Visiting London Design Festival this week. Here’s what to look out for…
London Design Festival returns for the 16th year in 2018, celebrating 10 years at the V&A as the official Festival hub. London will be transformed with an inspiring programme of Landmark Projects, installations and events throughout the city from 15-23 September 2018.
DECOREX
(Hotel Designs is a proud media partner)
16-19 SEPTEMBER
SYON PARK, TW8 8JF
Decorex international is one of the UK’s leading design shows and the only one of its kind in the UK for the luxury interiors market. With more than 400 exhibitors, from leading names to emerging talents, it attracts nearly 14,000 visitors from across the globe.
The show’s theme, blank canvas, explores how an empty space can celebrate a new beginning, a chance to create something beautiful in the way that Decorex and its exhibitors do each year. Decorex celebrates luxury British craft and applied arts through Future Heritage, an exhibition of some of the best emerging talents in the UK who present new work created for the show. Curated by renowned critic and curator Corinne Julius, Future Heritage has come to be known as the showcase of craft to collect and commission. Highlights include: Brand Building through Creativity with Jeffrey Beers, Sebastian Cox, David Mottershead, Emilio Pimentel-Reid and Christiane Lemieux; From Project to Product: an Interior Designers take on Product Design with Staffan Tollgard, Letitia Fitzgibbon and Katharine Pooley; Putting Personality into New Build with Dan Hopwood; Bespoke: How to Guarantee Original Design for Every Project with Henry Prideaux, Natalia Miyar and Sophie Elborne.
Prolific designers Studio Suss, Maddux Creative, Brian Woulfe and Henry Prideaux will design this year’s main entrance installation. They will tell their own stories upon a blank canvas, creating vignettes based on what has inspired them on their journeys as designers.
100% DESIGN
(Hotel Designs is a proud media partner)
19-22 SEPTEMBER
OLYMPIA LONDON, W14 8UX
100% Design is synonymous with the biggest names in design and is a leading platform for launching some of the world’s most renowned brands. This year, as part of a refreshed programme, Thomas Heatherwick and marcel wanders talk with 100% Design. The show will also present new features, fresh design talents and emerging names alongside a roster of industry favourites, big name brands and innovators.
100% Talks: Thomas Heatherwick, Marcel Wanders and Marcus Fairs feature at this year’s Talks with 100% Design. 100% Brands: A stellar line-up of exhibitors include: Benchmark, Established & Sons, Dare Studio, Arper, B Sweden, Bulo, Antonio Lupi, Tesla, Riko with Starck, OnePlusEleven, Rubn, Casa Botelho, Missana and more. 100% Futures: A new exhibition that will shine a light on some of the most exciting designs under the theme ‘Designing for London’ across travel, technology, wellbeing, public spaces and sustainability.
100% Forward: The spotlight turns on eight emerging design talents across furniture, product, lighting and textile design. Each will be championed by an established designer who carved his or her career during the first decade of 100% Design. 100% Build: A new dedicated resourcing show for the construction and architectural industry. Within the exhibition Philippe Starck will present a prefabricated house with Riko, while Tesla will showcase Powerwall.
DESIGNJUNCTION
(Hotel Designs is a proud media partner)
20-23 SEPTEMBER
SOUTHBANK LONDON, DOON STREET, OXO TOWER WHARF
Award-winning event designjunction transports to the cultural hub of London’s south bank and will showcase more than 200 of the world’s most iconic design brands. The show is presented across three unmissable areas which are owned and managed by Coin Street Community builders; the doon street site, OXO Tower Wharf and Riverside Walkway. Highlights this year include the second edition of the Rado Star Prize UK, The Mud Shell Project by Stphanie Chaltiel as well as talks programme curated by Justyna Sowa.
British designer Steuart Padwick will make a dramatic change to the London skyline during designjunction in support of mental health with his project Head Above Water. With its panoramic views of St Paul Cathedral and the iconic city skyline, Head Above Water is a 9 metre high sculpture on Queen’s Stone jetty (aka Gabriel’s pier) on London’s South Bank. The ‘Head’ is deliberately gender, ethnicity and age neutral and stands as a symbol of hope, bravery, compassion, positivity and change, for those who have come through or are still confronting mental health issues, and the people who support them. Steuart Padwick first sculpted a head in clay and then developed the concept into its current form using precision engineered, renewable and sustainable cross-laminated timber panels, provided by Stora Enso. To realise the structure Steuart Padwick worked with structural engineering expertise, Ramboll. It is a model of sustainable, smart design and build.
