Design Museum

🐙 ONE MONTH TO GO 🐙

Why has design traditionally only focused on the needs of humans? Our landmark exhibition More than Human will present visitors with groundbreaking ideas on how to design with - and better understand - the living world.

Spanning 140 works across art, product design, architecture and interactive installations, the exhibition will feature more than 50 artists, architects and designers.

Not just another exhibition about ‘sustainable design’, More than Human is a radical rethink of design’s role in the world.

Catch it at the museum from 11 July 2025 - tickets: https://designmuseum.org/exhibitions/more-than-human

📸 Sculpture for Octopuses: Exploring for Their Favorite Colours – Aquarium in Kobe, 2019, Shimabuku | Courtesy of Shimabuku, Barbara Wien, Berlin, Amanda Wilkinson, London and Air de Paris, Romainville

Join us for ‘An Evening with Monty Don and Tom Stuart-Smith’ on 13 July 🌿

Horticulture and garden design legends Monty Don and Tom Stuart-Smith will be joined for a conversation with Assistant Curator Naomi Zaragoza.

Book now: https://bit.ly/3Ta3DnS

Congratulations to Lulu Harrison, the fourth recipient of the Ralph Saltzman Prize 🏆

Harrison is a geo-alchemist and glass artist whose project, Thames Glass, explores the creation of geo-specific glass using local, abundant and waste materials.

Inspired by her upbringing along the River Thames in Oxfordshire, she works with materials sourced from the area - including river sand, wood ash, and waste quagga mussel shells collected by Thames Water. The result is a striking example of circular glass production, reimagining 21st-century waste through traditional craft.

See her work on display at the museum from 24 June.

Learn more via the Financial Times 👇

A wild, foraged take on glassmaking wins the Design Museum’s Ralph Saltzman Prize Mussel shells, sea purslane and wine lees add local colour to Lulu Harrison’s innovative and alchemical craft

Join us on 21 June for a BSL tour of the Design Museum 🏛️

Discover the fascinating story of the museum building in this group tour for D/deaf visitors and their companions, led by Edward Richards.

Book now: https://bit.ly/3WFVlHE

Brazilian designer Fernando Cozendey’s bold beachwear blurs the line between swimwear and statement fashion 🦢

This gender-neutral Lycra jumpsuit is designed to take you from the beach to the nightclub - and everywhere in between. Part of a collection made for the beach, pool, carnival and club, it's a vibrant celebration of freedom, identity, and Brazilian creativity.

Brazil is a global leader in swimwear and fabric innovation, and Cozendey brings deep expertise - with a background in textile technology and costume design.
His work has been worn at Carnival in Rio and even featured in the opening ceremony of the 2016 Rio Olympics.

See this dazzling piece up close in Splash! A Century of Swimming and Style - open until 17 August. Book your visit via the link: https://bit.ly/40uUPfP

📸 Luke Hayes

Did you know the Design Museum offers relaxed openings for our major exhibitions?

These special openings are suitable for visitors with a neurodivergent profile, sensory processing differences, SEND, neurological conditions or anxiety. Upcoming openings will include:

🏊‍♀️ Splash! A Century of Swimming and Style - 11 June 2025
🌎 More than Human: 30 July 2025 and 17 September 2025
🪩 Blitz: the club that shaped the 80s - 29 October 2025
🎥 Wes Anderson: The Archives - 21 January 2026

Find out more and book: https://bit.ly/4cjYAtT

Born on this day in 1867, Frank Lloyd Wright was a visionary American architect and designer who redefined the relationship between the built environment and the natural world 🍃

A pioneer of organic architecture, Wright believed that buildings should exist in harmony with their surroundings - not dominate them.

He often used repeated materials and horizontal lines to echo the landscapes they inhabited. His most iconic work, Fallingwater (1935), is a stunning example of this philosophy in action.

Perched above a waterfall in the forests of Southwestern Pennsylvania, the house was commissioned by the Kaufmann family as their weekend retreat. With its layered concrete terraces, sweeping glass walls, and locally quarried sandstone, Fallingwater appears to emerge organically from the rock beneath it - blurring the lines between nature and architecture.

Inside, custom-designed furnishings and open-plan interiors further reflect Wright’s belief in holistic, integrated design. Now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Fallingwater remains one of the most celebrated homes of the 20th century - a timeless example of how design can live with nature, not just within it.

📸 pv_kuznetsov on Instagram

Perched on a hill in Metz, France, Philippe Starck’s surrealist Maison Heler hotel is unlike anything you’ve seen 🏰

The celebrated French designer and architect reimagined a traditional 19th-century Alsatian house, placing it high above a sleek modern base - a structure that appears to float nine storeys above the city.

Home to over 100 rooms, restaurants and two bars, Maison Heler is more than just a hotel. It’s the physical manifestation of a story - that of Manfred Heler, a whimsical fictional inventor dreamed up by Starck, whose home was mysteriously launched into the sky.

This playful narrative carries through the interiors. In the restaurant La Cuisine de Rose, soft pink tones pay tribute to Manfred’s imagined muse, Rose, creating a romantic and dreamlike setting. Meanwhile, La Maison de Manfred evokes warmth and intimacy through its blend of tactile materials like rough-hewn wood and soft leather.

With its fusion of fantasy, tradition and contemporary design, Maison Heler stands as a truly one-of-a-kind destination.

Photography by starck / byjuhi on Instagram

Join us on 8 July for ‘Curating and Designing Splash! A Century of Swimming and Style’ 💦

Alex Scott-Whitby, Amber Butchart and Tiya Dahyabhai will reflect on the making of 'Splash! A Century of Swimming and Style' and discuss the behind-the-scenes, from the initial ideas to its completion.

Book now: https://bit.ly/43s8I15

The imaginative Isle of Dogs Pumping Station was designed in the 1980s by celebrated British architect John Outram 💧

Located in Tower Hamlets, East London, this vibrant structure was built to manage storm water run-off from new roads during the ambitious 8.5-square-mile redevelopment of the London Docklands.

It was one of three pumping stations commissioned in close proximity - alongside Richard Rogers’ high-tech Tidal Basin station in Canning Town and Nicholas Grimshaw’s sleek Store Road station in North Woolwich.

Outram’s pumping station stands out for its bold, colourful façade, dramatic columns, and eclectic mix of patterns. But there’s more than meets the eye - the architecture is full of symbolism, including columns that echo trees, walls that suggest mountains and brickwork that hints at layers of geological strata.

In 2017, the building was awarded Grade II* listed status by Historic England - a rare honour for postmodern industrial architecture, and a recognition of its bold, imaginative design.

📸 olivermarshall via Instagram

This World Environment Day, we’re spotlighting two upcoming exhibitions exploring how design can support a more sustainable future 🌍

More than Human (opens 11 July) is the first major exhibition on ‘more-than-human’ design - a growing movement that sees human life as part of a wider ecosystem. Featuring over 140 works, it showcases a new generation of designers working in harmony with other species and systems.

Opening 17 June, Design Researchers in Residence: Artificial is a free display that questions the divide between the natural and human-made. The 2024/25 cohort explores the hidden systems shaping our world - from urban ecosystems to political infrastructures.

Both exhibitions invite us to rethink our place in the world - and how design can help us build a better one.

Find out more at designmuseum.org

📸
1: Video still, Forest Mind by Ursula Biemann
2: Design Researchers in Residence © Justine Trickett for the Design Museum