London Design Festival: The Latest Architecture and News

Most biennales and architecture events, especially the recent ones, have influenced and shaped the dialogue of the ones that followed. In fact, during a conversation earlier this year with Lesley Lokko, the curator of the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale, she explained and affirmed that “all exhibitions […] take sustenance from those that came before”, further noting that “if I look back at the dozen or so Architecture Exhibitions over the past twenty years, each one has contributed in some way to the discourse of the next.”

So far, 2023 has witnessed significant events in the architectural world, ranging from the XXIII Architecture Biennial in Santiago, Chile, and the Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah, KSA, to Milan Design Week and Salone del Mobile in Milan, Italy, as well as the Venice Biennale and the UIA World Congress of Architects in Copenhagen. Addressing both contextual and global themes, this year continues to contribute to the international architectural discussion.

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Biennales, exhibitions, and architecture focused festivals provide a platform for opening debates, conducting research, and driving innovation, but they can also contribute to the incremental changes that shape the image and the character of a city. Through temporary installations and experiments, this type of events have the opportunity to open lines on inquiry into the quality of urban spaces, inviting visitors and residents to slow down, break away from their daily routine and interrogate their local environments. The effects might not be immediate, but by cumulating these impressions and moments of contemplation, architecture and design festivals can have a long-lasting impact on the cities that welcome them.

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The first full-size London Design Festival (LDF) for three years, and the event’s 20th anniversary year, this was meant to be a celebration. But life, as the saying goes, had other plans. Rocked by the news of HRH Queen Elizabeth II’s passing, the country, and indeed the world started the London Design Festival in a period of mourning. Having reigned over the densest period of design innovation in human history, however, her majesty was no stranger to change.

With long-running themes like sustainability, materials, economic crises, and digital futures never higher in the public’s consciousness, LDF ’22 wasn’t just a professional meet and greet, but a chance to share some much-needed positivity with design enthusiasts, as well as locals, just passing by. Here are the most interesting and talked-about installations and talks from nine days of reflection on the past and hope for the future.

PARABLES FOR HAPPINESS by the London-based British-Nigerian designer Yinka Ilori features for the first time at the Design Museum in London. Exhibited from September 25, 2022, to June 25, 2023, essential aspects of Ilori’s work will be placed beside key influences, including artworks, photographs, and furniture, to Nigerian textiles. Curated by Priya Khanchandani, the exhibition celebrates Ilori’s mix of cultural influences and unpacks the ingredients of a diasporic visual language.

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After two years of disrupted cycles of architecture events, due to the pandemic, 2022 has been witnessing a resurgence: biennials, triennials, design weeks, and festivals are back in the picture, with bigger interrogations and larger thematic approaches, aligned with the challenges of the world.

Relevant today more than ever, these happenings scattered around the globe are tackling climate-related issues, urban problems, as well as concerns engendered by covid-19 such as resilience, models of living, future of design, and the unknown.

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The London Design Festival is an annual event that brings together designers, practitioners, retailers, and educators from across the globe. This year’s program of events, exhibitions, and installations invites creative leaders to exchange ideas and solutions for some of the most pressing issues of our time, like climate change, pollution, and resource depletion. The festival includes the Landmarks Projects. As part of this initiative, Rotterdam-based designer Sabine Marcelis has created “Swivel”, an outdoor installation in central London. Other installations like Sony Design’s “Into Sight” pavilion or Sou Fujimoto’s “Medusa” exhibition explore visual and sensorial effects through physical and virtual mediums.

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The London Design Festival has announced the program for its 18th edition to be held this fall. Despite the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic, the festival will return to the city as "a symbol of London's determination to maintain its creative and cultural leadership." Since its inception in 2003, London Design Festival brings together practitioners, retailers and educators to celebrate and promote design annually across the capital.

