Create expectations: what to see at London Design Festival

From Brompton to Bankside, Park Royal to Shoreditch, the London Design Festival is taking over the capital once more. From September 12-20, a mind-boggling 250-plus events will take place — and they’re just the official ones.So where to begin? The good news is that it isn’t an insiders-only affair — anyone can attend almost anything. Make a beeline for South Ken resto The Lavery (4 Cromwell Place, SW7), the main setting for Brompton Design District. Curated by Alex Tieghi-Walker, this year’s theme is Perfectly Imperfect, where the journey of the design process is celebrated. “I wanted to create a programme where visitors could see experimentation, collaboration, research, performance and making in real time,” he says, delivering just that with a garage set to become a workshop. There’s also a strong roster of talks and while these are free, they are often ticketed, so it pays to plan ahead (the LDF website is well-categorised). So grab a comfy pair of shoes, a spare phone charger, and prepare to be satisfyingly stimulated.The fleeting landmarksIt wouldn’t be LDF without some thought-provoking (and IG-friendly) pavement-side drama. Following its debut at Burning Man Festival last year, The Point of Unity is an immersive light sculpture set to take over St Paul’s Cathedral alongside audiovisual installation Soul, both by Mykola Kabluka, a Ukrainian lighting designer. Skip dinner plans and head over with a friend late evening for the full effect. Over on Aldwych, the Pangolin Shield is a huge bamboo pavilion inspired by the world’s most trafficked mammal, covered with traditional Indian police shields and woven rain shields used by farmers in north-eastern India. Designed by Studio Saar and Atelier One, it explores colonial legacies, power and ecological exploitation. Behind closed doors — but still free to attend — is The Art of Sound, an immersive spatial sound experience at the Wapping Hydraulic Power Station (which has been closed to the public for the past 13 years). And not forgetting The Speaking Oasis by Azaz Architects at The Lavery), which spotlights innovative approaches to palm weaving across art, architecture and product design through a huge, suspended installation.The Barbican’s collaboration with MadeFelix SpellerThe cool collabsDrop by Sketch (9 Conduit Street, W1) to clap eyes on French artist Camille Walala’s transformation of the esteemed dining spot’s entrance. In situ until November 10, a large-scale painted installation takes inspiration from an abstract cityscape, finished with Groovy chairs by Pierre Paulin. Bisazza, the Italian mosaic tile specialist, has asked author Kate Watson-Smyth to redecorate its flagship store (60 Sloane Avenue, SW3), offering a thoughtful perspective on how the material can shape contemporary interiors.More than window shoppingIt’s nice to try before you buy, and Made’s installation at the Barbican of its just-launched collaboration with the centre allows you to do just that. The 23-piece collection will be on display around the Level G hub, with furniture, lighting, textiles and accessories all basking in the distinctive setting that inspired each piece. Over on Clerkenwell Green, SCP is toasting the opening of its relocated showroom designed with Nice Projects. To mark the occasion, the five floors of the handsome townhouse will play host to designs by Bitossi, Källemo, Shore Studios and Very Simple: Kitchen. At The Conran Shop, there’s a chance to snap up handpainted kinetic sculptures and large paintings by Isabel + Helen, a 3D creative studio regularly commissioned by Hermès and Moncler. Prices start from a not-unreasonable £250 for a Twister Series edition made by a rotating canvas. Isabel + Helen.Making and TalkingAs part of Brompton Design District, furniture-maker Byron Pritchard and his team are turning a garage in Cromwell Mews into a working studio. For Finding Form, a slab of sycamore will be shaped using only hand tools (and without drawings or predetermined designs); the curious are invited to drop by and observe the process. Got the making itch? Hop over to POW workshops, a new open workshop offering studio space and courses such as wood- and metal-working and DIY. Resident makers will be opening their studios and there will be discounts and prizes for workshops. Just round the corner is Taipa Lab’s brick-making workshop (57 Gorst Road, NW10). Visitors will learn how to mould and press their own brick, inscribing each one with their name before adding it to an ever-growing collective tower. For a pursuit that’s just as analogue — but more poetic — Qloud’s workshops at the Battersea Power Station branch of Moleskine include calligraphy, illustration, collage and drawing (from £20). For curated talks, the V&A South Ken is hosting the Global Design Forum (September 12-14) with a roster that includes artists Es Devlin and Lakwena Maciver.For Brompton Design District, the ground floor of The Lavery will host Concierge, a travelling platform by Beverly Nguyen, stylist and founder of the NYC concept store Beverly 1975. The installation brings together Vietnamese kitchen essentials, textiles, baskets, ceramics, lighting and objects for the home.Stylist Beverly Nguyen.Up a level, renowned make-up artist Isamaya Ffrench is curating a multi-disciplinary exhibition under her new creative outlet, Studio Iron. Designers include Wretched Flowers, Kelly Wearstler and Kouros Maghsoudi. Toast celebrates the eighth year of its New Makers programme — where five emerging craftspeople show and sell their work with the benefit of the brand’s platform — in the building’s Hazel Studio.And make sure to enter The Lavery’s private dining room, which is being taken over by Mexican designer (and chocolatier) Rafael Prieto. Centered around six sculptural chairs by his design studio Savvy, each responds to a different position of the sun and is accompanied by works from friends including Laila Gohar and Kadri Kashmir. In Shoreditch, brand consultancy Wiedemann Lampe is staging George Hardie: Archaeology in Observation, a look back at five decades of work by the man behind vinyl covers for Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath and Paul McCartney & Wings (Hoxton Square, N1). You’re then in the right direction for Béton Brut (30 Felstead Street, E9) where the Masur Edition by Isokon is a new interpretation of four 1936 chair designs by Marcel Breuer, reimagined in rare masur birch veneer.If ceramics are your thing, head to the river: Kiln Shift (16A Winchester Walk, SE1) is Clink Street Ceramics’ intimate showcase of works by over 20 emerging and established makers. It’s then worth the Thameside walk to County Hall Pottery, where Lanthanides: Rare Earth Spectra marks the debut solo exhibition by Charly Blackburn, second Potter in Residence at the Southbank ceramics space. Stay riverside to pop into Wapping Power Station, which is opening its doors to the public for the first time in 13 years to experience two spatial sound installations, powered by L-Acoustics. Finally, the informality of exhibitions in shops makes them less intimidating, so stop by LF Markey’s Dalston flagship (E8) to take in System T, a solo exhibition by Belgium-based artist Emma Cogné, and also TwentyTwentyOne (on Upper Street, N1) for its mini retrospective celebrating Spanish interior designer Miguel Milá.