Aileen Sage was excited to be a finalist in the Australian Furniture Design Award for 2026, a biennial furniture and lighting design competition founded by Stylecraft in collaboration with the National Gallery of Victoria. Designed. in conversation and collaboration with garigarra, mori, and Kazu Noguchi Quill, the finalist prototype was presented at Melbourne Design Week.

Tree Family is a collection of adaptable table pieces for compact and conscientious living, able to be used separately as individual dining, desk or side tables, or combined to facilitate the gathering of many. The design is collective and generative, its physical expression is the outcome of a process that draws on multiple skills, knowledges, and perspectives. The design is refined in response to what is local and available, and using a combination of recycled, salvaged and sustainably sourced timbers, the tables tell a story of place through its trees.

Through collaboration with a local Indigenous enterprise, a program of companion plantings would be established using a portion of sales to fund the propagation and planting of the same tree species in urban parks, streets and gardens. In this way, the table becomes a conduit for repair.