London Design Festival 2026 reveals its first programme
The 24th London Design Festival will run from 12 to 20 September 2026, spreading across the city with a first tranche of projects that set traditional craft against artificial intelligence while picking at themes of migration, ecology and cultural exchange. The headline commissions include The Pangolin Shield, a bamboo pavilion on the Strand by Studio Saar and Atelier One that draws on pangolin scales and Indian farming shields; Made x Barbican, a furniture, lighting and textile collection by Miriam Howitt that reworks the estate's brutalist legacy; and the V&A's Awakenings, a set of commissions blending technology with handcraft.
For anyone tracking where interiors are heading, the festival remains the clearest read on the mood of British design, and this year's pairing of heritage craft with new technology hints at a season of work that is tactile and forward-looking at once.
IKEA's KOMPISHÄNG is furniture built for renters on the move
IKEA has introduced KOMPISHÄNG, a 13-piece collection of affordable, portable furniture aimed squarely at 20 to 28 year olds living in rented city homes. The range was developed after the brand spent time with young adults in central London, watching how they improvise storage and choose pieces they can carry between flats. Made from solid pine, powder-coated steel and canvas, the tool-free line-up includes a desk with a built-in carry handle, stackable stools and a hanging wardrobe that folds down into a bag.
KOMPISHÄNG goes on sale globally in August 2026, and it is a pointed answer to a question the trade keeps asking: what does good design look like when your home is temporary? The soft, natural palette of pine and beige with measured accents of red and green is meant to make a rented room feel settled rather than provisional.