Clerkenwell Design Week 2025 Opens with Ambitious New Installations and Expanded Programme

A Week At The Knees by Alex Chinneck in Charterhouse Square (Photo: Charles Emerson)

Clerkenwell Design Week (CDW), the world-renowned design festival, opened today for its 14th and most ambitious edition yet. Returning to London’s EC1 district, CDW 2025 features an expansive programme, bringing together more than 210 showroom partners across 170+ local showrooms, alongside over 250 international exhibitors spread across 15 curated exhibition venues.

Running until 22 May 2025, the festival offers architects, specifiers, interior designers and the general public a unique opportunity to explore cutting-edge furniture, lighting, kitchen and bathroom design, materials, and decorative accessories. Attendees can also immerse themselves in installations, talks, and workshops, all set within the historical heart of London’s design district.

Headlining Installation: A Week At The Knees by Alex Chinneck

At the centre of this year’s festival is A Week At The Knees, a striking new public sculpture by British artist Alex Chinneck. Located in Charterhouse Square, the installation reimagines a Georgian-style four-storey brick façade with Chinneck’s signature architectural illusion—this time, a rippling brick wall that appears to defy gravity.

Standing 5.5 metres tall and 13.5 metres long, the sculpture is made from 7,000 bricks and weighs 11.5 tonnes, yet its freestanding structure is just 15cm deep. Created in collaboration with Chiltern GRC, Cleveland Steel, Crittall Windows, FabSpeed and Michelmersh Brick Holdings PLC, the work incorporates 320 metres of repurposed steel and custom-designed components, including bending windows, detailed brickwork, pipework and a sculptural door. The installation remains on display until early July.

Innovative Installations Across Clerkenwell

Elsewhere in the festival, Brick From A Stone: Arch Revival by Albion Stone and Hutton Stone offers a dramatic architectural display on Clerkenwell Green. Designed by Hawkins\Brown and engineered by Webb Yates, the pavilion consists of two 4-metre-high freestanding vaulted arches built from a combined 5.2 tonnes of multihued sandstone and Heritage Portland Stone. Each arch is formed from 702 single-layer bricks, only 102mm thick, demonstrating the structural capabilities and sustainability of natural stone over clay-fired alternatives—reducing CO₂ emissions by up to 66%.

CDW 2025 also marks the launch of Shaping Water, a competition organised by Dezeen in collaboration with Villeroy & Boch and Ideal Standard—who appear at the festival for the first time under the Villeroy & Boch Group. The winning installation, Harmonic Tides by architect Arthur Mamou-Mani, explores the movement and transformative nature of water. Installed at St John’s Gate of the Order of St John, the piece features two undulating 3D-printed walls made from PLA, a compostable bioplastic. Reusing modules from previous projects, the work demonstrates principles of circular design and low environmental impact.

Additional Highlights

Festival visitors can also experience a magnetic art installation by Pixel Artworks at House of Detention (Light), Italgraniti’s stone vending machines created with architect Simon Astridge, and a whimsical tea and biscuit pop-up bar by Sons of Beasley at the Hawkins\Brown headquarters.

New to this year’s venue line-up are three historic locations: The Charterhouse, St Bartholomew the Great (Church of Design), and Studio Smithfield above the iconic Smithfield Market. These join the festival’s international pavilions representing British, Italian, Spanish, German, Danish and Austrian design collections.

New venue Church of Design at St Bartholomew the Great (Photo: Sam Frost)

Conversations at Clerkenwell

Design Dialogues talks series by Sandow at Church of Design (Photo: Ashley Bingham)

The official talks programme, Conversations at Clerkenwell, returns with a vibrant series of sessions curated by brand consultant Katie Richardson. Hosted in a colourful, Kapitza-designed auditorium at The Charterhouse, the series includes over 15 discussions with leading voices in design, including Sabine Marcelis, Tom Dixon, Benjamin Hubert, PearsonLloyd, and Note Design Studio. Topics span everything from colour trends and commercial interiors to heritage conservation and the role of AI in the future of design.