Fountain of Technicolour Beads by One Bite Design at Clerkenwell Design Week 2026 – Courtesy of CDW.
Design. From 19 to 21 May, London’s most design-literate neighbourhood transforms into an open-air festival of ideas, objects and installations. Now in its 15th edition, Clerkenwell Design Week draws together world-leading interiors brands, emerging studios and independent makers across hundreds of events, talks and exhibitions — all within the EC1 postal code. Archipanic is a proud media partner. Here’s where to go.
- RELATED STORIES: Read more about Clerkenwell Design Week.
Church of Design
©2025 Sam Frost, courtesy of CDW.
The stunning St Bartholomew the Great returns as the Church of Design [EC1A 9DS], hosting a programme of talks curated by Katie Richardson. Roche Bobois, DEDON and MAGIS present their latest collections, while Norway makes its Clerkenwell debut with The Norwegian Boutique — a focused showcase of four pioneering Scandinavian brands worth seeking out.
Photo by Sam Frost ©2026, courtesy of CDW.
The standout installation here is Resonance by Fung+Bedford: four illuminated paper sculptures suspended within the church’s ancient stone interior. Hand-folded from single sheets of Tyvek up to eight metres long, each form is built up with aluminium armatures and integrated LED lighting. The folded geometry reads as almost impossibly delicate against the weight of the surrounding architecture — a well-judged tension between fragility and permanence.
Fountain of Technicolour Beads
Courtesy of CDW.
On Clerkenwell Green [EC1R 0DU], Hong Kong-based studio One Bite Design makes a thoughtful intervention with Fountain of Technicolour Beads, developed in collaboration with material partner Leigei Stone. The installation addresses colour blindness by replacing visual legibility with tactile differentiation: where colours may blur, the varied surface textures of the beads remain distinct. It’s a quiet but convincing argument that good design should speak to everyone — and that texture, not colour alone, can carry meaning.
BinSight Benches
Photo via IG, follow @aqg.design.
Across the design district, French designer Alexane Quenderff presents her five BinSight Benches — each constructed entirely from waste materials considered too difficult to recycle. A QR code on every bench links to an interactive quiz inviting visitors to identify the materials used. Functional, educational and quietly subversive, they’re among the more memorable pieces at Clerkenwell Design Week 2026.
British Collection at St. James Church
Claydon Console 7 by Lucy Gold x Barnby Design – Courtesy of CDW.
At the atmospheric St James Church [EC1R 0EA], the British Collection brings together some of the UK’s most interesting furniture and lighting brands — among them Another Country, Very Good & Proper and Fox & Furb — presenting new work in a setting that lends it a quiet gravitas.
Light at House of Detention
LoomLight by MIMstudio – Courtesy of CDW.
The underground House of Detention [EC1R 0AS] — a former Victorian prison — once again hosts Light, CDW’s dedicated showcase for local and international lighting brands. At the entrance, visitors are met by Loom Light, a 3D-printed sculpture by MIMstudios, AI Build and SEAM Design that draws on the optical language of Op Art. It’s a fittingly atmospheric opener for what lies below.
The Brew House
Courtesy of CDW.
Studio Egret West‘s Brew House pavilion makes a strong case for material ingenuity. Built from 600 Brew Bricks — produced by York Handmade from approximately 300 kg of waste coffee grounds collected from London cafés — and engineered in partnership with Simple Works, each unit uses 10% less clay and weighs 5% less than a standard brick. The result is a structure that wears its sustainability lightly, without making a spectacle of it.
The Secret Garden by Tiles of Spain
Courtesy of CDW.
In the garden of the Order of St John [EC1V 4JJ], architecture studio LA ERRERÍA has designed The Secret Garden for Tiles of Spain — a contemplative outdoor space structured around four parterres, each evoking one of the seasons. The inspiration is Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, and the design invites exactly the kind of unhurried wandering and conversation that the play celebrates. It’s one of the quieter pleasures Clerkenwell Design Week 2026 has to offer.
Haberdashers’ Hall
Courtesy of CDW.
New to the CDW venue roster this year, Haberdashers’ Hall [EC1A 9HX] — known here as The Luxury Edit — hosts the CDW Awards, talks and an exhibition dedicated to Italian design. It hosts the CDW Awards ceremony, talks, and an exhibition dedicated to Italian design. Outside, The Pulse of Becoming, by graduates Musab Umair, Amruta Ramesh Pullawar, and Sharath Binu, sees chia seeds sprouting from two crescent-shaped shells over the course of the festival, gradually turning the installation green. Life, slow and unspectacular, as medium.
Heidelberg Concrete Futures at evoHub
Photo via IG, follow @clerkenwelldesignweek.
At evoHub [EC1V 7DY], Heidelberg Materials opens its sample and exhibition space to visitors, presenting an original sculpture by Ashley Cluer and a modular 3D-printed concrete installation — both made using evoZero near-zero carbon captured cement — alongside a range of concrete design samples that explore the material’s aesthetic range: colour, polished finishes, exposed aggregate and roof tile applications.
The Charterhouse
Courtesy of CDW.
The Charterhouse [EC1M 6AN] hosts Recreatura by the 4-8 Collective: an immersive sound installation that guides visitors through two historic Clerkenwell sites via binaural recordings of local voices, memories and ambient soundscapes. Afterwards, visitors draw on ceramic tiles — a nod to the area’s architectural heritage — which are then placed within a growing cube installation in Charterhouse Square. Participatory, unhurried and genuinely moving, it’s one of the highlights of Clerkenwell Design Week 2026. The venue also hosts the Future Talent show, giving emerging brands a platform to make their mark.
