Martina Wylie Studio develops independent and commissioned objects, installations and spatial works that explore how familiar things might work differently.

Projects often begin with something simple: a material, an everyday object, a social behaviour or a way of occupying space. The studio questions the assumptions built into it and asks what else might be possible.

An object might take on more than one use. A material might be pushed beyond what it is expected to do. A space might invite a different way of moving through or inhabiting it.

There is play in the work, but the finished result is highly refined. Ideas that may begin as improbable or dreamlike are tested through research, prototyping and making until they become materially convincing. The aim is not to prescribe another way of living, but to make other possibilities tangible.

Things don't always have to be the way they are. What else is possible?

Martina Wylie is an artist, designer and registered architect based in Melbourne.

Her background moves between fine art, architecture, design research, user behaviour and making. Art kept open the possibility for work to begin with imagination and personal narrative, while keeping material and making close to the process. Architecture brought another layer of discipline, refining those ideas through space, structure, function and detail until they could hold up to scrutiny.

These ways of working are not necessarily separate. They belong to a longer tradition in which the artist, designer, architect and maker could exist within the same practice. Martina Wylie Studio brings those roles back under one roof.

A turning point was Kirigami, a timber screen developed through repeated prototypes and fabricated by Martina herself. It established an approach that still drives the studio: making is not something that happens after the design is finished. It is part of finding the design.

Martina continues to prototype, test and make the studio's work directly. When the scale or technical demands of a project call for additional expertise, her architectural background allows her to coordinate with specialist collaborators while retaining the creative direction of the work.

Her work has been recognised by the Australian Design Centre, Australian Web Awards, Melbourne Fringe Festival and Melbourne Fashion Festival, alongside experience across cultural, education and public-sector projects.

Martina Wylie Studio works with clients and collaborators who are looking for a distinct response to a question, context or problem, rather than the execution of a predetermined solution.

The studio can be commissioned for:

Immersive and site-responsive installations
For exhibitions, festivals, cultural spaces, public settings and temporary environments.

Objects and experimental furniture
Including functional pieces that reconsider use, behaviour, material or form.

Spatial interventions
For fashion, hospitality, independent launches and events where the physical experience forms part of the idea.

Material investigations and design research
For projects where testing, prototyping and material behaviour are themselves part of developing the outcome.

A brief does not need to arrive with an answer. The studio is most useful when there is a clear ambition or question and enough room to explore what form the response should take. Projects can begin with a site, a material, a behaviour, an existing object, or simply a sense that something could be done differently.

Based in Melbourne, Martina Wylie Studio works across Australia and is open to international commissions and collaborations.

Have something you think could be done differently?