London Design Festival 2016: eOffice’s Top 3
This year’s London Design Festival (LDF) allowed us to explore a range of dynamic and innovative installations and design projects from some of the best creative talents. Over the Festival period, the eOffice team was excited to visit a number of events taking place across London and encompassing a wide range of design disciplines. With so many remarkable and interesting exhibits, it was hard to pick our favourites. Nevertheless, we were able to narrow down three favourites.
100% Design
Our first stop was 100% Design,the UK’s largest design trade show. This year’s edition took place at Olympia London, where we enjoyed insightful talks, 100s of leading exhibitors, plenty of networking, but above all, we were blown away by the innovative office furniture designs and interior concepts.
Mini Living, by Asif Khan
Architect Asif Khan created a three-part exploratory piece for Mini that looks at architectural solutions for urban living challenges. Three locations were identified as underused public spaces on the busy streets of Shoreditch. Each of the new “forest” environments offers new areas for people to convene and socialise. The spaces contained plants which visitors could take home during the festival.
At the Square next to Shoreditch Fire Station, a long communal table has been installed; in Charles Square, new stepped seating has become a place for people to work; and where Old Street meets Pitfield Street, an elevated room offers a secluded green space.
Designjunction 2016
We finally visited Designjunction in King’s Cross, at the heart of today’s entrepreneurial design and architectural community. The theme this year was ‘Immersed in Design’. Prior to LDF, the international design show had announced its relocation to a new long-term home in King’s Cross, marking the next chapter for Designjunction and the creation of the King’s Cross Design District.
This year’s show hosted distinct exhibition sites against the industrial backdrop of King’s Cross: The centrally located Granary Square, featuring ten custom exhibitions for headline sponsored projects and installations; Cubitt, a two-floor pavilion in Lewis Cubitt Square, with a strong trade focus, featuring the best in contemporary lighting in the ‘lightjunction’ as well as furniture from international design brands. Key brands included Haberdashery, Lindholt, Northern Lighting, String, Kirkby Design, Modus and Rubn.
