Design News – Clerkenwell Design Week

6th October 2018
White Arbor style kitchen

When it comes to foretelling future trends, a great place is international trade shows. Not only does it attract a close-knit community of leading creative brands and designers, but it acts as a future-gazing tool for all the high street trends that lay ahead for the next couple of seasons. One great show for trend watching is Clerkenwell Design Week, which is now in its ninth edition and showcases a series of showroom events, exhibitions and creative installations – all confined to this small, bright corner of London. This year’s event ran from Tuesday 22 to Thursday 24 May and attracted 34,060 attendees from the international design community.

We experienced the best of the festival back in May and have shortlisted the headlines for you.

A prevailing theme throughout the fair was sustainability and this was showcased through several installations. Firstly, Pipe Line by graduate designer Lou Corio Randall, who created street furniture in different locations throughout Clerkenwell. The street furniture was made using bent steel tubes and finished in bright pink, the signature colour of Clerkenwell, allowing it to become a natural part of the cityscape. The pieces included benches and bicycle racks, bent into artistic and functional shapes.

Another brand promoting sustainability was a group of architects and designers, TDO Architecture, Studio 8Fold and Studio DA. Their brief was to create way-finding structures made of polystyrene, all designed to demystify the stigma around this humble material. Despite being seen as harmful to the environment, polystyrene is actually made up of 98 per cent air, making it highly sustainable and 100% recyclable.

The structures included cleverly conceived beacons and thresholds, all used with materials diverted from landfill. 

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TDO Architecture, Studio 8Fold and Studio DA at Clerkenwell Design Week.

Another headline installation from the festival was Hakwood’s ‘Behind Closed Doors’, which was a 3.2m high structure designed and fabricated by Shape London, a Design Studio. The pop-up street-scape, located at the entrance to Spa Fields, drew its inspiration from the Dutch home of Hakwood as well as South East London where Shape is based. Each house included a small door revealing a series of miniature interiors designed by various architects, demonstrating that any interior décor is an open door for creative inspiration.

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Hakwood’s ‘Behind Closed Doors’ on display at Clerkenwell Design Week 2018.

The takeaway from the installation was cleverly stamped on the back, “Doors will be opened to those who are bold enough to knock”.

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“Doors will be opened to those who are bold enough to knock” – Hackwood, Clerkenwell Design Week.



If sustainability and creative freedom were two leading trends for CDW 2018, then we are excited to see how the next months and years play out.

If you want to see more social highlights from Clerkenwell Design Week, you can search the #CDW2018 hashtag on Instagram.

For more design inspiration, request a copy of our 80-page brochure HERE or browse our blog and page for recent case studies. Alternatively, book a complimentary consultation HERE in your local Harvey Jones showroom to discuss your kitchen design with our expert designers.