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Four Projects Just Put Adelaide on Australia’s Interior Design Map
From gelato counters to civic pools, Adelaide has the interior design world’s attention.
Adelaide’s design scene has landed a quiet but notable national spotlight moment, with four local projects named in the 2026 Australian Interior Design Awards shortlist.
Now in its 23rd year, the awards are widely regarded as the industry’s benchmark for creativity and innovation. Uniquely 100 per cent peer judged, the program offers a considered snapshot of where Australian interior design is heading right now — across residential, commercial and public realms shaped by experience, narrative and craft.
In Glenelg, Sans-Arc Studio’s Gelato Messina is shortlisted in the Retail Design category. Drawing from the visual language of southern Italian gelato bars, the fit-out leans into nostalgia and sensory richness — saturated colour, reflective surfaces and layered light working together to create something intentionally transportive. It’s energetic and immersive, designed less as a place to pause and more as a space in motion, where memory, atmosphere and product blur.
Also in Retail Design, In Addition’s Sheet Society store at Burnside Village takes a softer, more domestic register. Built around the brand’s ‘Open Home’ concept, the space is composed as a sequence of lived-in environments — timber warmth, curved thresholds and tactile materials guiding customers through sleep, bath and living zones. It’s retail reframed through the language of home: slow, intuitive and quietly immersive.
In the Hospitality Interior Design category, Claire Markwick-Smith’s Honeydripper is a dual-level vinyl listening lounge in Adelaide’s CBD, reflecting a broader shift toward slower, more atmospheric hospitality. Low-lit and immersive, the space is shaped around sound, mood and lingering.
Originally an empty concrete shell, a mezzanine introduces two distinct experiences — a relaxed lounge below and a more intimate, club-like level above — with acoustic performance integrated as a core design driver. Layered with custom pieces by local makers, repurposed elements and sustainable materials, the venue balances craft, adaptability and atmosphere in a fully considered experiential setting.
Also in the Hospitality Interior Design category, OMADA has been shortlisted, with the project distilling monumentality into a clear, architecture-led dining experience. Defined by symmetry, proportion and elemental materiality, the space is grounded in ritual and permanence, drawing on Epicurean philosophy to shape a restrained yet expressive hospitality interior.
Rather than relying on overt decoration, the design leans into clarity and spatial composition, where atmosphere is carried through form, rhythm and material presence. The result is a dining environment where architecture leads the experience — creating a sense of gathering that feels intentional, structured and enduring.
Reno’s Bistro has also been named a finalist in the Hospitality Interior Design category, continuing its strong run following a commendation at the 2025 Eat Drink Design Awards. The Pirie Street venue takes a layered, cinematic approach to hospitality, unpacking family narratives, cultural references and global influences into a richly atmospheric interior.
The design brings these elements together through considered materiality and spatial sequencing, creating a venue that shifts in tone across the day — from early service to long, expressive nights. It’s an interior shaped around rhythm and storytelling, balancing energy with intimacy in a way that feels both expressive and grounded.
And in Public Design, the Adelaide Aquatic Centre redevelopment — by JPE Design Studio with Warren and Mahoney and Karl Winda Telfer — has been recognised for reimagining a civic institution through the lens of landscape, culture and wellbeing. Framed as a “landscape within a landscape,” the design integrates water, movement and Country-led narrative into a calm, intuitive environment that prioritises accessibility, connection and everyday use across generations.
Winners will be announced at the Gala Presentation Dinner on Friday June 12th, 2026.
