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Global Design Forum is a curated thought leadership programme, celebrating design and the minds shaping its future.
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Global Design Forum
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A new international platform for Design in İstanbul.
In collaboration with People & Places & Ideas, Global Design Forum is launching a new programme of talks, installations and citywide experiences in İstanbul, taking place 13–16 May 2026.
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Design At / From The Seams: GDF returns to London Design Festival from 13–15 September 2025.
Global Design Forum returned to the V&A South Kensington's Lydia and Manfred Gorvy Lecture Theatre to tackle Design At / From The Seams.
The theme went beyond a singular anything – spotlighting interconnectedness between peoples, practices and the planet – examining radical interdependence that causes, affects and shifts paradigms in our designed world.
This edition was guest-curated by Samta Nadeem, in partnership with STIR.
Across three days, design was inspected, explored and unpacked through the words and works of diverse practitioners in design, architecture, technology, films, curation and more.
With thanks to our Curatorial Partner STIR, Programme Partner Lotus and Session Partners Sony, L-Acoustics, and ADFF:STIR.
As part of the London Design Biennale programme, from 10–12 June 2025 the Global Design Forum hosted a series of talks and panel discussions at King's College London, under the title ‘Design and the Invisible’.
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How can we dismantle outdated systems and forge radical new ones? Over three days, Samuel Ross, Mariana Mazzucato, Kengo Kuma and dozens more of the world’s most exciting designers and thinkers came together for a series of talks to rethink the hidden powers shaping our world.
Beneath every object, building and space lies an entangled network of invisible forces – financial flows, digital networks, contested borders and unspoken cultural codes that shape lives and govern the world.
Inspired by artistic director Samuel Ross’ Biennale theme, Surface Reflections, we pulled back the curtain on these unseen drivers of design. Leading designers, architects, economists, activists and technologists will shone a light on the impulses that come from within us, those that lie outside us and those that connect us, and envisage a future where design’s transformative power is freed from invisible constraints.
This edition was supported by our Digital Media Partner, STIR.
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London Design Festival
12–20 September 2026
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