The world is an orchestra of voices—branching, colliding, harmonising—speaking of life viewed from disparate, yet analogous, lenses. The voices, albeit comparable to each other in quantity, are covertly controlled in amplitude by social, economic and cultural components; while some are celebrated and put on a pedestal, others are silenced and forced into the margins of invisibility. How do we make space for those underrepresented and build rooms that are inclusive and inviting? How can every voice be acknowledged?

This thought yields the contemplative theme of the upcoming edition of the London Festival of Architecture (LFA): Voices. Architecture, beyond a process of creation, is viewed as one of listening to and staging these voices that shape the global landscape. Setting up camp in London from June 1 – 30, 2025, the architecture festival will follow up on its previous landmark 20th edition with an expansive lineup encompassing over 450 events, 55 exhibitions, over 80 workshops and 20 installations responding to this year’s thematic cues. “The festival has always been about testing new ideas and challenging the status quo,” Rosa Rogina, director of LFA, says in an official statement ahead of the festival. “Following our 20th anniversary, LFA 2025 is actioning the conversations we started—amplifying underrepresented voices and uncovering new perspectives on the city,” she adds.

STIR lends its voice as a distinguished media partner for the 2025 edition of LFA. The programme is guided by an estimable curation panel including Dhruv Gulabchande, Amy Frearson, Chetna Kapacee, Shahed Saleem, Satu Streatfield and Yẹmí Aládérun, with inputs from organisers and partners across the city. The underlying principle of the edition lies in the celebration of voices—emerging, global, marginalised and historical—resonates lucidly through the design events. Collections at this year’s festival will offer refreshing experiences and understanding of architecture through Emerging voices, Historical voices, Industry voices, Global voices, Local voices, Non-human voices and Marginalised voices. In the light of the current crises haunting the globe, various layers of the programme aim to nudge visitors to rethink architecture and its pedagogy, raising uncomfortable questions surrounding influence, representation gaps, inclusivity and community.

A series of new locations will inject the festival with an exploratory flair, ushering the audience to parts of London they may never have encountered before and familiar neighbourhoods inundated in a renewed expression. The featured destinations—Barnet, Brentford Golden Mile, City of London and Fitzrovia—will host events that explore evolving urban spaces, while six specially selected neighbourhoods including Art Park in Harrow, Clapham Junction, Fleet Street Quarter, London Cancer Hub in Sutton and lastly, Wood Green with Alexandra Palace will focus on community-driven and place-specific experiences. With a record-breaking number of over 80 workshops and more than 250 organisers, the London Festival of Architecture 2025 reflects growing grassroots participation and a commitment to accessibility, collaboration and empowerment. Public installations also return as key features fusing design, technology and public interaction, transforming London’s urban fabric into spaces of discovery and dialogue.

Some of the key highlights of the festival will materialise as engaging talks and tours through the animated city streets. Stories of history, cultural diversity, colonisation and heritage will echo in guided walks such as Empire and Legacy in Westminster, Migration Museum Walking Tour, Brixton and Stockwell with Rah – Commuting in the Communities, Stories from Sikh History in Westminster and Voices from The Docks. Talk sessions such as How are you invested in your heritage?, Remembering Partition: Legacy of 1947 and Culture in Crisis: Heritage Preservation through Sound, Song and Storytelling will buttress these lines of thought. Other dialogues will look towards the future with anticipation, hope and responsibility. Amy Frearson and THISS Studio will present a special edition titled Chit Chat + Cicchetti – The Ideal City, where a series of speakers exchange ideas and visions of an ideal city. The Circular Kitchen: A celebration of food, community voices, and sustainable design, Youth at the Helm: Shaping Public Spaces Through Co-Design, Infill-trate: The Voices Shaping Housing’s Future and Young Voices Shaping Playful Spaces delve into the ideas of sustainability, the significance of youth communities in carving spaces and the future of housing in London.

Workshops at LFA 2025 reflect a strong emphasis on community, sustainability, accessibility and creative expression. Buzzing Barnet – an urban rewilding workshop, will encourage urban rewilding by creating Buzz Stops with pollinator-friendly plants grown by locals, while also guiding participants in crafting model pollinators from upcycled materials. In Camden, Housing is not enough! will explore the legacy of social housing through walks, art and discussion on wellbeing in the built environment. Sound, place and creativity will come together in Make a Sound, offering an immersive backstage experience and audio composition at artsdepot. Workshops such as DisOrdinary Architecture 18th Birthday Party and The Street Where I Live will focus on inclusive design and empowering communities, especially youth and disabled voices, to shape equitable, imaginative urban futures.

Studio Lates returns as a vibrant part of LFA 2025, transforming Thursday evenings across areas like Clerkenwell, Shoreditch, Southbank and Fitzrovia into hubs of creativity and conversation. Highlights include Building Stories by Metropolitan Workshop, an open studio inviting the public to reflect on inclusive design; Sessions by Narrative Practice and Fletcher Priest Architects, offering one-to-one mentoring to underrepresented voices in architecture; and Build Your Own Party (BYOP) with Studio Bark and U-Build, a participatory event combining modular construction with hands-on sustainability demos. Broader conversations around housing and community will unfold through The Davidson Prize 2025 Awards Ceremony, spotlighting innovative residential strategies. The Aylesbury Voices exhibition will capture the lived experience of a South London estate in transition. Themes of place, identity and resilience continue with Voices of Abuse, a moving exhibition examining architecture's role in trauma and recovery.

As LFA2025 approaches, it is accompanied by a timely invitation to reimagine how we design, inhabit and care for our city. With this year’s theme, the curators urge the spectators to carefully examine both the visible and unseen forces shaping built environments and champion approaches that prioritise inclusivity, sustainability and wellbeing. Through creative collaborations and grassroots action, LFA 2025 hopes to harbour ideas and practices that question and subvert—voices asking how we can co-create cities that are equitable, joyful and truly emblematic of all who inhabit them.