When London Design Festival started in 2003, its aim was to promote London as the design capital of the world. Since then, the Festival has grown exponentially, with the 2019 iteration reaching 600,000 visitors and contributing an estimated £118m to the London economy.

The Festival prides itself on being democratic and, as such, events are mostly free and accessible to all. Sir John Sorrell CBE, chair of LDF, confirms that the Festival was ‘consciously designed to be public-spirited’.

The fact that one in six people in London work in the creative industries means it is a potentially overcrowded, vulnerable sector. There was Brexit, then the pandemic and now the cost-of-living crisis. The consequences could be catastrophic for the creative sector, which makes the Festival a beacon of hope. Ben Evans CBE, director of LDF, is unequivocal: ‘We want to ensure the Festival continues to support the design community, commissions and showcases new ideas, and reflects on the key issues so that the next 20 years are as fruitful as the past 20.’

Those eye-catching Festival posters over the years are the work of Domenic Lippa, a partner at the global creative agency Pentagram and design director of the LDF since 2007. This year, he marks the Festival’s anniversary with a graphic “murmuration” of dozens of small number 20s making up a huge 20.

The heart of the Festival and its official hub is, for the 13th year, the V&A. The theme this year is transformation, including renewal of household objects and the regeneration of our planet. R for Repair is a project led by Design Singapore Council and National Design Centre (Singapore) that aims to repair and renew household objects that might otherwise add to landfill.

If R for Repair offers practical solutions, Plasticity – a huge sculpture designed by Niccolo Casas, 3D-printed and made with Ocean Plastic® – challenges our ideas about transformation. Ocean Plastic is marine waste plastic intercepted by Parley for the Oceans’ plastic initiative. Parley addresses the threats being made towards the most important ecosystem on our planet in myriad ways, partly by cleaning up beaches but also by turning harmful waste material into new products. The hope is that Plasticity will prompt people to stop and think about repurposing harmful waste.

The V&A will also be home to a new project by French-Lebanese architect Annabel Karim Kassar, who has reconstructed the façade of Bayt K, a traditional Beiruti house damaged during the 2020 warehouse explosion that destroyed large parts of the city. Kassar’s architecture studio was restoring Bayt K when the explosion happened and the reconstruction will explore the effects of the disaster on the city. The stone structure with arched windows supported by wooden beams will also be immersive and visitors will be encouraged to enter and touch the façade.

Away from the V&A, the Festival takes place across 12 Design Districts, including Clerkenwell, Mayfair, Shoreditch, Bankside and Greenwich Peninsula. Last year, Yinka Ilori transformed Tottenham Court Road into the UK’s largest outdoor public artwork; this year the New Zealand-born, Rotterdam-based designer Sabine Marcelis, celebrated for experimenting with material and colour and winner of Wallpaper* magazine’s Designer of the Year 2020, has been commissioned to create a large-scale public seating scheme simply entitled Swivel.

From the start of LDF until November, a series of seats will be placed in St Giles Square, a new public space at the base of Centre Point. Marcelis wanted to ‘inject a bit of colour and fun into this urban environment’. A ball-bearing mechanism ensures the stone seats gently rotate, encouraging strangers to interact – or to let people ‘create a moment of pause for themselves’.

The theme of taking a moment to sit and engage with one’s surroundings continues in Greenwich Peninsula. It’s the newest Design District and home to Design London, which is doubling the size of its floor space due to the success of last year’s inaugural fair. There is plenty of outdoor space allocated to sitting around and admiring the view of the Thames –and plenty of designer furniture to try out. HAY will be displaying the latest iteration of its outdoor range, the Palissade Park Bench collection, designed by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, while Italian outdoor manufacturer Urbantime will showcase its own metal outdoor furnishing, designed by Basaglia + Rota Nodari.

Switching to interior seating, Christian Watson, a rising British design star, returns to Design London with the launch of his new collection, Abinger. A traditionally trained furnituremaker, Watson often uses cork, which is tactile, pliable and highly sustainable since the bark can be removed from the tree without damaging the trunk. The Abinger dining chair, for example, is crafted in London and uses 100 per cent British wool, bouclé fabric and sustainable Portuguese cork.

Alongside international pavilions at Design London showcasing brands originating from Thailand, Portugal, Denmark and Korea –Korean lighting company AGO will create an installation using its playful tubular lighting system Cirkus Chandelier – there will be discussions to spark debate about design (Sabine Marcelis will be in conversation with Bethan Ryder discussing her work on 22 September).

While there are plenty of solo designers presenting their work at LDF, the spirit of collaboration persists. For this year’s Festival Commission, Portuguese company LSI Stonewill work alongside architectural practice Stanton Williams and engineers Webb Yates with Lisbon-based experimental design. Together they will create Henge in Greenwich Peninsula, a circular installation described as ‘a participatory sculptural form’ that will include sound design.

As Ben Evans says, ‘The design and creative sector in London and the UK has enjoyed a golden period this century. An extraordinary rush of ideas fed by a steady migration of world-class talent made London the global capital it now is.’

The golden period might be under threat, but London Design Festival offers nine days to indulge in the brilliance of the creative industries.

London Design Festival runs from 17-25 September; londondesignfestival.com