Designteam Wins 2026 Australian Good Design Award for Polestar 5 Launch

Designteam, an experience design agency, has won a 2026 Australian Good Design Award in the Built Environment: Installation Design category for its national launch of the Polestar 5 — a project delivered in four weeks, on a fixed budget, with zero waste.

The Australian Good Design Awards recognise excellence in design, innovation and impact. Each entry faces an independent jury of more than 100 Australian and international design experts, which makes the recognition a meaningful external validator for experiential work that marketing leaders often struggle to benchmark.

What did the winning experience actually look like?

Polestar Australia commissioned Designteam to reveal the Polestar 5, one of only three cars available globally to the Australian market at that point. Drawing on the global TVC campaign, the agency built a 'story studio' — a curated three-act journey through a heritage-listed industrial venue:

• Act 1: Silhouette Gallery. Guests entered via an elevated mezzanine lined with high-resolution, gallery-style artworks built to generate intrigue and anticipation.
• Act 2: Immersive Reveal. In a lower ground space, a 'paparazzi' film and synchronised lighting marked the Polestar 5's first appearance on Australian soil.
• Act 3: The Power of Proximity. An expert-led panel on sustainability and design preceded an up-close, 360-degree exploration of the vehicle.

The connective tissue was a theme the agency called 'Performance Architecture', linking the venue's electric power-station heritage to Polestar's luxury performance positioning. A 10,000-lumen rigged skylight defined the car's footprint, while large-scale backlit imagery and LED screens sat inside the venue's strict heritage requirements. Nothing got bolted on carelessly. The industrial shell did half the storytelling.

What does this change for launch marketing?

The operational details matter as much as the concept. The design accommodated three distinct audience groups in a single day, with a 10-minute changeover between a content capture studio and a premium VIP reveal space. The whole programme ran within a fixed budget and a compressed four-week timeframe. And the event generated no waste — a claim increasingly demanded by sustainability-minded automotive brands and rarely achieved at this production level.

Commercially, the launch was fully subscribed. It also delivered earned and owned media reach across YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and tier-one automotive, lifestyle and influencer channels — the cross-channel amplification that justifies experiential spend beyond the room itself.

What did the jury say?

The jury commended what it called a "refined and confidently executed launch installation", citing its "strong understanding of visual hierarchy and experiential pacing" — essentially, the sequencing discipline behind the three-act structure. The judges also noted how the industrial heritage setting allowed "the vehicle's precision and sculptural quality to stand out with heightened clarity".

The client's verdict was blunt. Jonathan Williams, Head of Marketing at Polestar Australia, said: "The minimalist Polestar brand is all about the tiny details and once again you've absolutely nailed the brief down to the millimetre. An extraordinary launch design collaboration and result."

For CMOs weighing experiential against digital channels, the case is straightforward: one venue, one day, three audiences, four weeks of build, no waste, full subscription and multi-channel earned media. The award simply puts a jury's stamp on what the metrics already suggested.