After three months, two million video plays, over 600 posts and more than 50 live interviews, Virtual Design Festival ends today. From defining a new design movement to imagining new planets and urban wildernesses, here are a few of the agenda-setting ideas it raised.
New London FabulousAdam Nathaniel Furman's live interview in May threw up New London Fabulous, a spontaneously coined name for a colourful style of work produced by a group of London architects and designers. The phrase quickly caught on and the movement has widely been featured in newspapers and magazines around the world.
The post-corona city
VDF was born of the pandemic and naturally, it was one of the biggest topics discussed in the live interviews. Architects including Alison Brooks, who called for more balconies and outdoor space in housing projects, and Sevil Peach, who predicted that offices would get smaller, helped map out how cities would be forced to change in the wake of coronavirus. The rise of VR
Lockdown forced creatives to find new ways to work and socialise. While video-conference software such as Zoom became a lifeline for many people, more adventurous souls ventured into virtual reality, where "incredible things are happening" according to Space Popular, a practice that works extensively with the technology.
Arthur Mamou-Mani turned to the technology to build a virtual version of his cancelled Burning Man pavilion, putting out a call on Dezeen for collaborators and inviting our re...