The Dezeen team is reporting live from London Design Festival, which takes place 14-22 September. Read on for all the coverage from Tuesday 17 September.
6:30pm – a night out in Shoreditch
We’re rounding things off today with the District Late in Shoreditch, where Dezeen is hosting a launch party for our Design You Can Feel exhibition in collaboration with ASUS.
Works on show include an agave-fibre stool by Fernando Laposse, a dramatic hanging installation by Giles Miller, biomaterial textiles from Natural Material Studio and furniture made from skyscraper formwork by Niceworkshop.
If you run, you might just make it on time to see the end of the panel talk, in which Dezeen’s editorial director Max Fraser is discussing design for tactility together with ASUS’s chief design officer Mitch Yang and the team from Future Facility, who have created a custom piece for the exhibition.
We also recommend stopping by at the SCP showroom a few blocks away, where design agency Mitre & Mondays has parked up its Cafe Tolerance van for the night.
It’s the first stop for the travelling cafe, which will pop up at different locations throughout London including Granary Square in King’s Cross and the Material Matters site at Oxo Tower Wharf.
6:00pm – standard pavilion
Rio Kobayashi has collaborated with engineering firm Webb Yates on the designer’s first-ever pavilion and his largest project to date.
As the name suggests, Off The Shelf is made almost entirely using off-the-shelf materials including standard-sized planks of Douglas fir, sheets of polycarbonate and PVC that will be returned to the manufacturers or reused after the installation comes to a close.
Instead of screws or joints that would alter the raw materials, everything is held together using an elaborate post-tensioning system like you might find on a bridge, allowing the pavilion to be easily disassembled.
As well as providing the structure, the Douglas fir planks form shelves on the inside of the pavilion, allowing friends of Kobayashi’s – including artist and plant biologist Cynthia Fan and Dezeen Award-winner Liang-Jung Chen – to display different projects and host event throughout the week
The shelves also hold small boulders of Portland stone – held in place using hemp rope and sailing knots – that act as both ballast and decoration.
“I love it when everything is structural,” said Webb Yates co-founder Steve Webb. “I really fucking hate it when something is like a steel frame decorated with something else.”
Kobayashi conceived of the design but was not involved in construction, having recently chopped off the top of his finger in an accident at his workshop (pictured hidden under a crochet cosy made for him by a friend). It was a novel experience for the designer, who usually crafts his wooden furniture by hand.
“I make lots of stuff by myself,” he said. “So this one was quite bizarre.”
“I couldn’t really be involved but I put some stars on it,” he joked, referring to some of the graphic details applied in real gold leaf – a reference to the Vienna Secession art movement made famous by artists like Gustav Klimt.
5:30pm – Heatherwick, spotted
In West Kensington, Heatherwick Studio’s redevelopment of the 19th-century Olympia events centre was spotted nearing completion by Jennifer Hahn.
Set to open next year, the redevelopment will see a raised walkway added between the vaulted roofs of the two original Victorian exhibition halls to make them accessible to the public.
New additions to the 14-acre side will include the largest theatre to be purpose-built in London since Denys Lasdun’s National Theatre from 1976.
We’re here to see the development’s first public art commission, unveiled as part of LDF – more on that in a second.
5:00pm – biomaterial future?
Jane Englefield spotted algae-based trainers and an AstroTurf-style covering made from biomaterial feature at Material Matters at OXO Tower Wharf.
Spread over five floors, the exhibition is a meditation on our relationship with materials. It has returned to LDF to present over 50 designers, brands, makers and manufacturers.
Lighting made from waste orange peel and Portland stone by designer and researcher Alkesh Parmar stole the show!
4:30pm – good news
Great news from King’s Cross, where the vandalised Juicy Booth has been fully repaired and has reopened. Designer Annie Frost Nicholson, who created the installation in collaboration with K67 Berlin and The Loss Project, was upbeat about the reopening.
“We have been very upset about the vandalism and the rapid response to fix this and amazing team work with Coal Drops Yard has been truly heartening,” she told Dezeen.
“We look forward to welcoming many visitors on this first leg of the Juicy Booth’s tour.”
According to Nicholson, the booth was designed as a contemporary confessional box – so go along and get confessing!
“We would like to offer a 2024 secular take on the traditional confessional booth, an invitation to leave some of the weight you may be carrying – in this ever complex world – in the booth and emerge lighter,” she explained.
4:00pm – foraged festival food
Deputy editor Cajsa Carlson and social editor Clara Finnigan enjoyed an unusual lunch at designer Faye Toogood’s showroom earlier today.
The canalside showroom in Camden had been decorated with hanging dried plants, with the room were the designer and her team normally work on projects turned into a dining room for a lunch of foraged food.
Among the dishes on the menu, foraged by chef Ed Tejada, were Namedo mushrooms on a bed of tasty edible “soil”, as well as courgettes, hogweed and greengage – and even a foraged lunchbox.
The designer also showcased her new upholstered sofa, joking that after having previously made sculptural furniture, she’s now moved into making comfier seating.
3:00pm – super car design!
Features editor Nat Barker dezeen headed to Mayfair, where British sports car manufacturer Lotus dezeen held an unveiling event for its brand new Theory 1 concept car at its Piccadilly showroom – an intense change from the regular LDF offerings.
At the event, a black sheet was removed to reveal an aggressively styled supercar purportedly inspired by Lotus’ famous Espirit.
On the outside, eye-catching details included laser-wire headlights and taillights developed by electronics manufacturer Kyocera and a sensored, illuminating “technology line” running along the door.
But it’s when the doors open that things get really interesting. Lotus has developed a new opening system that sees the doors slide backwards and upwards into a salute.
Inside, the car has three seats, with the driver’s seat centred behind the steering wheel.
