From 12 to 20 September, it returns as the world’s design capital for the 24th edition of the London Design Festival Twenty-four years ago, Sir John Sorrell and Ben Evans had a simple and ambitious idea: to turn London into an unmissable destination for international design. The first Festival opened on 25 March 2003 at Bloomberg, with the support of the design world, education and London institutions. Since then, London Design Festival has become the blueprint for design weeks around the world, and continues to be so. The 24th edition runs from 12 to 20 September 2026. Nine days in which the city hosts presentations, installations, exhibitions and conversations that confirm London as the global capital of creativity. In 2019, the Festival welcomed 600,000 visitors from over 75 countries, numbers that speak to the reach of an event capable of engaging designers, institutions, companies and general audiences with equal force. Dates to put in the diary Among the most anticipated openings: Molteni&C on 17 September, and Porro, from 12 to 18, with a set design by Piero Lissoni and new projects by Nao Tamura. Appearances that confirm the Festival as one of the preferred stages for the big names in international design. At the heart of Shoreditch Design Week, from September 15 to 20, transforming East London into the largest official design district for the London Design Festival, Material Matters London returns for its fifth edition at UNLOCKED Shoreditch, a multi-level former industrial warehouse on Curtain Road. Not to be missed: the Hand, Code, Matter installation by Matrix Design, bringing together eight recent graduate architects exploring how hand-making and artificial intelligence can work together; the return of the Only Natural International Student Design Competition; the Café Conversations programme with Thought Leadership Partner Berghaus; and the Negroni Talks with Fourth Space on 16 September. Studios to watch include Zieta Studios, Pani Jurek Studio, Studio Gonzalo Bascuñan, Benchspace, Sunday Light, Bo Gyeom Kim, Olivia Webb and Deniz Beck Partners. FRONT with Biomason, Mimmik Tile @ Material Matters London Design, movement and community On 17 September at 8.30 am, outside Shoreditch Town Hall, Morrama launches the second edition of the Out Of Office (OOO) Run Club, in partnership with TDC PR and Shoreditch Design Week. A 5K through the streets of East London, open to runners and walkers alike, conceived as a genuine alternative to traditional networking: no crowded showrooms, no noisy parties, just authentic connections among designers and creatives on the move. Design journalist and runner Roddy Clarke leads the group. Participation includes post-run breakfast and coffee, and access to the Shoreditch Design Week exhibition. Out of Office (OOO) Run Club in partnership with TDC PR and Shoreditch Design Week Design and the climate crisis On 14 September at 5.30 pm, at Nesta’s space at 58 Victoria Embankment, Design Declares, a growing group of designers, design studios, agencies and institutions here to declare a climate and ecological emergency founded by Jo Barnard of Morrama, hosts a screening of People’s Emergency Briefing, a 50-minute documentary drawn from an emergency briefing delivered by climate experts to MPs in Westminster in November 2025. Nine of the UK’s leading scientists and experts present the latest evidence on climate change and biodiversity loss, with direct implications for extreme weather, food security, health and cost of living. A discussion facilitated by Tony Elkington – a designer-facilitator bringing people together in the Northern Thames Bioregion to build community resilience and regenerate nature – follows, aimed particularly at those working in the creative and innovation industries. The event is open to all; minimum recommended age 16. The People’s Emergency Briefing Nesta is an independent research and innovation foundation, established in 1998 in the United Kingdom, to promote social progress by designing, testing and scaling solutions to the biggest challenges of our time. They are kindly welcoming Design Declares into their space to screen this important film and bring those working in, and with, the design industry to consider how we can respond to the themes highlighted in the film. London Design Festival 2026, London, 12-20 September.
