Smoothie crates | September 11, 2025
Designtree was recently commissioned to make a wooden crate for a local startup company making fresh green smoothies and delivering them to local Wellington business’.
Designtree developed a simple crate made from recycled wooden weather boards. Each smoothie crate holds six glass bottles, and with the use of a simple carry handle, 2 crates can be carried in each hand.
Look out for these delicious smoothies and cute crates to be appearing around Wellington city and beyond.
Frankie finalist in Best Awards | August 27, 2025
Our new Frankie Table and Floor lamps were recently selected as finalists in the DINZ Best Awards, NZ’s industry design awards. We are chuffed to have others as enthusiastic about the designs as we are. Winners announced 11 October.
Photos of the Judges in action, photo courtesy of David St George and Designers Institute of NZ.
ICFF New York 2013 |
Back in May Rebecca and I packed up our new Frankie Collection into suitcases and took it to the ICFF (International Contemporary Furniture Fair) in New York City where we shared a booth space with talented Wellington designer David Hakaraia. During the 4 day fair we met some very cool people, saw some amazing and inspiring designs and drank a lot of coffee.The reaction to our new collection was super positive and we’re continuing to have some good conversations with some of the people that we connected with at the Fair.
We’ve taken on some of the suggestions made in regards to our work, and we’re now in the final stages of tweaking and getting the Frankie Collection ready for the first production run.
A big thanks to Creative New Zealand for their assistance in getting us over to New York.
Sustainability Trust | August 25, 2025
The Wellington Sustainability Trust found us late last year and engaged Designtree to produce a suite of furniture for their new offices and community space in Wellington city.
The brief called for a family of functional pieces that could be made quickly and economically using recycled pallet timber.
Click here to view more images of the work and details about the project.
Exhibition at Designmade | July 15, 2025
Here are a couple of images of the exhibition at Designmade, which is on for the month of July. Designmade 9-5 weekdays, 23 Marion Street, Te Aro, Wellington, New Zealand, Phone:04 496 8450
Exhibition / installation at Designmade Wellington | June 20, 2025
What to do with a stack of handle-less umbrellas, a small concrete corridor and a couple of days drinking Designmades super strong coffee? Come and see the latest installation of Designtree’s products at Designmade in central Wellington and check out what we’re up to. The exhibition opens Monday 2nd July for 4 weeks. We’ll be in-store at 10am on opening day for a chin wag if you’d like to come and visit us. Designmade is open for trade customers 9-5 weekdays, 23 Marion Street, Te Aro, Wellington, New Zealand, Phone:04 496 8450
Party Pils |
The wonderful people at Cloudy Bay Winery threw a party recently for the opening of their new project - The Shack. Apart from the amazing wine (of course) the food was incredible, the music was groovy (thank you Mr Nathan Haines) and the Shack Guesthouse featured some beautiful works from some of New Zealand’s top designers. Orchestrated by architects Tim Greer, and Paul Rolfe, our Pil Lamps hung with designs from David Trubridge, Nathan Goldsworthy, Hayley King (aka Flox), Nigel Whitton, Ben Masters and Sue and Gary from The Boiler Room
Designtree in latest issue of Queensland Homes | June 6, 2025
Thank you to Natalie Bannister for the write up in the winter issue of Queensland Homes.
Designed to delight | May 30, 2025
The lovely people at NZ House & Garden came over for a cup of tea earlier this year, took some photos and asked us some questions. We’re pretty chuffed to get a 3 page spread, a big thank you to Rebecca Lancashire for the write up and Paul McCredie for taking the photos! Check out the June issue of NZ House and Garden for the full article. A minor correction on he article, although we were the only NZ’ers who exhibited at the Salone Satellite last year, previous exhibitors are often invited back to Milan each year they are eligible to show.
Nectar Wins Best Commercial & Green Product | February 9, 2025
Designtree On Top
Four awards are offered within The Edge, these are judged by a panel of leading Australian and international designers. Rebecca’s Nectar lamps gained the admiration of the judges and earned the Best Commercial Product award as well as the Best Green Product Award.
The judges comments about the Nectar Pendant Lamp Collection were:
“Extremely well resolved modular concept, striking and original, unusual, scalable and flexible, economical and excellent commercial potential.”
“Here is a product that does not look like an eco product yet displays deep green thinking, proof that good design must embrace sustainability, a product that is emotional, a tribute to nature and makes post industrial waste attractive.”
We are totally chuffed to have received this recognition for Rebecca’s designs. The reaction from architects and designers to the Nectar lamps as well as our other products over the fair has been really positive and we’re really excited to be entering the Australian market.
Designtree at The Edge in Sydney | January 23, 2025
Designtree has won itself a spot as a finalist at the The Innovation Showcase at the 2012 Australian International Furniture Fair in Sydney. Rebecca and I will be packing our swimmers and donning our thongs for a week in Australia.
We will be exhibiting at The Edge - a section of the fair focusing on emerging design talent. The Fair is a trade only event that runs between the 1st and 3rd of February 2012, come in and say Gidday. For more information and for registrations follow the link here.
Designtree Competition – We have a winner | December 22, 2024
Tell Us Your Problem competition - We Have A Winner!
After some good discussions and debates Rebecca and I have agreed on a winner for the Tell Us Your Problem competition. Congratulations Tracey for submitting her messy kitchen scraps story. Tracey’s problem provides us with a good design challenge and Rebecca and I are looking forward to figuring out a groovy solution.
