GDF DAY 1: OUTER FORCES

Details

As part of the London Design Biennale programme, from 10 - 12 June 2025 the Global Design Forum will host a series of talks and panel discussions at King's College London, under the title ‘Design and the Invisible’. How can we dismantle outdated systems and forge radical new ones? Join Samuel Ross, Mariana Mazzucato, Kengo Kuma and dozens more of the world’s most exciting designers and thinkers for a series of talks that will rethink the hidden powers shaping our world.

10 June | DAY 1: OUTER FORCES
Design under external pressure. Vanishing resources, hardening borders, societies fractured by conflict and inequality – designers today operate against a backdrop of extraordinary external pressure. We confront these seemingly immovable forces, platforming innovators who are not just pushing the limits, but scaling and redefining them.

Kengo Kuma and Leonie Bell in conversation with Will Gompertz.
Visionary Japanese architect Kengo Kuma joins Leonie Bell, director of V&A Dundee, the groundbreaking structure Kengo designed as Scotland's design museum, inspired by the dramatic Scottish coastal landscape. Chaired by the director of London's Sir John Soane's Museum and former arts editor of the BBC, Will Gompertz, this conversation will dissect how materials can be transformed into vessels for cultural memory and unveil the hidden dialogues between a building and those who use it. Click here to register.

Scarcity and Power: The geopolitics of resource extraction.
Behind every smartphone and electric vehicle lie hidden worlds of dwindling resources: contested mines, lithium deserts, and tonnes of e-waste discarded yearly. Will scarcity always fuel inequality or can design transcend it?
Speakers include designer Mále Uribe Forés, Shiraz Bayjoo, whose work often explores the intersection of colonial extraction and ecological erasure within enslaved and plantation landscapes of the Indian Ocean and Bridget Storrie, a postdoctorial teaching fellow at the Institute of Global Prosperity at UCL.
Chair: Dalia Gebrial, Lecturer in Geography and Social Justice at King’s College. Click here to register.

My Generation: Can design bridge the age gap?
With ageing populations in some countries and youth booms in others, demographic changes are shaping realities across the world. But is design healing or perpetuating the generational divide?
Hear from industrial designer and gerontologist Patricia Moore, Zak Agnew, who currently sits on the Design Museum's Youth Board and manages partnerships and projects for inclusive creative careers resource Creative Lives in Progress, and Anne Wynne, associate at DSDHA Architects.
Chair: Priya Khanchandani, an independent design curator, writer and broadcaster, who was until recently head of curatorial at the Design Museum. Click here to register.

Visit the Global Design Forum Eventbrite Page to book your free spot.