Why IDEA awards 2017 judge Hannah Tribe is anti-trend

Seven expert judges are involved in assessing and sorting out the best in the 11 categories of the 2017 Interior Design Excellence Awards. The most obvious question to put them is: what themes or emerging trends are they seeing in the 450 projects under adjudication?

Hannah Tribe, architect and principal of the reliably individual Sydney practice Tribe Studio, who is doing award jury duty for the second time, gives an unexpected answer.

“I’m trend blind. What I’ll be looking for is projects with longevity.”

Tribe has evolved a deeper philosophy than that dictated by fast-cycling fashions in built forms and fixtures.

She believes that with the failure of the politicians to do anything meaningful about climate change, the design community now has a responsibility “to do things that won’t get ripped out too soon”.

On her radar, what will register as worthy of a second look “will be projects (including objects and furniture) that will get better with age; that show an inventiveness – which is what separates design from mere building, and that have a purposeful reason for being”.

A little touch of “delight and wonder” will also go a long way towards capturing her attention.

Tribe is so serious about Australian architects and interior designers leading from the front that she says “any project that doesn’t have some sort of sustainable aspect about it shouldn’t even be a contender in 2017”.

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She is also such a believer in the maturity and strength of contemporary Australian design “that doesn’t have a fixed vernacular in its built history and that therefore draws from everywhere”.

Tribe says the Australian industry is a world beater. “As a design nation, we’re killing it.”

If anything is recognisable about antipodean design, she feels “it is the indoor/outdoor way we live”.

“It is also in the way we deal with the light – the amazingly intense Australian light that is orange in autumn and winter, and bright white in summer,” she says.

“So different to the wishy-washy, hazy, ephemeral European light, our light is really direct.”

And to a large degree, moderating that light or using its effects is a dimension our designers engage in, with intriguing results, she says. “It is a great moderator of buildings here.”

So along with seeking enduring design “that transcends trends”, as well as creative projects and objects “that aspire to beauty and become things people love and won’t rip out”, Tribe will be looking at the way the myriad interiors in this year’s competition are painted with our unique, natural light.

The IDEA 2017 winners will be announced in November.