Once a bleak, industrial wasteland behind a railway station in need of some love, the Kings Cross area is now buzzing with a combination of entertainment, media, retail, drinking and dining; the locale hosts both Google HQ and Central Saint Martins, while the new Coal Drops Yard retail quarter, housed in Victorian brick viaducts reimagined by Heatherwick Studio, will feature 50 stores, restaurants and cafés. This is also where you’ll find Tom Dixon’s new HQ and showroom – The Coal Office – complete with a rooftop restaurant, plus Barrafina, Paul Smith, Space NK, Spiritland and Dishoom.
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INFORMATION
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Beloved British screenwriter Dennis Potter inspires an exhibition with a difference at Studio VoltaireHilary Lloyd's multi-faceted exhibition at Studio Voltaire considers Dennis Potter's life and work, from much-loved TV classics to power inequalities
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Insert here: London Design Festival gets intimate with insertable designAt London Design Festival, Heirloom Studio showcases 36 objects – some life-saving, some pleasure-giving, all made to go inside the body
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Postcard from Helsinki Design Week 2025Helsinki Design Week turns 20 this year. Celebrating two decades of design, core themes of this year revolve around happiness and optimism: here are design critic Hugo Macdonald's ten highlights
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Norman Foster and nine other architects design birdhouses for charity – you can bid‘Architects for the Birds’ is spearheaded by Norman Foster and the Tessa Jowell Foundation to raise funds to improve treatment for brain cancer. Ten architect-designed birdhouses will go up for auction
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The David Collins Foundation celebrates creativity in all its forms at London Design FestivalThe David Collins Foundation presents ‘Convergence’ at the Lavery during London Design Festival 2025 (on view until 19 September), featuring works from the Arts Foundation’s annual Futures Awards
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Lee Broom’s brutalist-inspired ‘Beacon’ will light up London as Big Ben strikes the hourSet to pulse through London Design Festival 2025 (13-22 September) and beyond, the British industrial designer’s sculptural light installation on the South Bank draws on its surroundings
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Yuri Suzuki turns sound into architecture at Camden Arts ProjectsThe sound designer unveils ‘Utooto’, an interactive installation at London’s Camden Arts Projects (until 5 October 2025), in which visitors collaboratively build a sonic piece of architecture
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Alex Tieghi-Walker unveils his plans for Brompton Design District 2025Ahead of London Design Festival 2025, we catch up with New York gallerist Alex Tieghi-Walker about his appointment as curator of the Brompton Design District programme
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‘The point was giving ordinary people access to bold taste’: how Ikea brought pattern into the home‘Ikea: Magical Patterns’ at Dovecot Gallery in Edinburgh tells the story of a brand that gave us not only furniture, but a new way of seeing our homes – as canvases for self-expression
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Design beyond humans: a new exhibition argues that the world doesn’t revolve around us‘More Than Human’ at London's Design Museum (until 5 October 2025) asks what happens when design focuses on the perspectives and needs of other species, from bees to seaweed
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‘100 Years, 60 Designers, 1 Future’: 1882 Ltd plate auction supports ceramic craftThe ceramics brand’s founder Emily Johnson asked 60 artists, designers, musicians and architects – from John Pawson to Robbie Williams – to design plates, which will be auctioned to fund the next generation of craftspeople
