London Design Festival 2012

First staged in 2003, the London Design Festival is one of the world's most important annual design events. The Festival program is made up of over 300 events and exhibitions staged by hundreds of partner organizations across the design spectrum and from around the world.

The Festival's four Landmark Projects include ARUP's BE OPEN Sound Portal, Nendo's Mimicry Chairs, Keiichi Matsuda's Prism, and Established & Sons' Bench Years installation.

• The Sound Portal is an alien black, rubberized structure home to finely tuned audio technologies aimed at delivering pure acoustic experiences to visitors in the middle of Trafalgar Square—one of the busiest and most aurally chaotic environments in London.
• Nendo’s project comprises a series of elegant chair installations appearing in various locations throughout the V&A Museum. Working in contrast to the often ornate museum surrounding, the studio has created a simple chair archetype made from pressed and punched metal which has been finished in white to give it an ethereal, almost ghost-like appearance.
• Prism presents an alternative view of London, exposing unseen data flows in the capital through a sculptural, immersive interface suspended in the V&A’s uppermost cupola. The installation is an investigation into the virtual life of the city, and our own often ambiguous relationship with the data that controls our lives.
• Lastly, the British furniture and lighting producer Established & Sons has created a series of one-off benches to mark ten years of the Festival. Each one is made from a different material and designed by a different designer. This family of benches is exhibited collectively in the Italianate surroundings of the John Madejski Garden at the center of the V&A.

We are, without a doubt, big fans of the work of Scottish-born, London-based Donna Wilson. She made her name in textiles, but has proved to be a whiz with furniture, too; Her collaboration with British brand SCP includes the

Mabel sofa

and her fantastic family of

Frank, Henry, and Ernest pouffes

and now Eadie, an armchair upholstered in Wilson's Nos Da fabric.