Q&A | Jen Jones, Auckland Design Week

We spoke to Jen Jones, Founder and Director of Auckland Design Week, to discover what inspired her to create the inaugural event, what she's most excited for in this year's programme, and what we can look forward to in the years ahead.

I have always loved design – I don’t necessarily have a lot of design skill myself, but I have a deep appreciation for the power of design to transform a space. This has largely been developed over a 10+ year career managing construction sites up to $220m, where I have had the privilege of working alongside some of NZ’s leading designers.

Early in my career I would attend the annual and then biannual Urbis Design Day events – I thought it was such a fun concept and a great day out – even with me being more of an industry ‘adjacent’ than a designer. A lot of the installations are still embedded in my mind. I can even recall visiting what was then Irvine’s (now Belgotex), James Dunlop and Kovacs at Akepiro Street as part of the event.

Something that memorable deserves to be resurrected and I spent a number of years waiting for someone else to do it; when that didn’t happen, I thought I’d give it a nudge and 10-11 months later here we are. I’m proud to be both building on the legacy the Urbis event left behind; and also taking international inspiration to ensure it is future proofed. Every other major city has a design week or festival, why not NZ?

It’s been seven years since the last Urbis Design Day, and in that period we have lost a couple of great design magazines, an incredible event, and somehow survived a global pandemic that is still kicking around. The sector feels fatigued and in need of some TLC. My hope for ADW is that it reinvigorates the market; that it celebrates our local designers – both emerging and established; grows awareness of the incredible talent we’ve bred here; and that it inspires attendees to push the boundaries of what design means to them.

It felt quite fitting – both for the sector but also myself. Creating ADW is quite possibly one of the boldest and bravest things I’ve ever done, and it feels appropriate to lead by example as we ask the multi-disciplinary designers involved to do the same. We are leaving the white-on-white behind, we are challenging the status quo of how we design, and we are inspiring others to do the same via our impressive installations.

We have almost 30 activities in our programme across the week, so it’s hard to only choose one! I’m really excited to be incorporating a wellness aspect to the event – an idea I got after a visit to The Lume in Melbourne. This will be via both our biophilia inspired Design Depot, and an event series in collaboration with Cheshire and Studio Red. Although ADW isn’t a food show, we have wrapped in food design with NZ’s favourite private chef Hercules Noble which will no doubt be a very entertaining evening in collaboration with Cosentino. 

We also have some impressive installations happening in a number of our venues that include theatrical elements, projection, light and shadow, textiles, art, fashion – it really is a multi-disciplinary design event and I’m so pleased we’ve been able to achieve that for our inaugural edition. We have also taken additional studio space only in the last fortnight, specifically for showcasing NZ-design that we weren’t able to wrap into other installations, but who we felt deserved an opportunity to be involved. Attendees will be familiar with some of the artists, and some will be new and exciting even for those in the industry. 

Thought was put into what 2025, 2026, and beyond could look like during the research phase, but 2024 has already surpassed my expectations in so many ways that it’s hard to know exactly what each year will bring. The 2025 curatorial theme is ‘Chance and Change’ which is an evolving topic, and there will be a lot more to showcase under it in 2025 than 2024 (which is also why we went with Bold & Brave this year!).

Conversations around the pros, cons, and ethical implications of integrating of AI, AR, and VR into design, plus prefabricated construction, 3D printing – the list goes on! Whilst my mind is already filling up with ideas of how that transpires in 2025, my focus is ensuring 2024 is a success so that 2025 is a possibility – and then we will see where this road takes us together!