Design Futures Symposium 2026: Untangling Tomorrows

This year's theme, Untangling Tomorrows, asks how future thinking can help us navigate complexity that’s intertwined and always moving. The symposium gathers voices from industry, academia and speculative practice for an exploration of design as a tool for systemic change.

Bringing together practitioners from government, industry, consultancy, and speculative design, the event will examine how futures and foresight are being applied across different sectors to address societal, technological, environmental, and organisational challenges. Through talks and conversations, invited speakers will share their approaches to anticipating change, imagining alternatives, and designing interventions that can contribute to more resilient and desirable futures.

Alongside these perspectives, students from the MDes Design Futures programme will present their own interpretations of complexity and future thinking developed throughout an intensive year of study. Moving beyond conventional presentations, they will use performative and embodied practices to communicate their ideas, working with voice, movement, objects, storytelling, and collective participation to explore how futures can be experienced, questioned, and untangled.

Free and open to all. Saturday 18 July 2026, Gorvy Lecture Theatre, Dyson Building, RCA Battersea.

The symposium also opens the RCA2026 Final Exhibition to the public. Join us in the afternoon to see the work and meet the designers.

The event will also mark the opening of the RCA2026 Final Exhibition to the public. Join us afterwards to experience the exhibition and meet the designers behind the work.

Registration for the event is required via the Eventbrite page.

Papa Akuffo – Director, Product, Projects by IF
Jess Jorgensen – Founder, Sporesight
Christos Koukis - Architect & Design Lead at The Place Bureau
Jonathan Nunn – Head of Futures Advice, Government Office for Science
Rosanna Vitiello - Founding Director at The Place Bureau