Now in its 15th year, the London Design Festival is a celebration of creativity and innovation. We round up our favourite displays from the event
Our favourite exhibits from the London Design Festival
Every year, the design world turns its eager eyes to the London Design Festival (LDF), one of the world’s most influential design events attracting hundreds of designers with custom installations, and many more bright ideas.
A lot of the issues tackled at the event are not too dissimilar to our own challenges in New Zealand, including re-thinking a sustainable future and the demands of urban living, as well as a healthy dose of beautiful and inspiring designs.
Here are our picks of the exhibitions of note:
Mini living
Small car company Mini is revving up its commitment to compact designs through a housing initiative called Mini Living.The company is presenting prototype small spaces as a way of envisioning the future of cities, where space is tight and ‘downsizing’ is the ultimate buzzword.
The Urban Cabin designed by Sam Jacob Studio is their latest offering, which was revealed at the LDF, outside the Oxo Tower in Southbank.
It is home to a shared kitchen space with a counter that extends to the outside of the house, which is said to encourage a sense of community through food, a tiny library designed for a social book swap experience, and a hammock for lounging within the tiny blueprint.
Peter Pilotto’s townhouse takeover
The designers behind dynamic London-based fashion brand Peter Pilotto, Christopher De Vos and Peter Pilotto, have a new creative project hot on the heels of their runway show at London Fashion Week. The Townhouse Takeover sees a space at 3 Cromwell Place, Kensington, completely redecorated in their creative vision. Calming pastel tones, vibrant patterned details and quirky details fill out the space made to celebrate all aspects of design.
Reflection room at the Victoria & Albert Museum
London-based Australian light artist Flynn Talbot’s Reflection Room is an immersive experience that shines a light on The Prince Consort Gallery. Based at the world’s largest museum of decorative arts and design, the V&A, it once housed 30,000 textile samples.
The installation uses 56 custom-made gloss black lighting panels in gloss black, woven with LED lights in orange and blue hues. The result is a transformed space that is both futuristic and steeped in history.
Recycling the ocean
London-based designer Brodie Neill invented an entirely new material, which he calls ‘ocean terrazzo’ for the LDF. Using plastic that’s washed up on the beach, he’s created a durable and malleable textile from the waste that is sanitised, dyed and set into resin.
The installation at the ME London hotel sees Neill’s bench and a coffee designs with indented surfaces catch drips of water as they fall from the ceiling, creating a ripple effect in the small seat and table ponds.
The movement of the water is captured, magnified, and then projected onto the walls to look like waves washing across the room. It shows the potential for recycled material to have both a higher artistic and designer purpose.
Organic growth
These bizarre looking ceramics and glass art objects designed by Italian creative Matteo Cibic imagine the future of plants. The exhibition called Dermapoliesis on show at Seeds gallery envisions plants as an organic way to grow household products and textiles, from knitwear to rubber, without machinery.
With some of the displays puffing out perfume it’s an interactive way to imagine a utopia with organic expectations. Our favourite is Dermamallow, where a plant that looks like ice-cream sprouts bright red balls of bubblegum
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