Can everyone have access to great design?

Exclusivity and Accessibility in Design
Signature Appliances Editorial Dinner in partnership with Habitus Living

One of design's most persistent tensions was put to the table at a private editorial dinner hosted by Signature Appliances in Sydney. The question: can everyone have access to great design?

Gathered around the table were architects and designers, including Greg Natale, Ed Lippmann (Lippmann Partnership), Nick Bell (Nick Bell Architects), Georgina Wilson (Georgina Wilson Associates) and Ben Peake (Carter Williamson Architects), among others, in conversation hosted by Habitus Living and Indesignlive editor Timothy Alouani-Roby.

What emerged was a more nuanced read on luxury than the room might have expected. Exclusivity, the group agreed, is increasingly defined not by materials or price point but by attention, the kind of intelligence that anticipates how people actually use and inhabit a space. Accessibility, in turn, doesn't ask designers to simplify. It asks them to do more.

The evening closed on a proposition that felt less like a conclusion and more like a challenge: great design should not only speak to those who already understand it. It should invite more people in.