LONDON DESIGN FAIR
20-23 SEPTEMBER
OLD TRUMAN BREWERY, E1 6QR
Located in the creative heart of East London, the London Design Fair is a four-day industry event that brings Together 550 exhibitors from 36 countries, including independent designers, established brands, international pavilions, features and exhibitions. More than 28,000 buyers, architects, interior designers, press, designers and design- savvy public attend to see and specify the very latest products, materials and conceptual installations from around the world.
After capturing everyone’s hearts back in 2014 with its Tokyo Imagine exhibition, the Fair welcomes back Japan as their Guest Country for 2018. Organiser Tokyo Design Week will transform a 200sqm gallery into a fully immersive and interactive experience.
The Fair casts a spotlight on this year’s most loathed material: Plastic. Beyond the Chipper is an exhibition showcasing four designers who are engaging with the material head on, challenging the damaging single-use culture as well as a presenting Swedish Design and British Craft pavilions.
FOCUS/18
19-21 SEPTEMBER
DESIGN CENTRE, CHELSEA HARBOUR, SW10 0XE
Focus/18 returns with a packed programme for 2018. Get the inside track from the most talented names in the industry at talks, demonstrations, workshops and discovery tours; meet established makers, emerging innovators and skilled artisans; listen to star names sharing their knowledge. Highlights include ‘Journey of Colour’ By Moritz Waldemeyer, colour workshops, and conversations in design.
Sessions will explore how colour informs our design aesthetic, both consciously and subconsciously. Georgia Coleridge will discuss the healing power of colour, while a psychology of colour workshop in the Style Library showroom will discuss the transformative power that colour has on emotions.
Go behind the scenes of the latest collaborations and design directions in the showrooms. Kit Kemp and her Firmdale team will create a Caribbean bedroom suite for the Turnell & Gigon at Home popup showroom; Patrick Frey will discuss the design legacy of his grandfather Ren. Prou in the Pierre Frey showroom; Michelle Ogundehin and Arteriors’ founder Mark Moussa will talk about the Designer Interpretation series; Cole & Son’s head of design will reveal the evolution of the new collection, from concept to reality; plus many others.
At the conversations in design series; and connect with influencers and tastemakers from 120 showrooms and more than 600 international brands.
10 YEARS AT THE V&A
PENTAGRAM MEMBERS ROOM, V&A MUSEUM, SW7 2RL
With a characteristic V&A mix of heritage, modernity and design ingenuity, the V&A Members’ Room, designed by architects Carmody Groarke, transforms a magnificent top-lit gallery on the top floor of Aston Webb’s Grade 1 listed 1909 wing into a beautiful dedicated space for Members, offering a different perspective at the heart of the Museum.
The Members’ Room opened in October 2017 so, this year will be its first London Design Festival. Celebrating 10 years with the V&A as the official London Design Festival hub, Pentagram will transform the space with the graphic identities created over the decade. The Members’ Room will be open for use by Festival visitors on Thursday 20 September. Visitors are invited to experience the space, while enjoying striking views of the Sackler Courtyard and Henry Cole building.
FESTIVAL COMMISSIONED PROJECT
TOM DIXON ELECTROANALOGUE SUPPORTED BY COAL DROPS YARD
COAL DROPS YARD, LONDON, N1C 4AB
Tom Dixon will host ELECTROANALOGUE, a gathering of digital innovations in the Coal Office, the brand’s new HQ and flagship shop in King’s Cross. In collaboration with friends and partners Bill Amberg Studio, Teenage Engineering, sound artist Yuri Suzuki, sound lab and bar Spiritland and Ege, ELECTROANALOGUE will explore the realms of digital technology through a diverse range of events, installations and interventions.
Coal Drops Yard is the new shopping and lifestyle district in London’s King’s Cross. It will open its doors to the public on Friday 26 October 2018.
#LDF18
