Contemporary design

Sustainability, digital fabrication and new materials – design today is as much about systems as about objects.

Around the turn of the millennium, the Dutch Droog Design and designers such as Hella Jongerius made design conceptual and experimental. Objects could be reused, imperfect or provocative.

Computers, 3D printers and new materials transformed manufacturing. At the same time design went digital: apps, interfaces and services are designed as carefully as chairs.

The climate crisis has made sustainability the most important issue in design. Reuse, repair, local materials and circular systems shape contemporary design, in Sweden for example in the work of Front, Form Us With Love and Folkform.

• Droog – dry humour
• From the computer screen to the 3D printer
• Sustainability and circular design
• Nordic design today
• Design for all – from ergonomics to systems
• Close reading: Thomas Heatherwick and the Olympic cauldron
• Women in contemporary design
• Museums, fairs and the design market
• Globalisation: where and how things are made
• Speculative and critical design
• Hella Jongerius
• Thomas Heatherwick