The World Design Congress saw some of the world’s leading architects and designers gather in London to discuss the planet’s future. Here, Dezeen’s Max Fraser picks out the most prominent themes from the event.
Held at the Barbican Centre last week, the two-day conference was themed Design for Planet.
It is the latest edition of the World Design Congress – an event that has taken place in a different city every two years since 1959 to debate design issues of global importance.
The UK’s Design Council won the bid to host this year’s congress in London and invited more than 100 designers, business leaders and sustainability experts to the stage to discuss topics such as designing for net-zero and circularity, regenerating our natural world, redesigning the economy and reimagining products, systems and services.
“This congress has a bias for action,” declared stage host Stephanie Hare, a researcher and broadcaster.
Below is a five-minute guide to the key statements from the event:
“Let Mother Nature be your co-designer”
“Whether you are a young designer just starting or someone who’s been in the industry for many years, I urge you to learn from nature,” environmentalist Jane Goodall said in her opening speech. “She balances every system. Let Mother Nature be your co-designer.”
Warnings that humans are too removed from the natural systems that enable our existence were echoed by several speakers, including author and climate justice campaigner Tori Tsui, Nestlé’s global head of design Ximena O’Reilly and critic and curator Justin McGuirk.
“We have a nature knowledge deficit,” said sustainability strategist Leyla Acaroglu. “We don’t understand how nature works, therefore we can make decisions that hurt it at its own expense. Every time we extract, we hurt.”
Design Council’s CEO Minnie Moll (pictured above) provoked the audience. “Is it time that we draw a line on talking about human-centred design?” she asked. “Does it perpetuate this sense that humans are at the top of that pyramid?”
“The majority of design is entirely profit-centric”
Repeatedly throughout the programme, speakers argued that the capitalist system in which we operate is no longer compatible with the planet’s finite resources.
“A tree only has value after it’s transformed into a usable good,” said Acaroglu. “The majority of design is entirely profit-centric.”
Sustainability consultant Lord Deben warned of the cost of not changing. “The real issue is how costly it is to go on destroying the planet, and that’s what we have to fight,” he said.
“There is no point growing the economy if it is not done sustainably and with regeneration at its heart,” said Christopher Smith, executive chair of the Arts and Humanities Research Council and international champion for UK Research and Innovation.
Designer and entrepreneur Natsai Audrey Chieza (pictured above) suggested designers need to reach beyond their current remit. “Part of the job we have as designers is not just to design, but to work on what is the political and economical paradigm that will make the future we all want.”
“Encourage the walkable, compact, high-density city”
Arguably the two biggest names on the programme – architect Norman Foster and designer Thomas Heatherwick (pictured above) – both used their speeches to call for more liveable cities.
In his keynote presentation reflecting on his career in architecture, Foster argued that the built environment requires a rethink as populations in urban centres swell and the subsequent draw on resources intensifies.
“We encourage the walkable, compact, high-density city,” he urged. “We discourage sprawl and roads into the countryside, eating nature and biodiversity.”
“If you look at all the surveys of the top 10 cities where people want to visit as tourists or live and bring up a family, absolutely consistently, it’s always the walkable city,” Foster added.
“We don’t make enough places for our humanity,” Heatherwick said the following morning as he reinforced the message of his Humanise campaign, calling for an end to “boring” architecture.
“We’ve been engulfed in an epidemic of characterlessness as cities develop,” he stated. “There is a huge gap in emotions when it comes to the built environment.”
“A whole new economy of materiality”
An uncomfortable contradiction for many designers is their contribution to the continual production of more stuff.
Architect Indy Johar acknowledged the carbon impact of everything that is designed. “How do we operate in this carbon-constricted future?” he said. “We’re going to see a transformation in what it means to be human. It will change how we exist, the materials we consume. It’s a whole new economy of materiality.”
Climate campaigner Tsui reminded the audience of the role that designers have in this future.
“Each and everyone one of you is in such a unique position of privilege as someone who has a foot in design,” she said. “So often so many of us are at the mercy of what you decide to do with your imagination.”
“Use your imagination to rewrite somebody else’s,” she continued. “Everything we’re witnessing in the world is the product of someone’s imagination. What can be imagined can be reimagined.”
In that vein, Mukuru Clean Stoves founder Charlotte Magayi (pictured above) explained how she designed the stove to solve the silent killer that is household air pollution for millions cooking on open stoves.
“I wanted to ensure that design was not just sleek products or elegant interfaces, but design could be something you could use to save a life.”
“Design is an inherently collaborative act”
In his talk, General Mills global chief of design Teman Evans reminded the audience that “design is an inherently collaborative act” and throughout the event, there were multiple calls for broader collaboration.
One of those was Nestlé’s O’Reilly. “Design is at its most powerful when we are able to get beyond the silos of disciplines or structures and come together and work collaboratively,” she said.
In their talk together, musician and campaigner Brian Eno and Tsui (both pictured above) recognised the need to form communities.
“What makes a movement?” asked Eno. “What makes a community of thought? It’s when they know about each other. None of us are strong enough as an individual to fight the amount of money that is up against us. We have to make communities together.”
“Don’t try to do it alone, find the others,” he continued. “Even if you’re not in a position to do something yourself, just help someone who is doing something. Help them, support them and, at a minimum, celebrate them.”
Tsui added: “I really believe that so much of what we can achieve, especially addressing something like the climate crisis, can be built through collective action.”
“I will never lose the concept of hope”
Despite the prospect of climate collapse, environmentalist Goodall appealed to the audience with a message of hope.
“You have the creativity, the skill and the power to redesign the world, not just for efficiency or beauty but for survival, for our children and theirs: regeneration for hope,” she said.
Building on this theme, McGuirk suggested positive change is underway.
“We’re in the midst of a transition,” he said. “The challenge is that we have to work at two speeds, with immediate urgency and vision to begin a slower project of reimagining our world.”
Eno believes we need to accept our current situation and avoid distractions.
“I think I’ve accepted that we are already in catastrophe,” he said. “We’re already in a mess, we won’t get out of it, so let’s just try to make the best mess we can.”
“Distraction is the biggest industry in the world right now,” he continued. “Don’t be distracted! There’s an industry designed to prevent you from being effective at anything. Don’t listen to it. You must set your own agenda.”
Campaigner Tsui explained how hope motivates her.
“I will never lose the concept of hope,” she said. “Every fraction of a degree matters, every life saved matters. It’s about all that we can save now; that’s what motivates me and I hope that it’s what motivates you.”
Johar (pictured above) pleaded directly to the 1,200 delegates in the room and 1,300 online: “We have to start to think fundamentally differently.”
The photography is by Wayne Lo.
Dezeen was a principal media partner of this event. The World Design Congress took place at the Barbican Centre in London on 9 and 10 September 2025. See Dezeen Events Guide for more architecture and design events around the world.
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