Launched more than two decades ago in 2003 by Sir John Sorrell CBE and Ben Evans CBE, London Design Festival (LDF) honours and advocates London as the number one design capital of the world. Having rightfully earned its status as one of the most exciting, innovative, and accessible seasonal festivals of the creative season, alongside London Fashion Week, Frieze Art Fair and the London Film Festival, LDF 2026 promises to be as exhilarating as ever.

On 12 September, LDF will return to the capital for eight days of innovative design across art, interiors, fashion and technology. But with so much going on, it can be tricky to choose which of the hundreds of installations across the city to see. Lucky for you, Luxury London has put in the legwork to find the must-see exhibitions and events of London Design Festival 2026. Here are our favourites. 

The V&A, South Kensington

Eunjo Lee

Setyawan. Image: The Peninsula

A collective family of museums, with a legacy entrenched in the country’s pioneering and creative history, the V&A is dedicated to the power and beauty of global creativity and design, as well as world-leading research and conservation. Its LDF schedule is packed with incredible exhibitions, experiences and educational programmes not to be missed. Projects this year will explore the theme ‘Awakenings’, with V&A x LDF bringing together artists working across performance, sculpture, digital and sound art to transform the galleries into spaces that examine the intersection of contemporary technologies and traditional craft.

Highlights include multimedia installation and performance project Image Syncers, located in the Design 1900-Now Galleries, which looks at how human bodies are beginning to mimic AI-generated movement. The Medieval & Renaissance galleries will be animated by Lovers Hold, sculptural furniture pieces that reimagine the classical plinth as a challenge to the invisibility of queer intimacy in the public space. The V&A’s Emerging Design Commission can be found in the Photography galleries: art-design unit Playfool have created The Server, an experimental game experience that reflects on human labour in the age of AI acceleration. 

Elsewere, Sender Unknown, a soft sculpture in the Jameel Gallery, fuses hand-embroidery techniques from Uzbekistan with a bespoke AI model to explore how cultural knowledge is communicated through technologies and generations. On 18 September, a Friday Late event will feature a range of emerging artists and designers with after-hours performances, workshops, installations, music and more.

From 12 September-18 October 2026 at V&A South Kensington, Cromwell Road, SW7 2RL. Visit vam.ac.uk.

Sanctum of Renewal at Hart Shoreditch

Cool, creative hotel Hart Shoreditch has teamed up with contemporary urban artist Mali Mowcka to create an immersive spatial installation, converting the hotel’s Uba restaurant into a ‘living temple’ where matter, energy, and perception are in constant movement. Named Sanctum of Renewal, it will consist of 160-200 suspended handcrafted wooden organic forms, emerging from the ceiling and descending into the space. Intertwined with soft translucent resin petals floating delicately throughout the installation, the work introduces a sense of lightness and contrast, creating an ethereal atmosphere.

The installation also draws on the Japanese concept of yūgen, a philosophy centred on the subtle and mysterious beauty that exists beyond what is immediately visible. As well as the installation, there will also be a range of in-house wellness and creative workshops taking place throughout LDF, each celebrating creativity, design and artistic expression. The diverse array of events includes an Artist Walk, Wooden Collage and Assemblage Workshop, (Saturday 12 September); Art, Space & Transformation: Panel Talk, (Tuesday 15 September); Material Narratives: Sculpting Wearable Forms, (Thursday 17 September) and Paste Up Street Art Workshop (Saturday 19 September).

From 12-20 September, Hart Shoreditch, 61-67 Great Eastern Street, EC2A 3HU. Visit hartshoreditch.com.

The Pangolin Shield by Studio Saar, The Strand

Image: Studio Saar

Inspired by the humble, scaley, and very cute pangolin – which just happens to be one of the world’s most trafficked animals – this imposing installation explores colonial legacies, power, ecological exploitation, and the movement of people and beings across borders. Consisting of a bamboo grid shell covered with traditional Indian police shields made from bamboo, and woven rain shields or ‘knups’ (utilised by farmers in north-eastern India), visitors are encouraged to reflect and examine the relationship between context, innovation and craft.

Layered like scales, the shields are reassembled as a protective canopy; experimenting with light and shade while providing collective shelter. By removing the police shields from their context of confrontation and state authority and bringing them in a functional symbiosis with the 'knups', the installation aims to disarm emblems of aggression, and encourage dialogue, empathy and community. Located on Strand Aldwych, the pedestrianised public space behind the Indian High Commission in the West End, close to the bust of Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister, the installation is a symbol for reflection: on colonial legacies, power, ecological exploitation, and the movement of people and beings across borders, past and present.

From 12-20 September 2026 at Strand, Aldwych, WC2R 1ES. Visit londondesignfestival.com.

St Paul’s Cathedral

Displayed within the grand, historic setting of St Paul’s Cathedral, the audiovisual installation, Soul, and immersive light sculpture, The Point of Unity, seek to bring contemporary light and media art into dialogue with the cathedral’s long-standing role as a place of worship, gathering and reflection. Both projects have been created by Ukrainian lighting designer and contemporary artist Mykola Kabluka, creative director and founder of Expolight, Ukraine’s leading lighting design and media art studio.

Experimenting with light as an artistic medium for reshaping the perception of architecture, space and human connection, Soul explores the moment when an internal thought begins to take physical form, tracing the space between contemplation and action, the spiritual and the physical, through a constantly changing composition. Soul will be projected on the facade of St Paul's Cathedral in the evenings.

The Point of Unity will make its UK debut following its debut at Burning Man last year. The immersive light sculpture explores human connection, presence and the interplay between aspiration and action. Conceived as a meeting point of earth and sky, the installation invites visitors to feel part of a larger, interconnected whole.

