facade, which presents as a gridded wall of glass to the street, behind which both the interiors and garden are visible as you walk past. I remember visiting the building in the mid-2000s and finding that mix of hard modern glass and soft green garden peeking from behind a delicious contrast.
I was sorry to hear that the Fondation Cartier will be moving to a new building on the Rue de Rivoli at the end of 2025. Jean Nouvel is redesigning the interiors of this one, a Haussmannian building just near the Louvre and while I’m sure it will be fantastic, I do hope the Jean Nouvel building in the Raspail continues to have a life.
Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art by Jean Nouvel. Photo: From Atelier Jean Nouvel website.Read more →
It’s been a while since I’ve visited Milan Design Week and wow have the queues grown! The city was busy and the design was amazing – I especially loved the installations at this year’s event.
Butter sofa by Faye Toogood for Tacchini, one of my Ten Best Products.
