Open Day: DESIGN
Open Day highlights include two very special behind-the-scenes tours. Join celebrated Australian designer Jenny Kee and Powerhouse curator Christina Sumner for a tour of the Jenny Kee-designed Sydney 2000 Olympic Games opening ceremony costumes more

Sydney’s vast sea of roofs belies its rich legacy of gardens and gardening. In every direction from the city, large estates and gardens have been subdivided and lost to our ever-increasing need for real estate. Lost gardens explores Sydney’s rich and diverse gardening heritage. more

Photographer Steven Siewert has spent years documenting Sydney’s rockabillies, a vibrant subculture who live and breathe an era that predates their earliest birthdays. The boys dress for cool with stovepipe jeans and slick quiffs, while the women wear dazzling cocktail frocks by night and colourful vintage dresses by day. more

The Powerhouse Museum’s collection is like an iceberg; about nine tenths are hidden below the surface. Take a journey to those depths on a curator-led tour of our basement and Castle Hill storage areas. See the historical and contemporary design and decorative arts collections in their resting state - folded, filed, sorted and shelved. more

The most outstanding examples of the latest Australian design and innovation from the 2008 Australian International Design Awards are now on display. The Powerhouse Museum’s annual selection from the finalists include a personal tracking device for skiers and snowboarders, a communications device for firefighters, an electronic earplug for communication in loud environments, and a selection of models from the Australian Design Awards – Dyson Student Awards. more

Discover how modernism transformed life in Australia across five tumultuous decades from 1917 to 1967. Modern times looks to the city and its skyscrapers, cafes and swimming pools, where modernist ideals of functionalism, internationalism and the healthy body profoundly reshaped Australian culture. more

There’s a hole in my bucket invites 20 local designers and 80 members of the public to put their bucket where their mouth is and photograph a part of Sydney, or a part of their everyday lives, that they consider to be badly designed; and every image must contain the ubiquitous yellow bucket. more

Curated monthly by A&E Metal Merchants, this showcase in the Powerhouse Museum shop brings to light recent work by contemporary jewellers. For Sydney Design 08, A&E has handed the reigns to jewellery students at Sydney College of the Arts. more

An annual exhibition of work by Sydney College of the Arts, Object Art & Design students, from undergraduate to postgraduate research candidates. This year’s theme goes local, asking participants to respond to the term ‘u-beaut’ and the idea of an Australian vernacular. more

Ceramic artists from Australia and New Zealand are invited to participate in this annual exhibition, competition and homage to a universally-loved vessel. Rarely will you see so many interpretations of a single, utilitarian object. more

This exhibition explores the work of eight contemporary fashion designers, who not only create new garment forms and new ways of wearing clothes, they also develop entirely new design systems. Featuring work by Simon Cooper, Paula Dunlop, Ess. Laboratory (Hoshika Oshimi and Tatsuyoshi Kawabata), FORMALLYKNOWNAS (Toby Whittington), Anthea van Kopplen, MATERIALBYPRODUCT (Susan Dimasi and Chantal McDonald), Project (Kara Baker and Shelley Lasica) and S!X (Denise Sprynskij and Peter Boyd). more

An exhibition featuring seven contemporary jewellers whose work is at times experimental, confrontational and non-functional. Alice Lang, Tiffany Parbs, Julia de Ville, Leah Heiss, Chelsea Gough, Gabby O’Conner and Melinda Young rebuild, recreate, restore, renovate, remake, reassemble, refashion and re-enact to create works that transcend convention and the body, and take the notion of jewellery to a new level of understanding. more

Graphic designer Paul McNeil has over 20 years experience on the Sydney scene, designing for film and for companies such as Mambo and Mooks. In this exhibition of sculptures and two-dimensional works, using his trademark palette of red, black and white, McNeil explores the graphic visual language of gangs. more

A group of local designers were invited to create new work for this in-store exhibition at Beautiful on the inside in response to the brief: design an object for a time capsule; a piece representative of design today or simply worthy of being immortalised. The designers are Henry Wilson, Matthew Conway, Arthur Koutoulas, Babak Aryaei, Keith Melbourne, Christopher Earl Milbourne, and Lana Alsamir-Diamond. more

Take a tour of some of Sydney’s most important architectural developments with the Australian Architecture Association (AAA). more

Krispin K, international trend forecaster and fashion guru, returns this year to explore the modern movement in Australia with a fast-paced, fun-filled tour of the new exhibition Modern times. more

Take a close look at Sydney’s modern skyscrapers. This walk reveals the architect of Sydney’s tallest skyscraper, what a curtain wall building is, why Australia Square is round, when fire regulations changed to allow buildings higher than 13 storeys and where the highest garden in Sydney is located. more

Starting in Australia’s oldest public precinct at Hyde Park Barracks, this tour delivers a 200-year journey through time in a two-hour walk. Meet Sydney’s first architect; hear about his passage to Australia in chains and his skills in designing finely detailed brick buildings. Learn about the difference between Beaux Artes and Art Deco, why Martin Place was closed to cars, when communications determined the location of most bank buildings and how ideas for modern architecture were developed. more

Share a unique experience with fellow Design & Technology teachers over a weekend at the Arthur and Yvonne Boyd Education Centre at Riversdale. Explore the potential of the Bundanon and Riversdale properties for built environment education and collaboratively develop new approaches for teaching secondary students. more

This hands-on workshop opens up the world of electronic media and demonstrates how it can be used creatively in interaction design. Working with hardware including mobile phones, Wii controllers, and a large scale media display called SmartSlab, participants will learn about programming in a visual context to create a performance or interactive installation. more