Connecting with Australia's design community

Michael standing with microphone talking to crowd - Sign in the background reads "Reece - Saturday indesign - Reflections on Design"

Held at Reece Bathrooms Rosebery, Saturday Indesign gave us the chance to spend time with the architecture and design community, hear what matters to the people working in it and bring some of our long-standing supplier partners into the conversation.

At the centre of the day was Reflections on Design, a founders panel hosted by design editor Virginia Jen and featuring Vanessa Katsanevakis from Sussex, Bobby Gordon from Robert Gordon, Fleur Sibbel from Zuster and Tara Solberg from Few & Far.

Panel sitting at front of stage - Four panellists and host Virginia Jen

The conversation explored how their businesses have changed over time, what they’ve learnt from their customers and why craftsmanship and the physical experience of design continue to matter. There were some familiar themes for Reece too, with family business, long-standing relationships and adapting to changing customer needs coming through across the discussion.

For Sussex, one of those relationships is with Reece. Vanessa reflected on the connection between the two businesses and its role in Sussex’s history:

“That was something that Sussex was really built off, that strong founding relationship.”

We want to keep building those connections with the broader design community. Spending more time with architects and designers helps us understand how the way they work is changing.

Picture is three seperate images cropped together - Loren Inglis from Sussex showing their tapware, Fleur and Chloe Sibbel from Zuster, and Bobby Gordon from Robert Gordon

The day wasn’t limited to the panel. Guests had the chance to see the inner workings of a Sussex tap, learn about the process behind designing a Zuster handle and watch a custom sand glaze applied to a Robert Gordon basin.

For Ruth Hassall, Customer Lead, Reece Marketing, the value of the day was in the conversations it created - “There’s a lot we can learn by spending more time with the design community. Saturday Indesign gave us the chance to hear directly from architects and designers, understand what they value and have conversations we wouldn’t necessarily have every day. That’s what made the day so valuable for us.”

Those hands-on experiences also showed what Rosebery can offer the design community as our new flagship bathroom space. It’s somewhere to experience products firsthand, talk with our team and suppliers and get a better feel for the thinking and craftsmanship behind the finished product.