At the Table
An exhibiton and event for Melbourne Design Week
In May 2024, Snøhetta hosted a participatory conversation exploring how embracing different perspectives on a common theme can build incredible outcomes.
A long-standing foundation of project practice at Snøhetta has involved coming together over a table. We workshop, we sketch, and at many of our studios around the globe, we come together daily to share a meal. In this manner we work to break down the formalities of our relationships, creating dynamic environments to perform extensive concept workshops that facilitate effective collaboration between all parties, anything from client/designer to human/non-human.
Over one afternoon in late April, a group of participants with diverse skills and knowledge joined a group of Snøhetta designers at our Melbourne studio to conceptualise and construct with the common aim of designing one of the most ubiquitous yet complex of objects – a table. More than a physical object but a space where roles and disciplines are dissolved, where ambition and intention is aligned we asked how do we come together and why? What does a table facilitate, and who? Empowering and enabling fluid design thinking, our invited participants were guided through core Snøhetta workshop tools implemented on some of our most notable international projects. These collaborators stepped into a transdisciplinary space to implement skill, casual banter and design-thinking process. The collective vision decided what the ‘table’ would facilitate – its form, function and purpose.
As part of Melbourne Design Week, we held a one-day exhibition style event and invited the general public to join us ‘at the table’ at Snøhetta’s newly established Melbourne Studio to learn what this process involved and its somewhat unconventional results. Here, you can view the process, the outcome, and hear from some of the participants themselves. We aimed for a lasting effect, leaving people with conversational tools to think about how we can better come together.
At the table - Directed by Kimberley Sumner
We would thank our collaborators; the Australian Tapestry Workshop, Long Prawn, Hunted + Gathered, Michael Camakaris + Arts Project Australia.