WikiHouse 4.0

The world’s first open source, digitally-printed house will be built in Central London. The WikiHouse is a low-energy house which anyone can download, adapt, ‘print’ and assemble in a few days, with no construction skills, and for less than £50k. Led by Arup, Zero zero and The Building Centre.

This isn’t listed as service design but 3D printing has lots of scope for services to be designed around it.

Free installation
9.30am – 5.30am, Monday – Friday, Plus additional evening and weekend events.
www.buildingcentre.co.uk
www.wikihouse.cc/about

The Building Centre
Store Street South Crescent
26 Store Street
WC1E 7BT

Image from LDF website

Restless Futures: Central Saint Martins

Restless Futures showcases a global mix of key recent Central Saint Martins graduates who are shaping future design practice. The exhibition is designed around the Restless Futures themes: disruptive technologies, expanded boundaries, no more stuff?, and democratising innovation.

Each of the designers will speak about their work during the show. For dates and times, click here.

Free exhibition
10am – 6pm, Tue to Fr; 12pm – 5pm, Sat & Sun; 10am – 3pm Mon (from 3pm closed for a private event)
+44 (0)20 7514 2399
Restless Futures website

Lethaby Gallery
Central Saint Martins
Granary Building
1 Granary Square
King’s Cross
London
N1C 4AA

Images from LDF website

A designer’s guide to 3D printing

A look at current and future opportunities and legal threats of 3D printing for designers. Hosted by design law experts Wragge Lawrence Graham, the panel includes Jonathan Rowley, design director of Digits2Widgets, Martin Darbyshire, CEO of tangerine, and Tim Brown, co-founder of Three Over Seven.

Ticketed Talk / Seminar
14:00-15:30
16 September 2014

Seminar Room Three
V&A
Cromwell Road
SW7 2RL

Tickets & LDF listing here.
Image from LDF website.

Beyond Design: Creating Emotional Relevance

Dismissing design as we know it, Branko Lukic – thought leader, author and designer – shows us that the future of design lies in a single-minded focus on emotional relevance.

Free Talk / Seminar
Tuesday 14:30-15:30
http://www.nonobject.com

Lydia and Manfred Gorvy Lecture Theatre
V&A
Cromwell Road
SW7 2RL

Product design has existed over thousands of years as a tradition fundamentally rooted in identifying and fulfilling basic human needs. However, as society and technology have evolved, so have our needs and expectations; products no longer need to be simply functional, but also stylish and current. Today, the design industry creates products, whether physical or digital, which flawlessly merge functionality with aesthetics. With an ever-faster pace of business requiring a constant churn of new product releases, there is an ocean of “perfect” products out there. But despite this plethora of perfection, humans struggle to find products they can relate to, products that feel truly meaningful them.

Dismissing design as we know it, Branko Lukic shows us that the future of design lies in a single-minded focus on emotional relevance. His approach shifts the paradigm of design with a fundamental belief that innovation in function and aesthetics is not enough. Ultimately, the best products reside beyond the object itself in the emotional connection with the user. In essence, the focus of design is no longer just the object, but the space between the object and the user – the space where experiences are defined and emotional relevance created.

In this engaging and provocative presentation, Branko demonstrates how traditional design theories can no longer be relied upon to create meaningful products and experiences, and how a new approach, focusing on emotional relevance, is needed going forward.

NONOBJECT is a California based design and branding studio. By focusing on emotional relevance the studio helps clients innovate and realize break-through experiences.

LDF listing here.
Images from LDF website.

Goldsmiths: Not This

Fifty young designers from the far reaches of the world have come together in London to challenge the requirements of design practice.

NOT THIS is an exhibition of their works that broaden the definition of ‘design’ beyond the realms of pretty posters and unusual chairs.

Free exhibition
Sat Sun 9am – 8pm, Mon Tue 9am – 9pm, Wed Thu 9am – 8pm
020 7739 6176
notthis.co.uk
www.gold.ac.uk/design/

The Ditch – Shoreditch Town Hall
380 Old Street
London
EC1V 9LT

For centuries designers have been mastering the art manipulation, driven by a consumerist society that constantly confuses want and need. ‘The Designer’ has been belittled, bowing their head in submission of a world that seeks to numb its primal instinct, feeding desire with false happiness.

A fear – greed dichotomy rules us, ‘The Designer’ is forced to glamourise the mundane and fetishise the basic and uninteresting. At London Design Festival you’ll find yourself staring at inanimate objects brainwashed into believing they’re somehow an extension of your sexual appendages. For years now, attendees of these ‘parades of the pointless’ have come to expect and feel comfortable with the discussion of ‘aesthetics’ and how the curvaceous chair that sits before them is a ‘socio-economic expression of contemporary furniture’.

Expect:
To question everything, to have your beliefs challenged, your ideas threatened and your mind expanded. To understand something you never understood before, to consider the inconsiderable and project yourself into worlds previously unchartered.

Don’t expect:
To gorp at an over-priced IKEA show room, to have buzzwords bound upon you like a User Experiencing, Content consuming, Web Guru sponge.

LDF listing here.
Image from LDF website.

Breaking Through: New projects from the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design Royal College of Art

This exhibition explores how current research by the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design at the Royal College of Art is translating into new products, services and systems – and breaking through to achieve impact in the market, public discourse and policymaking.

Free Exhibition
10am – 5.30pm
15-21 September 2014
+44 (0)20 7590 4444
www.rca.ac.uk/research-innovation/helen-hamlyn-centre

Royal College of Art
Dyson Building
Hester Road
London
SW11 4AN

LDF listing here.
Image from LDF website.

The Future Of Money

Method London’s creative director, Philip O’Dwyer, chairs a panel discussion on the future of money.

We will explore future scenarios, new technologies, and their impact on our everyday lives.

Speakers to be confirmed.

Talk / Seminar
Free

16 September
10.30-11.30

Lydia and Manfred Gorvy Lecture Theatre
Victoria and Albert Museum
Cromwell Road
SW7 2RL

method.com/work/method-money

LDF listing here.
Image from LDF website.