Thank you to all of you who entered the competition, we had lots of great entries which have allowed us to pick up on common frustrations around the home and office.
Well done again Tracey we’ll be sending out your gift vouchers so you can get your hands on some Designtree goodness.
Designtree Competition - Win a $250 Gift Voucher | November 29, 2024
Tell us your problem
What design needs, problems or frustrations do you have around the house or office?
“Rebecca gets frustrated with untidy piles of shoes at the front door ”. “Tim keeps putting his keys and wallet down and has trouble finding them when rushing out the door”.
Tell us what irks you around the home or office - the problem that we see has the most potential to stimulate an innovative design will receive a $250 gift voucher for any Designtree product.
Click here to enter the competition - competition now closed
Designtree in Latest Frame magazine Sept/Oct | September 15, 2025
Thank you to Tracey and Lydia and the team from Frame magazine. The latest Issue of Frame (No 84 Sept-Oct) has our Nectar shade hanging amongst some very cool lights. Check it out
Designtree is in Aug-Sept issue of Dwell Asia | September 14, 2025
The first issue of Dwell Asia is out and Designtree’s Nectar shade is in it. Thank you Anushka for the article and the free mag!
Designtree in latest issue of Homedec | August 25, 2025
Hip Homedec magazine have featured a good bunch of Designtree products in their roundup of Sustainable Design from the Milan furniture fair. We are pretty chuffed to be nestled in between Tom Dixon and David Trubridge - thanks to Survarna from Homedec.
Sweet Sweet Nectar! | July 22, 2025
Yay! Rebecca’s sexy new Nectar lamp is ready! Yesssss! (punching air euphorically). You can check it out and buy it in shops or off our website - available from Essenze in Auckland, the Cleverbastards website, and here at Designtree (follow this link).
New Standup Laptop and Book Stand Video | July 21, 2025
We’ve had a few people receive our Standups as gifts and due to the lack of instructions they have not really known what to do with them, so we’ve made a little video showing what Standup does and how it goes together (see below). Also our fantastic intern Julie is working with us to develop some instructions which we will slip in the envelope with Standup.
Designtree products featured in “Not Ordinary Design” book | June 22, 2025
Italian journalist Katiuscia Matteucci chased us up recently and gave us a very slick publication entitled: Not Ordinary Design. We were wrapped to find that we had received a double page spread with some great writing about the work. Available through http://www.press-italia.com
Why Milan Exhibition in Objectspace | May 28, 2025
A great new exhibition at Objectspace in Auckland showcases work from 7 New Zealand designers who have exhibited at the Milan furniture fair. Designtree along with Well Groomed Fox and Simon James spoke with Nicole Stock from Urbis Design Magazine about our experiences and reflections on exhibiting in Milan. Thanks to those who came along to the talks today, if you want to check out the exhibition it runs until the 4th June.
From packing to exhibiting at the Salone Salellite | May 1, 2025
Our whole experience from packing our work up in New Zealand to exhibiting at the Salone Satellite in Milan.
Setting up Designtree stall in Milan | April 18, 2025
A few images of our stall before and after setup.
Packing for the Milan furniture fair 2011 | April 6, 2025
It has been a challenge but we have made all the furniture, brochures and business cards fit into our four checked in bags. Here is a little clip showing the process:
MILAN DESIGN WEEK | April 4, 2025
April 12-17, 2011
Address: Salone Satellite Milan Fairgrounds, Rho
Stand: D-18
Opening Hours: 9.30am-6.30pm
New work for Milan Furniture Fair |
We’re packing our bags and getting ready to head over to Italy for the Milan Furniture Fair. We decided that rather than sending big crates from New Zealand to the other side of the world, we would design the work to fit in our suitcases. Rebecca’s Nectar Lamp is made from a recycled PET plastic and folds flat into a little box. We’re taking another 2 lamps: The Ledge Lamp which acts as a pendant lamp, table lamp and illuminated shelf and is sand cast in alunimium. The Base Lamp is made by joining flat panels onto a small aluminium framework - very simple (and light!). The Salvage Stool, the final piece we are taking over, also breaks down into 6 parts, 3 legs and 3 sections of the seat. Again sand cast in recycled aluminium the Salvage Stool parts are light and fit nicely in our suitcases - Tim
A big thank you | March 31, 2025
We would like to send out a huge thank you to all our sponsors who have helped us get ready for the Milan furniture fair - a massive thank you to Creative New Zealand for helping to fund this project - a big thank you to Autex for supplying all the material for the nectar lamp shades - thanks to Lucy and Georgia at George the Goose for all your help with branding and graphic design of the brochures and business cards - thanks also to Spicers for discounted FSC mixed source 9 lives paper for all our printed material - Rebecca
Wooo Hooo! Designtree website up and running! | March 4, 2025
Its an exciting day for us here at Designtree. With a lot of work from Rebecca and our friends Patrick, Eddie, Frankie, Lucy and Georgia the website is up and we are pretty chuffed with the results. We are still populating the website with images and information, so bear with us for a wee while longer, there will still be a few empty pages and teething problems but the essential form of the website is established. Please have a browse through, we appreciate your feedback and comments so feel free to get in touch - we’d love to hear from you. - Tim