Global smart phone brand OPPO teamed up with Japanese architect Kengo Kuma to create a large outdoor installation at 2019 London Design Festival. Called ‘Bamboo (竹) Ring: Weaving into Lightness’, the project is installed in the John Madejski Garden at the V&A Museum for the duration of the festival. Inspired by the Garden and curated by Clare Farrow, the doughnut-shaped structure has been created by weaving rings of bamboo and carbon fiber together.

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The 2019 London Design Festival opened this month and features a large-scale instillation called Please Be Seated by Paul Cocksedge. Returning for its 17th year, the festival celebrates design across London and aims to promote the city as a major design capital. Please Be Seated joins a series of art, design and performance-based projects by internationally-renowned designers across the city.

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Paddington-born designer Adam Nathaniel Furman has designed a new installation for the 2019 London Design Festival. Opening next month, the installation is made to enliven Paddington Central with a curated break-out area in the fabric of the city. Called the Paddington Pyramid, the project aims to create an expression of communal happiness and pleasure where the everyday becomes extraordinary.

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The 2019 London Design Festival opens next month with highlights including projects at the V&A by Sam Jacob and Kengo Kuma. Running from September 14th to the 22nd, the festival will include large-scale installations by Paul Cocksedge, Martino Gamper, PATTERNITY, Dan Tobin Smith and Camille Walala. Returning for its 17th year, the festival will celebrate design across London.

Uruguay's architecture scene has long taken the backseat to those of its more popular neighbours. Brazil, to the north, has a modernist history that rivals (if not shades) that of its European peers; Chile, to the west, boasts an innovative climate for architecture unparalleled in the world today.

As part of the London Design Festival 2018, the Zaha Hadid Gallery is presenting the new RE/Form carpet collection designed by Zaha Hadid Architects for Royal Thai. Consisting of 22 designs across four themes, the pieces showcase fluid patterns heavily reminiscent of Hadid’s architectural works.

The four themes consist of striated lines, ribbonlike projections, pixelated landscapes, and organic cellular shapes. Each pattern captures “Hadid’s signature use of interweaving, layering and play with light and shadow.”

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The 2018 London Design Festival is now underway, having returned for its 16th year. Running from 15th to 23rd September, and spread across the city, the Festival features works such as Snøhetta’s rotating book pavilion and a series of installations at the V&A celebrating the venue’s 10th year as the Festival’s official hub.

Below, we have compiled a list of collaborations to look out for throughout the week, including investigations into issues such as climate change and plastic pollution, and artistic themes such as Cubism and classical music.

Celebrating Paddington Central’s first year as a Design Route at the London Design Festival, the design practice Snøhetta created a rotating book pavilion for British Land. Snøhetta wanted to create a project that would reimagine the traditional principles of a library through a mechanized pavilion that generates varied spatial types. Designed for visitors to immerse themselves into a world of books, the pavilion encourages exploration, interaction and reflection.

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You’re going to wish you saw this Instagram worthy art installation. Gateways (@Landofceramics) at the central fountain in Granary Square, King’s Cross closed this week. It was designed to celebrate the DesignJunction event (September 21-24) an interior design show by and for the industry, set in challenging industrial sites as part of the greater London Design Festival.

In a prototype developed for the 2016 London Design Festival, Arup Associates designed The Circular Building, one of the first buildings in the UK built to satisfy Circular Economy principles, in which “all components need to be implemented and utilized to their full potential and to the duration of their life cycle, while creating a comfortable and aesthetic environment for the user.”

In order to achieve these goals, designers and engineers worked together to refine the application of prefabricated construction techniques, producing details that utilize finely tuned engineering rather than mechanical fixings. Through this methodology, the team was able to create a low-waste, self-supporting, and demountable structurally integrated panel (SIPs) wall system (which used cladding provided by Accoya) with reusable clamp connections between the wall and recycled steel frame elements, as well as sustainably sourced, heat treated timber for the cladding and decking.

Satellite Architects have designed a pixelated facade for Designjunction temporary exhibition space at Cubitt House in Kings Cross, London. The facade combines natural and artificial elements by wrapping a reflective, gridded screen on top of a second screen of trees and bushes, allowing the foliage to peek through.