Doing London Design Festival

London is buzzing this week with a jam-packed schedule of indoor and outdoor creative and cultural events celebrating all things design. Yes, people, London Design Festival is back, and its 19th edition is the biggest yet. After a tumultuous year of lockdowns, separations and emotional hardship, the festival hopes to bring people together to promote London as the design capital of the world.

There are ten ‘Design Districts’ across the city — each one has its own unique personality — that play host to a cluster of events within a short walking distance from each other. You’ll encounter a wide selection of cutting-edge furniture, lighting as well as interior furnishings and collaborations with emerging and established designers. Explore the first zero-waste event, Planted, at Coal Drops Yard before heading east to the much-hyped Shoreditch Design Triangle, where you’ll find exhibitions presented by Adorno London and SCP.

At the V&A, meanwhile, look out for Medusa in the Raphael Gallery, a mixed reality project conceived by Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto and production studio and technology developer Tin Drum. Also on view here is the mesmerising Biomimicry Collection by Auroboros, a pioneering fashion house that merges science and technology with physical haute couture and digital ready-to-wear. At the heart of the collection is a couture gown worn by Ai-Da, the world’s first artist robot, that grows and falls apart in rhythm with its own life cycle.

Elsewhere, highlights include Yinka Ilori’s joyfully designed auditorium at Design London and his brilliant, bold ‘Bring London Together’ art project, which transforms zebra crossings on Tottenham Court Road and across the city into a kaleidoscope of colour.