London Design Festival 2024 wrap up

Autex Acoustics® in collaboration with Akmaral Khassen and Dezeen for LDF.

For this year’s London Design Festival, Autex Acoustics® had the pleasure of collaborating with multidisciplinary artist and designer Akmaral Khassen for a special exhibition titled Shaping Spaces at Workspace: The Frames in Shoreditch, as well as hosting an industry discussion panel at One Hundred Shoreditch in partnership with Dezeen.

Speaking about the collaboration, Akmaral explained how the collaboration came about. “It started with Studio Hands, a London-based architectural practice. They reached out to me about a potential collaboration for this year’s London Design Festival,” recounts Akmaral. “They were interested in exploring ways to enclose the exhibition space using fabric or prints that would feature my artwork, so that’s how the conversation began.”

Akmaral’s work explores the body through a contemporary lens across various mediums. For the design festival exhibit, the idea to collaborate with Autex Acoustics and translate her work onto acoustic panels was organic. “We were collaborating with sound artists, which led me to reach out to Autex, given their expertise in acoustics.”

The idea for Shaping Spaces was to make the exhibition space feel like a living entity. Autex panels became a vehicle for exploring the body form, but also ensuring Akmaral’s work was not just a passive backdrop for the exhibit’s furniture and design products.

Akmaral’s vibrant gradient designs were printed onto 12 mm Autex Acoustics Cube™ panels with a contrast printed Groove detail. Keeping sustainability in mind, she worked with Autex’s in-house designer to minimise waste in the manufacturing process and use as few panels as possible to create the sail-like silhouettes, without compromising her vision for the space. The result being a unified celebration of colour, shapes, and sound.

Given the robust, rigid nature of Cube panels and the adhesive-free fixings supplied to suspend them around the room’s perimeter, Akmaral easily envisions a spirited second life for her art once the exhibition closes. Her goal is for the pieces to eventually find a new home in a nursery, a school, or even an artist’s studio.

Amidst the newness on show during the London Design Festival, inspiration for future design trends is easily found. But for Akmarel, it’s a more considered approach to design that excites her. “I’m seeing a lot of younger artists and designers here in London focusing on the quality of their work and the storytelling behind it, which I think is wonderful. And I think quality and longevity in design is the trend we need the most in the world right now.”

In the spirit of Akmaral’s forecast, our panel discussion event gathered some of London’s brightest design minds to discuss and learn more about innovative product design.

Dezeen’s Design and Environment Editor, Jennifer Hahn, was joined in conversation by Jan Hendzel, founder of Jan Hendzel Studio; Megan Dobstaff, Design Director at Gensler; and Abby Gottermeyer, senior A&D consultant at Autex Acoustics.

The conversation, which fielded passionate questions and observations from the audience, offered unique insights and perspectives on how innovation, creativity, and sustainability intersect in the panel’s work.

The speakers all agreed that sustainability was integral to their design practice. In discussing Autex Acoustics’ commitment to designing with circularity in mind, Abby highlighted our latest adhesive-free fixing accessory, SpinFix™, made entirely from recycled panels, and our steadfast commitment to ongoing product innovation.