Bankston x For Scale: A Two-City Argument for Touch.

David Michon and Steve Bradley at A Manifesto on Touch in NYC.

What can a door handle teach us about being present? Quite a lot, as it turns out. Across two continents this year, Australian hardware brand Bankston teamed up with For Scale—the interiors platform founded by design critic David Michon—to stage a pair of exhibitions arguing that touch is not a nicety but a necessity, and that hardware is one of the most intimate touchpoints in the built environment.

The collaboration opened in May at NYCxDesign, where Bankston and For Scale took over Colbo wine bar on Manhattan’s Lower East Side for A Manifesto on Touch. At its centre sat Michon’s written provocation of the same name—a case for touch as sensation, and sensation as information. Custom stools and tables fabricated by Los Angeles artist Caleb Engstrom were fitted with hardware from Super Collection by Sans-Arc Studio and The Streaks by YSG Studio, while mirrors edged with Civilian Projects’ Hemispheres collection carried hand-painted excerpts from the manifesto. Guests were invited to tear strips from the posters—a rip being a kind of pull, and a pull being a kind of handle. Clever, that.

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Bankston & YSG’s Streaks Marries Perception-Challenging Design with Unadulterated Beauty of Timber.

This spirited collaboration between Bankston and YSG Studio showcases natural timber's inherent beauty through innovative stratified banding techniques.

A month later, the partnership landed in Copenhagen for 3daysofdesign with How to Handle, an immersive installation developed with spatial set designer Currie Ritchie and Engstrom. Borrowing the visual language of manifestos and protest graphics, the space layered typography, tactile materials and interactive elements, presenting Casts by Edition Office, Super Collection, Hemispheres and The Streaks not as a product display but as an environment to be used—opened, gripped, pressed.

The Streaks deserves a special mention. Designed with Yasmine Ghoniem of YSG Studio and launched at 3daysofdesign in 2025, the collection of banded timber levers, pulls and joinery pieces remains one of the most spirited things to happen to hardware in years, and it anchored both presentations with characteristic swagger.

You Can't Fake Energy: Dana's Notes from 3 Days of Design Copenhagen 2026.

At 3 Days of Design, Dana Tomić Hughes went looking for the thing no budget or brand history can buy—the feeling that a space is actually alive.

David Michon, Emily Bradley and Steve Bradley at How to Handle in Copenhagen.

“At its core, this exhibition is about reconnecting people with the physical experience of design—the feeling of opening a door, holding an object and interacting with material in a meaningful way,” said Steve Bradley, co-CEO of Bankston. “For Scale immediately understood that ambition.”

It’s a fitting chapter for a brand that operates less like a hardware manufacturer and more like a design incubator, with each collection authored by a different studio in its own language. In an increasingly intangible world, Bankston made a compelling case for reaching out and holding on.

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[Images courtesy of Bankston. 3daysofdesign spatial photography by Angela Djekic; event photography by Mac Abente Gaydou. NYCxDesign spatial photography by Brian Ferry; event photography by Eloise Photography.]