The Prize

Alongside a $20,000 cash prize, Joanne will receive dedicated support from Stylecraft across the design, production, and distribution of a furniture or lighting piece.

2026 Theme — Living Well Living Small

This year’s theme challenged designers to respond to the growing realities of denser urban living, with a brief to create furniture and lighting that enhances comfort, functionality, and wellbeing within compact Australian homes. Submissions were assessed on their intelligent use of space and materials, their commitment to conscious living through sustainable, responsibly sourced, recycled, or upcycled approaches, and their engagement with circular or regenerative design models.

About the Winning Designer

Joanne Odisho is a Melbourne-based designer with a strong commitment to sustainable practice and mindful material selection. Her work seeks to foster greater awareness of where products come from and to encourage more environmentally conscious decision-making in the home.

With a foundation in interior design, Odisho brings spatial thinking and an understanding of human interaction into her creative process, transforming abstract concepts into functional, visually compelling objects that draw on architecture and the natural world.

About the Winning Entry

Mod-u draws on the universal childhood experience of stacking, rearranging, and building — the instinctive understanding of modularity that precedes any formal design education. That spirit of open-ended experimentation is central to the piece, which invites users to engage with lighting as something personal and expressive rather than fixed.

The lamp is designed to adapt — growing, shrinking, and evolving in response to the ways people inhabit compact, ever-changing spaces. Cast from eggshell composites made from thousands of shells sourced from local cafes, and assembled with Unryu Thai paper-wrapped bio-filament blocks, Mod-u is built from the base up by the user, with height and configuration left as a personal choice.

Jury Notes

The jury described Mod-u as an elegant, faceted, self-assembled modular lighting system — one that responds to the 2026 brief’s call for flexible, intuitive, and contemporary design with notable material honesty.

The rigour of Odisho’s material development process was a particular point of recognition, with the jury noting how the work moved through trial and error to arrive at a system that is at once biodegradable and beautiful. The jury commended Odisho’s material experimentation and her navigation of production challenges, expressing confidence in the design’s potential to be fully realised as a sophisticated domestic light for living small and living well.

Visit Stylecraft During MDW

Mod-u, along with the work of the other AFDA 2026 finalists, will be exhibited at the Stylecraft Melbourne showroom at 379 Collins Street for the duration of Melbourne Design Week 2026. Level 1 of the showroom will also feature a broader exhibition celebrating Australian design, with the latest work from local designers including Tom Skeehan, Helen Kontouris, Ross Gardam and Keith Melbourne.

Visit during trading hours, Monday to Friday 9am–5pm or Saturday 16th May 10am-4pm.

Mod-u — Joanne Odisho

H — Isabel Avendaño Hazbún

Terra Mare — Besley & Spresser

Bone — Nika Biggs

Tree Family — Ailen Sage x garigarra x mori x Kazu Noguchi Quill