Nila Rezaei is working towards a design culture that builds dignity, one in which communities are active co-authors of the objects, spaces, and systems that shape their lives, and where design accounts for people, place, and planet together.
She is Co-Founder and Design Director of RK Collective, a Sydney-based product design and innovation studio working at the intersection of circular design, material storytelling, and social impact. She is interested in the political, cultural, and ecological dimensions of materials and products, treating co-design as a form of authorship, and making as a form of activism.

Nila has over ten years of commercial experience spanning material innovation, consumer products, packaging, furniture and homewares, electronics, mobility, spatial design and public art installations, where she uses design as a tool to restore connection, resilience, and dignity in a rapidly changing world.

Her flagship project Crafted Liberation, which transforms Iranian Women’s donated headscarves and reclaimed textiles into public seating using waste resources, has been recognised with the 2024 Good Design Award for Social Impact, the 2025 Seoul Design Award, and selected as a 2026 Doha Design Prize finalist.

With a background that bridges commercial design and critical practice, Nila is a Good Design Australia Ambassador. She chairs the Design Institute of Australia NSW Council, co-founded Industrial Design Xchange Sydney (IDX SYD), and teaches at UNSW Art & Design. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at the IKEA Museum (Sweden), Dutch Design Week, Berlin Design Week, Milan Design Week, the Australian Design Centre, and ICAD Jakarta.

Passionate about sharing knowledge and nurturing future generations, Nila regularly speaks at national and international forums on sustainability, material innovation, and social design, inspiring others to see design as a powerful agent of cultural and systemic change.

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