Each of the seats are upholstered in a robotic textile material developed in partnership with startup MotorSkins. Inflatable pods on the material can pulse to send messages to the driver and their passengers.
2:30pm – back in the saddle
Jennifer Hahn is back in the saddle today (seriously Lime, please sponsor her) but this time in Park Royal, which is home to London’s largest industrial estate.
Here, five resident studios have each tackled a different local waste material stream over the last six months and explored how it could be diverted and put to use within the community.
Design firm Blast Studio presented a fibreboard made using waste coffee cups mixed with sawdust from Park Royal joineries and ReCollective investigated how film and TV sets could be repurposed to form structural building elements such as a Larsen truss (and the A-Frames used to display the exhibition).
Meanwhile, the Rescued Clay project explored how the clay dug up by developers in the excavation process could be diverted from landfills to provide a sustainable material supply for local potters and ceramicists.
Also on show were products made by young people as part of the Absolute Beginners programme, teaching them how to make basic goods in “radically sustainable ways”.
You almost wouldn’t know the products were made by 17 to 21-year-olds – except the vases made from laughing gas cylinders are a dead giveaway.
1:45pm – Design Everything
Fully recovered from the cat snub, Jane Englefield headed to record store Kindred, which is showing Design Everything – an exhibition of pieces by 19 London-based designers.
Each practitioner was given the freedom to recreate a functional object, which will become a permanent part of Kindred’s space.
Projects include a petite incense holder resembling the joining of two chunky tree branches, a miniature record crate and a sculptural aluminium coat hanger.
1:00pm – pit stop
Jane Englefield refuelled at Exmouth Market and after an unsuccessful cat bonding attempt headed back on the LDF road.
12:30am – wax, wax, wax
Design and interiors reporter Jane Englefield visited multidisciplinary collective Wax Atelier’s The Abney Effect – an exhibition showing “new perspectives on oils, waxes, resins, woods and dyes”.
Eight artists feature in the show, held at the Wax Atelier workshop in Stoke Newington’s Abney Park.
Highlights include wooden crayons by Studio Playfool and a giant beeswax chandelier that would take 30-40 hours to burn.
11:00am – medal time!
The ceremony for the annual London Design Medal took place last night in the newly refurbished Space House, originally designed by Richard Seifert in the 1960s.
Dezeen’s co-CEO Wai Shin Li was on the jury to choose this year’s winners, including Natsai Audrey Chieza and Pat McGrath, who were presented with their medals in an overly-bright and soon-to-be office space on the eleventh floor.
Editorial director Max Fraser sat next to Eva Jiřičná, herself a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement award in 2018, who remembers when Space House was originally built.
“It was a time when women were told they couldn’t design buildings, only interiors.” Jiřičná, now 85, quipped, “now I’m designing a scheme for 13,000 homes in Czechia!”
10:30am – protest design
Given the state of global politics, it comes perhaps as no surprise that more than one show at this year’s LDF is focused on the design of protests.
While architecture Studio Bark is taking over the V&A’s Gallery 127 with its take on “protest architecture” (see Dezeen’s live blog from the opening day), the Praxis N16 workshop in Stoke Newington is hosting an exhibition of placards, posters and architectural interventions by 16 different studios.
Many of the textile works featured in the group show grapple with the brutality of the ongoing Israel-Palestine war, including a traditional keffiyeh scarf embroidered with graphic images by documentary photographer Jenny Matthews and the Grief Quilt for Palestine, which invites participation as an act of solidarity and collective grieving.
Make sure you visit the courtyard to see one of the towering bamboo tensegrity towers developed by design collective Project Bunny Rabbit for Extinction Rebellion, which can be rapidly deployed but are difficult to remove – and were famously subject to a police raid.
Bonus points if you spot Praxis N16’s resident feline.
10:00am – danishes, of course
Dezeen deputy editor Cajsa Carlson swung by Danish design brand Hay’s London showroom in Shoreditch to see the brand’s latest news and get a taste of Copenhagen.
Among the new pieces on show were the brand’s first trainers, launched with ASICS during the 3 Days of Design festival in Copenhagen, in two new colours – purple and brown. At the showroom, these were shown with matching pyjamas, making it easier to dress for getting from the bedroom to the boardroom.
The brand also gave a sneak peek of its relaunched X-Line chair, a high-tech design by Danish designer Niels Jørgen Haugesen from the late 1970s.
In Hay’s version, the original steel-coloured chair sits alongside new iterations in a variety of muted hues that can be combined for a fun effect.
It wouldn’t be a Danish day without some danishes!
At Hay, they came from authentic bakery Ole & Steen and consisted of stænger – braided sweet soft dough pastry, filled with vanilla custard and cinnamon paste topped with icing. It made it easy to pretend to be in Copenhagen.
9:30am – and we are back
We are back reporting on this year’s London Design Festival (LDF). Dezeen’s design editor Jennifer Hahn, design and interiors reporter Jane Englefield, social editor Clara Finnigan and editorial intern Douglas Jardim are on the ground in London reporting live.
Catch up on what happened on Monday here including the Reclaimed: The Silo Collection exhibition, a Yinka Ilori pop-up shop (picture top) and a sneak preview of our Design You Can Feel exhibition, which opens today.
To keep you up to date on all the festival activities Dezeen Events Guide has created an LDF guide, highlighting the key events at the festival this year.
To stay up to date, follow Dezeen live: London Design Festival, taking place from 14-22 September 2024. Dezeen Events Guide has created a LDF guide, highlighting the key events at the festival. See Dezeen Events Guide for all the latest information you need to know to attend the event, as well as a list of other architecture and design events taking place around the world.
Read about everything that happened on the opening day (13 September) and Monday (16 September).
All times are London time.
The lead image is by Clara Finnigan.
