World Design Congress 2025
This week we attended the World Design Congress 2025 held at the Barbican in London. This event has taken place in a different city every two years since 1959 to debate design issues of global importance. Hosted by The Design Council in collaboration with the World Design Organisation, the programme focused this year on the ‘Design for Planet’ which aimed to explore a range of powerful themes designed to inspire, challenge and mobilise the design sector for action.
With over 2500 delegates and 100 speakers, it was a great opportunity to get together with fellow members of the design community alongside businesses, policy makers and researchers to discuss how we can learn from the past and shape futures that last.
There were high profile speakers like Norman Foster and Thomas Heatherwick both calling for more liveable cities. Heatherwick reinforced the message of his Humanise campaign calling for buildings to be less ‘boring’ as visual interest helps reinforce longer-term attachment and use.
The programme focused this year on the ‘Design for Planet’ which aimed to explore a range of powerful themes designed to inspire, challenge and mobilise the design sector for action.
Architect, Indy Johar, offered some stark and uncomfortable facts around what will be required to survive in an inevitable +3 degrees world. He highlighted that fundamental changes will be required for food production, particularly our over-reliance on meat. He also suggested that our future energy demands, caused by climate change, will force us to significantly rethink our relationship with product ownership, clothing and the size of our living spaces.
The business sector seemed somewhat underrepresented at the event. Large corporations have the size and influence to make the radical changes required to really shift the needle on climate change. However, many of the initiatives spotlighted tended to be relatively low-impact and low-scale requiring low-investment but yielding high optics for their sponsors. These were all noble efforts, but scale is going to be required to have positive impact, which can only be achieved with collaboration. General Mills and Nestlé hinted at this, but it was clear from the other speakers that much more competitor collaboration will be required.
It was great to be part of an event where so many people championed the common goal of leveraging design to make the world a better place. Designers are natural empaths, storytellers, future thinkers, pragmatists and collaborators. Who better to help tackle the complex challenges we face?
For too long creativity has been the missing ingredient in the urgent conversations about the future of our planet.
Thomas Heatherwick, Designer and Founder of Heatherwick Studio
