Colour Lab: from waste to value

Colour Lab returns to Switchboard Studios for London Design Festival 2026, the third iteration of a successful LDF programme in Waltham Forest, this year developed in research partnership with Chroma Waste Lab from Australia, and following colour from waste to value. A three-day, waste-to-studio experience of exhibition, open studio, and hands-on participatory sessions, tracing how post-consumer textiles become new pigments, dyes, and inks. Visitors encounter waste differently here, not as the end of a material's life, but as the beginning of its next one. The exhibition presents both the science and the design applications: what the pigment looks like, and how designers and makers could put it to work. Building on Colour Lab 2025's nature-to-studio journey, this year's programme moves from origins to futures, gathered around a central question: “What is the value in waste colour, and who in our community holds the knowledge to unlock it?” Thursday 17 September / Origins. An opening evening for the design innovation community: the story behind waste-derived colour, why pigments carry histories, and what changes when we make them from what already exists. Exhibition preview, panel discussion and welcome drinks. Doors 6.30pm, panel 7.00–7.45pm, close 9.00pm. Free, no booking required. Friday 18 September / Material Encounters. Open studio, plus free drop-in swatching sessions for the public at 1.00pm, 3.00pm and 5.00pm. Hands-on with dyed experiments and ink trials, with the science and stories behind milled cotton pigment told by the researchers themselves. Open 12.00pm–6.00pm. Free, no booking required. Saturday 19 September / Future Palettes. Circular economies and environmentally conscious design, through two timed ticketed workshops. Open 12.00pm-6.00pm. Throughout, the exhibition remains free and open: material evidence of what colour can look like when it’s made differently. Saturday workshops — booking is essential, limited spaces. All welcome, no experience needed. Workshop 1: CMF Future Palettes with Laura Perryman How can pre-owned colour inspire design futures? Working with waste-derived pigments and CMF (Colour, Material & Finish) samples, participants build a “moodworld”: an atmospheric future palette speculating on where colour could go next, from footwear to architecture and everything between. Workshop timings 12.30- 2.30pm. https://www.tickettailor.com/events/lauraperrymancolourofsaying/2338437 Workshop 2: A Year in Colour - Autumn In-Nature Colour Experience A botanical foraging session at a local flower farm, looking at how nature’s colour shifts through the seasons and with climate conditions, and how place-based practice might shape future palettes. Led by Laura Perryman with Amber Fry at The London Flower Farmer, Coppermill Lane; meet at Douglas Eyre Sports Centre, London E17 7HE. Workshop timings 4.00- 7.00pm. https://www.tickettailor.com/events/lauraperrymancolourofsaying/2159672