London Design Festival 2026: The Highlights

There was definitely more of a buzz around London Design Festival this year. Smaller, more focused events, plenty of craft, and a real shift towards immersive, sensory settings over standard showroom displays , the addition of more sound installations was a particular highlight. Here's what stood out for us.

The Pangolin Shield - Credit Mark Cocksedge

The Pangolin Shield — Studio Saar and Atelier One, supported by Secure, at Strand Aldwych
Named after the world's most trafficked mammal, this bamboo pavilion is built from traditional Indian police shields and woven rain shields called "knups," normally used by farmers in the north-east of the country. Taken out of context, they stop reading as symbols of authority and become something closer to shelter. Studio Saar worked with engineers Atelier One on it, using bamboo sourced from three different Indian states, and it ends up being a comment on craft and colonial history as much as it is on what bamboo can actually do structurally. One of the more thoughtful pieces this year.

Craft x Tech Project - Credit Ed Reeve

Craft x Tech: Tokai Project — V&A
Back for its second edition, pairing artisans from Japan's Tokai region with well-known international designers, curated by Maria Cristina Didero. Six collaborations in total including ceramicist Yohei Ito worked with David Caon on a modular ceramic console and lighting piece, and Suzusan's Hiroyuki Murase teamed up with Bethan Laura Wood on illuminated sculptures built around Arimatsu Narumi Shibori dyeing. Every pairing takes a traditional technique somewhere new rather than just showing it off.

You Can Sit With Us - Credit Megan Taylor

2LG Studio: You Can Sit With Us — Messy Heart, Shoreditch Town Hall
Fourth edition of this collective showcase and part of the House of Icon. This years theme was "Messy Heart," with more than twenty emerging and established designers exploring touch and craft. Curated by 2LG's Russell Whitehead and Jordan Cluroe, it's all handmade pieces with real character including furniture, lighting, textiles. Highlights were Maria Bragagnolo's Bad Posture Chair, built to let you sit "wrong" on purpose, and Josh Jen's woven leather lamps, which bring basket-weaving into lighting. Also in the next room was 2LG’s debut collaboration with London based studio Northsouth. Briar was a sculptural lighting collection made from turned wood.

Credit - Collate Lobby

Collate Lobby — Yorkton Workshops
Always one to watch at design festivals: Collate Form, the recruitment agency, has launched a design platform called Lobby and its debut show is staged as a fictional 1930s hotel suite. Over 30 designers contributed limited-edition or prototype pieces, all built around a single theme set by founder James Garis. Raw aluminium furniture by Odd Universe, the Slowe Living bed and a chainmail screen by Edward John Milton stood out. Everything's available to order and it will be interesting to see what makes it into the core collection.

Art of Sound - Credit Iona Wolff

Feeling is Structure — Max Cooper, powered by L-Acoustics, at Wapping Hydraulic Power Station
We love the introduction of more sound installations at LDF. Max Cooper originally made this piece for a live show at the Royal Albert Hall, and it's was reworked as a proper spatial piece, which rattled around Wapping’s grand old power station. Max has a PhD in computational biology and it shows, the whole thing treats structure as something that shapes how you feel, not just how a space looks.

With Limitations - Credit Seen PR

With Limitations by Design Everything — Aram Gallery
Staged as a fictional flat, it's furnished entirely with over 130 objects from more than 100 UK designers, each one responding to a different limitation: money, space, time, materials, access to kit, whatever it might be. It ends up being a pretty honest, unglamorous look at what actually shapes independent practice, rather than the polished version you usually see. It's also free to participate in, which matters given how much exhibiting elsewhere during LDF costs young designers. Alongside the objects, there are daily live demos from some of the exhibitors and talks pairing established names.

For more information visit londondesignfestival.com

Top Picture by Mark Cocksedge