Clerkenwell Design Week 2024 is returning for its 13th edition, from 21st to 23rd May. Every year, this three day design event transforms the rustic and charming British locale into a celebration of forms and colours. After last year’s success and fanfare, mobs of design professionals and patrons are expected. But what remains most exciting is the quirky installations that surprise you and what new innovations brands have to offer.

With Salone del Mobile 2024 concluding just a few weeks ago, there is a fair idea of what’s trending. Yet, Clerkenwell Design Week 2024, shall either confirm these conclusions or provide alternative perspectives. Here is what we are looking forward to most:

Three Promising Installations
at Clerkenwell Design Week 2024

Stay Playful (When No One Feels Like Playing)

Spa Fields, Northampton Road, EC1R 0DF

Jordan Cluroe and Russell Whitehead’s interior works are vibrant, warm and inviting. Think Art Deco and Bauhaus meets Contemporary Curves. Their oeuvre is largely inspired by their passion for inclusion and a spirit to be unapologetically themselves. At Clerkenwell Design Week 2024, the pair will be curating a vintage helter-skelter that draws inspiration from Jordan’s early days working at a fairground in the Black Country Living Museum and Russell’s childhood fascination with kitsch ornaments from his grandmother’s home.’ However, the duo claims this design is an unusual direction for them.

Is it an iteration of ballet poses? Is it a parametric form? This render of Gatekeepers raises quite a few questions. But it’s not the first time. Only recently, its predecessor, SPIRITS, debuted at London Design Week. Inspired by coral textures and naturally occurring organic, the Gatekeeper by Duffy London & Orsi Orban is a hard-to-miss and harder-to-skip at Clerkenwell Design Week 2024. It is a series of sculptures that imbue a sense of movement. Gatekeepers is designed using combinations of mathematical surface calculations and 3D design tools, and is befitting creation for the city.

Gatekeepers

St John’s Gate, EC1M 4BU

Jestico + Whiles x Bolon

Sutton Yard, 65 Goswell Rd, EC1V 7EN

Bolon is collaborating with their neighbouring interior design studio, Jestico + Whiles to come up with an installation in their shared courtyard. With technical lighting guidance from Studio Fractal and Architainment, Bolon’s woven flooring shall play canvas to an immersive experience. The piece transforms into a light installation at night that visitors will be able to walk through, interact with, and even reassemble. Also, the spectacle will be made out of Bolon’s flooring off-cuts, keeping sustainability in mind. But what’s the trick to its permeability? Only time, Bolon, Jestico + Whiles and Studio Fractal and Architainment can tell.

Brand Showcase: What’s New at
Clerkenwell Design Week 2024?

Bene

Build a Fort: Office Version

‘Flexibility’ in offices is often restricted to employee’s freedom to use different spaces on a floor plate. POINTS proposes a compelling concept: the freedom to use the same space differently. It is a modular and free-standing system that can effectively respond to changing needs. POINTS can be easily dismantled and reused in another building after relocation. Aesthetics can be switched up, too – from fabric infills to veneers to slats and more.

Orangebox

Hyper-Real or Otherworldly?

At Clerkenwell Design Week, Orangebox in collaboration with Logitech is bringing Project Ghost to revolutionise video conferencing. The technology fit inside a booth will create a hyper-realistic render of the caller on the screen, making digital eye contact feel like real-life. Orangebox will also unveil their new task chair, Recur. Its sensuous curved back and (claimed) light-weight has us excited!

Fritz Hansen

Bringing the S-Candy

Alongside hosting events at their showroom, Fritz Hansen is set to bring fresh launches to Clerkenwell. The plush Plenum Cabin, eclectic Pluralis table, sleek Little Friend, and Tradition are all part of the debuting troop.

Hush-Office

Efficiency & Style

Hush Office will reveal three new products: HushFree.L, HushSpot and HushWall. HushSpot is a workbench that comes with built-in functions such as optimised storage. On the other hand, HushWall is a multimedia unit on wheels.

Sedus

Office Comfy

Sedus’ new releases tether at the border of ‘official’ and ‘casual’, take the se:living sofa system as an instance. It has a strong, soft form but is light-weight. se:living also inculcates concealed electric outputs at its base. The curvaceous se:flair swivel chair is shape-shifter, while se:lounge light chair symbolises corporate relaxation.

