Design District Creates | The festival of ideas and innovation in London’s new creative hub

Design District is beginning with a bang. This September, London’s new hub for creativity officially opens on Greenwich Peninsula, marking the occasion with a packed programme of talks, events and exhibitions to complement September’s creative-industry events schedule, including London Design Festival and London Fashion Week.

Design District Creates gives the public the first opportunity to properly explore their pioneering new development in London: an architecturally progressive, dedicated centre for the UK creative industries, and the home of a dynamic community of makers from across the spectrum of creative disciplines, at all stages of their careers.

Two of the district’s 16 buildings will be given over to design and art exhibitions running into October – including Art Block, in collaboration with NOW Gallery – and, following the official opening of Design District on 15 September, a series of headline talks will take place on 21–23 September, exploring hot-button issues across design, fashion, craft and creative innovation. Other highlights include an e-bike pop-up for Polestar, a new hoarding project by artist Lois O’Hara, and Smile Plastics transforming Liz West’s installation Hundreds and Thousands into a collection of bespoke recycled-plastic tables to furnish Design District.
Talks programme
During London Design festival, Nick Compton of Wallpaper* curates a three-day programme of conversations with leading thinkers and makers from across the creative world, covering topics ranging from the post-pandemic future of collaboration to how to design for sustainability in the long term.

The talks take place in the Design District twice a day, at 2pm and 6.30pm, from Tuesday 21 to Thursday 23 September.

Tuesday 21 September

2pm – Big problems, bigger ideas: The promise of design activism
As an emerging generation of creatives seeks to make positive change in the world, actively tackling issues such as sustainability, diversity, representation, inclusion and accessibility, some of the leading figureheads discuss the future of design activism.

Chair: Suhair Khan – founder of activist design platform Open/Ended, former head of Google Arts and now part of Strategic Projects at Google.

Panel includes:

Sachini Imbuldeniya – founder and managing director, Studio PI, an agency representing photographers and illustrators of colour, and creative director of Bridge Studios.
Joseph Henry – senior project officer at Greater London Authority and co-founder of architecture diversity platform Sound Advice.

6.30pm – Coming unstitched: Can fashion fix itself?
Every facet of the fashion industry – design, marketing, retail, logistics – is under more scrutiny than ever before. As fashion faces a barrage of criticism from all angles – from environmental responsibility to identity politics – a panel of designers and fashion leaders considers what happens next.

Chair: Sarah Mower – ambassador for emerging talent at the British Fashion Council, head of its #NewGen committee and Vogue Runway’s chief critic.

Panel: to be confirmed
Wednesday 22 September
2pm – Collaboration: Make friends and influence people
Although ‘collab’ is a buzzword of contemporary consumer culture, attached to any number of cynical marketing ploys, genuine and constructive collaboration can lead to real, industry-changing innovation and insight. After the pandemic blew open the possibilities of digital collaboration, a forward-thinking panel explores the possibilities of physical and virtual collaboration in the modern creative world.

Chair: Nick Compton, contributing editor and former features director of Wallpaper*

Panel includes: Daniel Bailey – footwear designer and founder of footwear research Concept Kicks

4pm – Challenging Exhibition Waste: Exploring Regenerative Design
NOW Gallery’s cultural projects commissioner Kaia Charles, Bureau architect Roz Barr, and Smile Plastics’ Emily Skinner hold a panel discussion about ways of recycling and repurposing art-industry waste streams.

6.30pm – Craft, code, print and grow: Tools for modern making
In a world where ‘creative’ increasingly seems to describe digital work, it’s easy to forget the people who are involved in physical making. The panel discusses topics including the future of making and manufacturing at every scale, the sometimes strained relationship between design and technology, material research and the perilous temptation of nostalgia when it comes to craft.

Chair: Annie Warbuton – CEO of Cockpit Arts

Panel includes: Bisila Noha – ceramicist and co-director of arts and activism organisation Lon-art
Thursday 23 September
2pm – Creative spaces: Better places for better practice
The pandemic has changed how we create, how we collaborate, how we use spaces and what we need from them. How have our needs evolved and what does the ideal creative space look like, now and in future?

Chair: Nick Compton, contributing editor and former features director of Wallpaper*

Panel includes:

Roz Barr – founder of Roz Barr Architects designer of Bureau at Design District
Rosie Haslem – director of strategy and design collective Streetsense, former director of Spacelab, co-founder of Young Urbanists group, and visiting lecturer at Bartlett School of Architecture
Akil Scafe-Smith – master’s alumnus from the Bartlett Development Planning Unit and co-founder of interdisciplinary design collective RESOLVE

6.30pm – Deep time: Design for now and the seventh generation
Sustainability is a major issue in every creative industry, but lasting change demands more than quick fixes. How might we develop a model for sustainable design that recognises the need for the immediate change while accounting for impact seven generations from now?

Chair: to be confirmed

Panel includes:

Yosuke Ushigome – director at design-innovation practice Takram
Leanne Elliott-Young – co-founder and CEO of The Institute of Digital Fashion (IoDF), and Commune East
Exhibitions programme
Until 17 October, two of Design District’s buildings will be given over to free-to-attend exhibitions, showcasing the work of some of the most exciting emerging UK talents in art and design in London.