Welcome to the Melbourne Design Awards Annual and Presentation 

Below are a set of resources to help you explore, learn and celebrate with the diverse, courageous and excellent projects that were awarded in the 2020 Melbourne Design Awards. Please take your time consuming this extensive set of projects we feature in the Awards Presentation and in the Awards Annual.

I'd like to thank the project commissioners & creators for the courageous work, I'd also like to thank the Award Managers that managed the authoring and submission of the award nominations, the jury and the team that bring these programs together. Without this collective effort, the awards wouldn't come together

Mark Bergin
Awards Chairman

Chairman's Message

2020 is the 11th anniversary of the Melbourne Design Awards. We started this program to recognise leadership, excellence and courageous, design-lead projects in the commercial, government and community sectors. Each of the 2020 awarded projects took a different path in searching for the unmet needs of the stakeholders and users, but they are all undeniably made for people.

2020 has been a year that has rocked the foundations of normal. The beginning of the year showed us what the early signs of climate change look like, and then by March we had all learnt a new term: ‘lockdown’ and our vocabulary expanded to sound like we’d been to an epidemiology conference - COVID, flattening the curve, second wave, transmission, mortality rates, incubation. Importantly we understood that normal had been put on hold. We have all had
to strap in for the abnormal ride that has seen the least expected candidates pivot, adjust, flex, and reconfigure how they tackle the everyday.

Unfortunately to date, over 800,000 people have lost their lives and over the coming years that number will multiply many times. Our challenge is in how we accelerate to accomodate these new pressing needs, and later how we re-image the future.

Since March we have been trying to understand, adapt and respond to the ever-changing situation we have all found ourselves in. The clear signal is that market conditions have changed and will remain this way for some time.

Those that shift away from the concept of ‘normal’, who refactor their businesses to the new conditions and who keep tweaking and adjusting, will provide themselves with the greatest possible opportunities to thrive in the era of the New Possible.

At BETTER FUTURE we too are evolving. This is our 11th year of award programs, and with a new decade comes a new focus. Over the last ten years we have pushed as hard as possible to build the world’s largest network of award programs - along the journey there has been a range of supporting tools and programs that have evolved. They were creating some clutter, so we’ve been busy doing a re-org - anything to do with the Award Programs stays under the BETTER FUTURE banner, everything else moves under the ‘Design Exec Club’ or ‘Better Future’ banners.

The Design Exec Club is based on a dinner club I started in 2014 when touring through global design capitals. What began as an informal dinner conversation showed there was a glass ceiling for design conversations - it wasn’t punching through to the boardroom.

Over the last 6 years, many of those dinner guests have been promoted to C-Suite positions and it proved high time to welcome in other C-Suite types to explore how design accelerates their organisational goals.

The Better Future banner is our future impact project - how do we ensure we are creating the best future for our grandchildren’s grandchildren? Yes, that’s right, five generations. Thought leadership that is going to create an equitable, environmentally and economically thriving model, needs to be long-term focused with short-term gains. That’s a Better Future.

Over the coming year we will be rolling out more improvements to the BETTER FUTURE Portal to make it even easier for Award Managers to nominate and celebrate awarded projects and enhance the awards showcase.

Again, congratulations, and keep maintaining your courageous stance.

Founder & Awards Chair,
BETTER FUTURE

Mark Bergin

Melbourne Design Awards 2020 Annual

Melbourne Awarded Projects

Melbourne Awards Presentation