MIDJ

Shapes and Shades

MIDJ is bringing its signature form game to Clerkenwell. The almost trapezoidal Tosca seats and stools designed by Paola Vernier shall mark their presence in the UK. The conical Plissé table designed by Paola Navone and the Amelie armchairs designed by Roberto Paoli will take centre stage.

Milliken

Dreams in Carpet

Painted Garden by Milliken superimposes botanical silhouettes on geometric patterns. Here, art meets nature and creates an aesthetic of two overlapping worlds. On the other hand, the Tracing Landscapes carpet uses a richer colour palette to interpret a bolder dream. In either collection, the brushstrokes are a commendable detail.

Forbo Flooring

Covered in Cocoa

Forbo Flooring’s Marmoleum is an independent linoleum flooring line that is made of 97% natural raw materials, 61% of which are rapidly renewable. Expanding this ingenious product further, the brand will exhibit its newly refreshed Cocoa collection under Marmoleum. The aesthetic of this product attests to modern aesthetics: granular, muted and impactful. 

Object Carpet

Conscious Carpets

Although Object Carpet isn’t launching additions, their collaboration with the organisation Healthy Seas remains as good as new. From their repertoire the mono-material carpet NEOO or VELAA, a carpet made from old fishing nets in collaboration is a core representation of their sustainable ideology.

Interface

Just Natural

Flooring brand Interface is celebrating Clerkenwell Design Week 2024 with a pre-launch preview of its new carpet tile and LVT collections, Etched & Threaded and Earthen Forms. According to the team, ‘these collections embrace the power of nature to help you focus-in, or kick back zone-out.’ Intrigued?

VitrA Bathrooms

Ceramic Sights

After Milan Design Week, VitrA Bathrooms is set to present another version of their hit ‘Re-Ceramic’ installation at Clerkenwell Design Week 2024. The showcase will yet again feature products from Tom Dixon’s Liquid collection and their almost fully recycled washbasin collection (M-Line). The cherry on top? New tile collections and tap displays.

Ideal Standard

‘The Sweet Bathroom Life’

At Clerkenwell Design Week 2024, Ideal Standard is launching La Dolce Vita, their newest collection that fuses sharp lines with nature-inspired forms. From wash basins that appear to be ‘blooming’ to the sculptural shape of the bathtubs, this collection is juxtaposition well done. Finesse Collection (bathroom furniture) and new add-ons to the Atelier Collection will also be part of their showcase.

Humanscale

25 Years of Freedom

Humanscale has a lot to celebrate this Clerkenwell Design Week 2024. From flaunting its recently announced B Corporation™ (B Corp™) certification and celebrating 25 years of their signature product, the Freedom Chair to allowing visitors a sneak peak of their yet-to-be launched Freedom Ocean chair, a pop-up at the festival shall encapsulate all their exciting achievements. Alongside, Freedom 25 (a limited edition of the iconic Freedom Headrest) will also be showcased.

Arper

Sustainable Design is Possible

Arper is out with their latest Catifa Carta, designed by Lievore Altherr Molina. With its redesigned shell crafted from PaperShell, an innovative material derived from composite wood leftovers, Catifa Chair exemplifies innovation. This advancement significantly minimizes the environmental footprint of the Catifa Carta by capturing carbon dioxide. When the product reaches the end of its lifecycle, the material can be transformed into biochar, effectively preserving the CO2 stored during earlier phases of its existence.

iSiMAR

The (Z)aha Effect!

At Clerkenwell Design Week 2024, iSiMAR will be showcasing their latest TOPOS Collection incepted by Zaha Hadid Architects. Conforming to the archetypal parametric form, the icon Zaha Hadid was known for, these outdoor pieces present an ode to her genius. At the same time, the TOPOS Collection is also an unusual commentary on outdoor furniture. 

True Design

All things Woody and Special

TRUE Design will be presenting two of their latest collections at Clerkenwell Design Week 2024. One, Essens, a family of wooden furniture designed by Norm Architects that is minimalistic in the true sense of the concept. What’s worth noting is the collection’s innovative interlocking mechanism. Second, is the Lisa chair, which comes as a relief to those tired of seeing the same four forms in chairs.