This special event is now sold out, to get on our waiting list for tickets please email  

One much-loved object from your home. One coveted object you WANT in your home.

That’s the brief for Design Lives HERE, Objectspace's annual design event with Here Magazine, presented by Cemac Commercial Interiors.

We're bringing together four design-lovers to speak with heart about a treasured object they own, and something they're coveting.

Here Magazine’s Simon Farrell-Green will host this dynamic evening centred around design, collecting, and discovery.

Your speakers are:

• Karen Walker – Lauded fashion designer repping Aotearoa on the world stage
• Lissy & Rudi Robinson-Cole – The husband-and-wife artist duo making crochet cool aka the minds behind Wharenui Harikoa
• Jon Rennie – An Athfield Architects Principal who is nationally ranked in the use of his first mystery object…
• Michael Lett – Legendary gallerist, collector of art and design, proud holder of a Junior Ranger Badge

Countdown is on! Get your tickets now.

$30 per head, which includes a mystery cocktail, natural wine from Black Estate, beers from Liberty Brewing, sparkling bevs from Almighty and Goodsh•t Soda AND good eats.

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Meet your speakers:

Karen Walker is a renowned Aotearoa fashion designer. Her eponymous label was established in 1989, rose to prominence in 2000 after debuting at New York Fashion Week where she showed for 20 seasons, and can now boast a celebrity fan club that includes Maggie Gyllenhaal, Adele, Rihanna, Gigi Hadid, Michelle Obama and Lady Gaga. The Business of Fashion has ranked Karen Walker as a top-500 industry powerhouse for nearly a decade, and the team at Objectspace rank KW trousers as having the best tailoring for getting sh*t done and looking good doing it.

Artists Lissy Robinson-Cole (Ngāti Hine, Ngāti Kahu) and Rudi Robinson-Cole (Ngāti Paoa, Ngaruahine, Ngāti Makirangi, Ngāti Tu) are all about dreaming big, and then dreaming even bigger than that! They share a practice grounded in one central kaupapa: to transform intergenerational trauma into deeply felt joy, one loop at a time; connecting all people and igniting joy globally. Through the magic of the crochet hook, they’ve recently completed Wharenui Harikoa – a full sized crocheted ‘House of Joy’ that will travel around Aotearoa and beyond.

Jon Rennie is an Architect and a principal of Athfield Architects. He has knowledge and experience in the design of public architecture and urbanism and has worked in the United Kingdom, Spain, United States and Aotearoa. He is based in the Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland studio of Athfield Architects and is a regular sounding board and contributor to Objectspace’s architecture programming – over the evening you’ll realise why we have Jon on speed dial and (if you’re lucky) why he describes himself as “cryptic and crab-like.”

Michael Lett has been a gallerist in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland for the past 20 years, and over this time has worked alongside artists such as Simon Denny, Michael Parekowhai, Imogen Taylor and Kate Newby, to name but a few. Adjacent to the gallery, Letts's interests range from historical photography to bio-dynamic gardening. As collectors, he and his partner Samuel Holloway have built a significant collection of art and design. Michael has no formal qualifications in art or design fields but is a proud holder of a Junior Ranger Badge acquired on a recent trip to Hawai'i.