Reimagining the Future: Top Designs Returns to Melbourne Museum
Melbourne Museum Partners with the VCAA for Top Designs 2025
Bringing bold ideas like eco-friendly sunglasses made from repurposed coffee grounds and a quick-build housing solution for Australia's housing crisis, Top Designs is back at Melbourne Museum from 29 March in its 25th year.
The exhibition celebrates Victoria’s next generation of designers, featuring student works that re-imagine innovative, renewable and inclusive futures. Top Designs 2025 exhibitors interrogate the changing world around them to propose new possibilities in sustainability, place, community, automation and craftsmanship.
In partnership with the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA), Melbourne Museum will display works from 77 students across government, independent and Catholic schools, selected by expert panels from nine design subjects. Each work highlights the unique and creative ways students have approached and interpreted the assessment criteria.
Visitors with a passion for design will have the opportunity to investigate the critical thought processes and creative strategies behind each work through a range of protypes, material tests and folio documentation on display.
Accessibility resources - created in collaboration with digital access consultant Lauren Hayes and PolySensoryAccess - will also feature in this year’s exhibition, including an exhibition-specific access guide, large print labels and 24 audio descriptions of works for blind and low vision audiences.
Alongside the exhibition, Top Designs 2025 features a series of educational forums and introductory discussions led by industry experts, both online and on-site, which offer valuable perspectives and inspiration for current VCE and VCE VET design and technology students.
‘Top Designs is such a hit when it comes to Melbourne Museum,’ said Sean Royal, Acting CEO & Director of Museums Victoria. ‘This exceptional showcase of student work not only highlights the remarkable creations on display, but celebrates the ideas, creative processes and critical thinking that inspire us all to reimagine our future.’
‘Top Designs showcases the quality of design and technology being developed in our schools. These areas are critical not only as expressions of creativity but as key industry sectors of the future,’ said Dr David Howes, Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority Acting CEO. ‘I encourage all members of the Victorian public to visit this exhibition to gain a fuller appreciation of the depth and breadth of education being delivered in Victorian schools.’
‘For 25 years, Top Designs has highlighted the crucial role our education system plays inspiring the talented young people who are positively shaping the future of our state through creativity and innovation,’ said Ben Carroll, Deputy Premier and Minister for Education. ‘The VCE Season of Excellence represents a wonderful celebration of senior secondary school student achievement that showcases our young creatives as they take the next step in their lives.’
Top Designs 2025 is proudly presented as part of the VCAA’s VCE Season of Excellence, an annual showcase celebrating creative and innovative work from Victorian secondary schools, which also includes Top Talks, Top Screen, Top Arts, Top Class and Top Scribe.
For further information and to purchase tickets online visit the Melbourne Museum website here.
Top Designs 2025
Open: Saturday, 29 March 2025
Closes: Sunday, 20 July 2025
Location: Melbourne Museum, 11 Nicholson Street Carlton
Tickets: On sale at Melbourne Museum and online
Tickets included with Melbourne Museum entry. School booking costs apply – School visit information - Melbourne Museum (museumsvictoria.com.au)
