At Design Milk, we believe that design evolves through the exchange of ideas. As a design inspiration and discovery platform, we love to excite designers with the new frontiers in design today. Last month, a design festival in London provided us with the perfect platform to bring together leading architects, emerging designers, technologists, social scientists and media gurus for three days of dialogue.
With hundreds of events and special activities, Clerkenwell Design Week is the UK’s most vibrant gathering of design. In this year’s edition, held May 19-21, Design Milk contributed to the creative energy with Design Dialogues: a series of talks and discussions on cutting-edge topics and issues in design practice today. Design Dialogues was hosted by Joseph P. Sgambati III, Associate Editor of Design Milk. Hannah Feniak, managing editor of Architizer, and AJ Paron, EVP and Design Futurist, SANDOW Design Group. Here are some of the topics they covered:
Neurodiversity and immersive spaces
Adipat Virdi speaking at Clerkenwell Design Week. Photo by Sam Frost ©2026 – www.samfrostphotos.com
Renowned immersive experience designer Adipat Virdi returned to Clerkenwell Design Week this year with a compelling presentation on the role of empathy in a world of artificial intelligence and mixed reality. His conversation was joined by Gamma Basra, Senior Partner and Head of Visualization at Foster + Partners; Andrew Reid, SVP of Commercial and Creative Strategy at Jack Mortonand Mark Jeffrey, Creative Director at Vision Tank. You can read more about Virdi’s outlook here.
Empathy for lived experience was also at the center of AJ Paron’s talk, which presented a new framework for neuro-inclusive design informed by four cognitive profiles of Autism. Paron, who is a leading expert on design for autism, was joined in the discussion by Alexandra Cleator, director of Be polite researchers. Paron and Cleator elaborate on how the “high vs. low sensitivity” model for designing for neurodiversity has been superseded by emerging research on the characteristics of autistic individuals and the contexts in which they live.
Experience design and neuro-inclusive perspectives were brought together in “The Post-Neuro Office,” a discussion on workplace design around cognitive load, focus, and long-term mental endurance. Among the participants were Chiara Cantilena, Head of Interiors and Senior Partner, LOM; Megan Dobstaff, Principal and Design Director, Executioner; and Dr Katie Gaudion, Design Consultant and Senior Research Fellow, Royal College of Art’s Helen Hamlyn Center for Design.
Design for this generation and the next
Six years after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations around the world find themselves operating in a completely different workplace paradigm. in “Designing for a workforce that doesn’t fully trust the office,” Joanne Sanger, Associate Interior Designer, Resonate Interiorsand Mijail Gutierrez, Design Director, Perkins & Willl, I discussed post-pandemic offices with AJ Paron. Putting themselves in the shoes of Gen-Z, who entered the workforce where hybrid work and flexible schedules were the norm, they asked how workplace design should evolve as this next generation moves forward as workers.
The panel discussion on ‘Designing for Gen Alpha’. Photo by Sam Frost ©2026 – www.samfrostphotos.com
A second generation panel looked into the crystal ball and speculated about the kinds of spaces Gen Alpha would like to live, work, learn and relax. Elisa Cecilli, Head of Strategic Perspective, Perkins & Will & Portland Design; Jo Rowan, Deputy Director of Strategy at Priest Good; and Lee Roberts Vice President and Director at Zebra Projectsto discuss the design preferences of a native AI generation.
Responsible Materials and Spaces inspired by nature
Sustainability was based on a series of talks facilitated by Hannah Feniak of Architzer. In Beyond Biophilia: The Next Phase of Nature-Integrated Design, his Oliver Heath Oliver Heath Design Studioo shared how his practice considers birds, plants, insects, soil and other elements of the ecosystem as equal stakeholders. John Bushell, manager at KPF, spoke about integrating nature at an urban scale and developing climate-responsive cities, while Sarah Dabbs, director of studio operations at SpaceInvader explained her approach to low-impact interiors – combining biophilic design with reuse, repair and waste diversion.
Design leaders discussed various material strategies in the “Future Nostalgia: Reinventing Materials” panel. Arthur Mamou-Mani he explained how his studio has an in-house manufacturing and recycling facility where he and his team experiment with combining digital tools and design for circularity. Catarina Kohut’s Tuckey Design Studio spoke about prioritizing place and land in architectural projects while Colin Macgadie, founding director of ForEveryday.Life and president of the USM Futures Lab, shared his experience of reorienting global real estate portfolios away from neighborhood construction and toward the reuse of existing buildings and materials.
Design brands that provide materials for building products and projects also took to the stage at Design Dialogues. Cristina Stefani, Strategic Marketing and Communication, Aquafilshowed attendees how they can make an impact by specifying fully regenerated Econyl nylon fibers, while April Renee Graves, Partner at Aria Stone Gallerycelebrated the nuances of identifying natural stone as a way of practicing earth-centered design.
Planning Process and Business Today
Rounding out the Design Dialogues programming, a series of talks addressed the creative and strategic concerns of design firms and studios: creative collaborations, iterative design processes and brand building.
Hannah Feniak facilitates a panel on building design brands with integrity.
Marketing and communications leaders, speaking on the panel “True to You: Building a Design Brand with Integrity’ advocated a shift in how design studios today develop their practices and are perceived. Advisor Come on Abbas highlighted how a company’s work culture and decisions do more to build its market presence than logos and websites, and Caro CommunicationsAnya Cooklin-Lofting supported this by pointing out how valuable it is for clients and the public to get to know the real people behind a company’s projects. Sophie Irvine, head of finance and operations at the Glasgow-based, employee-owned company Collective Architecturevouched for this idea. Her company’s identity is tied to how it operates and who makes up the team, rather than any particular design style or process.
Craft processes and craft partners were represented on a panel hosted by Joseph P. Sgambati III of Design Milk. A world authority on the use of leather in architecture and interiors, Bill Amberg Bill Amberg Studio shared his firm’s work and presented the role of materials expertise in shaping a truly unique design practice. He was joined by Shay Alkalay, co-founder of the coveted Raw-Edges Design Studiowhich has created products, limited edition offerings and installations for global brands such as Louis Vuitton, Vitra, Mutina, Kvadrat and more.
Billy Mavropoulos and Katerina Dionysopoulouits founders and directors Bureau de Change architecture, joined Sgambati to inform attendees about how their firm leverages rapid experimentation for its award-winning projects. They prototype, test and build endlessly, creating exciting combinations of materials and manufacturing processes.
With perspectives from major corporations, boutique studios and individual leaders representing many different areas of expertise, Design Dialogues 2026 offered attendees a snapshot of how design studios are preparing to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing world.