Evolving with its surroundings, by day, the mirrored surfaces reflect the sky, passing clouds and the landscape around it, while at night 3,500 fibre-optic points transform the sculpture into a field of stars. Custom optical filters break white light into shifting spectral patterns that move through space, creating continuously changing compositions, accompanied by a curated soundtrack that draws on astronomical data. Created by a Ukrainian artist amid Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine, the works carry a perspective shaped by a society living through rupture, uncertainty and profound transformation.

From 11-21 September, St Paul's Cathedral, St Paul's Churchyard, EC4M 8AD. Visit londondesignfestival.com.

Made x Barbican

To celebrate the launch of a new interiors collection in collaboration with the Barbican, interiors brand Made has created a cool and contemporary installation that aims to unite one of the country’s most recognisable architectural estates with the heart of the modern home. Delving into the archives of Barbican interiors, the porject is rooted in design history yet focused on modern living, with the new collection reinterpreting the interiors and features of the Barbican Estate. Drawing on archival research, original layouts and the pioneering work of designer Miriam Howitt, the 23-piece collection transforms architectural references into a range of furniture, lighting, textiles and accessories.

From 12-20 September, Barbican, Level G Hub Space, Silk Street, EC2Y 8DS, londondesignfestival.com

Wapping Hydraulic Power Station

This special project entices visitors to immerse in two spatial sound installations powered by L-Acoustics at Wapping Hydraulic Power Station: Feeling is Structure by Max Cooper and Chris Watson's Trent Falls.

Cooper’s spatial audio installation was first developed through a commission for a live performance at the Royal Albert Hall, while Feeling Is Structure investigates the relationship between physical form, perception and emotional experience, reconfigured as a 20-minute inhabitable sonic environment.

Watson’s sound installation guides listeners on a journey down the Humber estuary. Beginning at Goole docks by Trent Falls, where the rivers Trent and Ouse combine into the estuary, the piece follows the ebbing tide through the reeds and booming bitterns of Faxfleet nature reserve past the now disappeared Oxmardyke gate box. The estuary flows under the thunderous expansion joints of the Humber bridge and then alongside Kingston-upon-Hull accompanied by the screams of Hull Fair, the sonorous tones of the cathedral bells and the cheers of Craven Park during a Hull Kingston Rovers home game.

As the estuary broadens out, wading birds probe the mudflats, their calls merging into the distant ‘pipe' music of Saltend Chemical Park. At Spurn Point where the estuary flows into the North Sea the haunting siren songs of grey seals drift along with the rolling wave wash. Spatial sound works Lengua Desollada by Hollie Buhagiar and A Decade is a Long Time by Helen Lyon, a collaboration between L-Acoustics and the Alliance for Women Film Composers, will be selectively featured throughout the programming.

From 11-15 September, Wapping Hydraulic Power Station, Wapping Wall, E1W 3SF. Visit londondesignfestival.com.

Half the Sky, Online

If you don’t fancy even leaving your desk to join in the action, then this free bilingual online exhibit lets visitors ask pioneering women from history about their work, all from the comfort of their keyboard. Half the Sky consists of a wall of 24 pioneering women, each carved in plaster and ready to be asked about her work.

Free, online, and running throughout the festival, visitors are free to chat with the likes of Wu Zetian, who ruled Tang China as emperor in her own name; Ada Lovelace, who published the first algorithm written for a machine, and saw that computing could go beyond numbers; Junko Tabei, who stood on the summit of Everest; and Wangari Maathai, who planted a movement of 50 million trees and won the Nobel Peace Prize. Every conversation focuses on what she built, what she proved, what it cost her, and what she would say to someone attempting something hard today. Each woman speaks from a fact checked character card with linked sources, reviewed line by line and published as an open dataset, so what she says can always be traced to the record. Where history is uncertain, she says so.

From 12-20 September, online at halfthesky.app, and in the London Design Festival Partner Programme, londondesignfestival.com

Manufactory at Park Royal Design District Festival

As part of this year’s London Design Festival, Park Royal Design District (PRDD) will host Manufactory, a free two-day festival-within-a-festival boasting an exciting programme of exhibitions, workshops, open studios, activities, tours, art markets, and more. Designated a Creative Enterprise Zone, PRDD is home to a cluster of new and established designers and makers, who are thriving within repurposed buildings across diverse disciplines including millinery, art, furniture design, glasswork and sustainable fashion. 

Festival highlights include Chasing Nothing, a contemporary ballet set to electronic music by Berlin-based company DANCÆ, live music from local collective Meet in the Midi, and beginner's pencil foiling workshops at the London Centre for Book Arts.

From 11-12 September 2026, visit parkroyaldesigndistrict.com

Fleet Street Quarter

Bella Gomez

As an official design district partner, Fleet Street Quarter will celebrate its legacy of storytelling and print craftsmanship as the former centre of British journalism throughout the festival. From hidden courtyards to cutting-edge installations, the district’s programme offers a fresh perspective on a neighbourhood in transformation, one rooted in creativity and a rich design history.

Don’t miss Common Ground: Curated Cuonnection, an exhibition of works by Polish studios Zieta Studio, Pani Jurek and Katarzyna Krej, as well as The Craft of Less – Designing for Longevity, a conversation series by the Society of Designer Craftsmen. Those who would rather learn artistic skills can join Stack Magazine as they journey through 300 years of magazine making, while Bella Gomez will host a fun and accessible printmaking workshop for guests to create unique notebook covers inspired by the city’s architecture. 

From 10-18 September 2026, visit fleetstreetquarter.co.uk

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