Out of office: the Wallpaper* editors' picks of the week

An LDF opener

Bill Prince, editor-in-chief

There is something pleasingly familial about the way in which David Collins Studio has chosen to celebrate its 40th anniversary during London Design Festival. Arranged around the walls of the main exhibition space at The Lavery (4 Cromwell Place) are enlarged details of examples of the celebrated architecture and interior design practice's work, which includes some of the most famous social landmarks in London, from the contemporary grandeur of The Wolseley to the jewel box-like confines of the Connaught Bar. Since 2017 the David Collins Foundation (established after the designer's untimely death in 2013) has partnered with the Arts Foundation on the annual Futures Award, recognising a wide range of creative disciplines, each recipient an artist Collins once met, admired or was simply moved by. Bringing together exhibits across nine distinct mediums, the accompany show, 'Convergence', is a small token of these interactions, curated by Ellen E. Jones as a 'conversation' between practitoners with whom Collins shared the capacity, as the notes suggest, the 'capacity to archive emotion, memory and time'. Not to be missed.

A floating dinner

Ellie Stathaki, architecture and environment director

With the London tube strike in full swing this week, it was all about alternative methods of transport on Tuesday – and, so, fitting that the 2025 London Festival of Architecture's celebratory closing dinner took place on a boat. Set on the Paddington basin, the event, generously hosted by LFA director Rosa Rogina, saw the festival's numerous supporters sharing a meal and chat, taking stock and reflecting on this year's edition – while looking forward to the next, as speculation was thriving as to the 2026 theme, due to be announced in a few weeks.

A week of design appointments

Rosa Bertoli, global design director

I had a soft start to London Design Festival this week with, among other things, a preview of the David Collins Foundation's Convergence exhibition. On Friday morning, Tom Dixon gave us a tour of his Coal Office showroom to discuss some of his current projects and interests – in particular, I was impressed with his oversized take on portable lighting design, and the dichroic filter option you can add to his Melt lights (which he is demonstrating here). Also of note was the Out Of Orifice exhibition, a small display by East London-based design collective Heirloom exploring objects designed to be inserted in the body, a project which I am sure will spark many important conversations around function and pleasure

A 49th birthday

Charlotte Gunn, director of digital content

On Thursday, the Beggars Group – home to Adele, Fontaines DC, Pixies, Pulp and countless others – celebrated its 49th year with a blow-out bash at Old Billingsgate. The party unfolded across multiple levels with immersive performance art from Punchdrunk, surprise sets (Belle & Sebastian’s Stuart Murdoch assembled a supergroup, while Badly Drawn Boy reminded me how much I adored The Hour of Bewilderbeast) and DJ sessions that ran long into the night. It was a tremendous do of 90s-scale proportions and a clear counter to the argument that there’s no money left in the music industry.

A modernist pilgrimage

Gabriel Annouka, senior designer

During a pilgrimage to the Calanques of Marseille I stopped at Le Corbusier’s uncompromising Unité d’Habitation, La Cité Radieuse. Wallpaper* just devoted twenty-six pages of the October Issue to the modernist housing development, showing the diverse lives and interiors of its residents, and suddenly there I was, in the same lift with one of them: Koubrat and Jocelyne, an elderly couple photographed for the feature, smiled, said Bonjour! and pressed the button when I asked for the third floor. The elevator doors opened to the aftermath of ‘Art-o-rama’, as it was carefully being packed away. It was here, in one of the design shops that line the corridor, that I met Laura, another face from our pages. I’d placed her and her partner’s portrait carefully into the layout, and now there she was, stepping out of print and into real life.

We spoke about Marseille and its everyday rhythms that make the city magnetic, and she warmly invited me back for the gallery’s next opening during the European Heritage Days on 20-21 September. It felt miraculous, like the magazine had folded back on itself and delivered me straight into its pages. Then I climbed to the terrace on the ninth floor, where MAMO, Ora ïto’s gallery, resides. Here two works by Sterling Ruby stood guard, inside the large scale painting WALL (2017); outside Double Candle (2018) a monumental bronze commanding the rooftop, with Marseille stretching endlessly below. The high-rise viewpoint here wasn’t about exhibitionism alone, but scale, proportion and the clarity of standing inside an architectural designer’s measured vision.