DESIGN WEEK LAGOS 2026: 180 NEW IDEAS AND A NEW VISION FOR WHAT AFRICA MAKES NEXT

Design Week Lagos 2026

Design Week Lagos 2026: Lesley Lokko, Marva Griffin and Yinka Shonibare receive IDEA Honours; Demas Nwoko presentation and pre-launch of Design Museum Africa.

LAGOS, LAGOS, NIGERIA, October 13, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Design Week Lagos returns from 18–25 October 2026 with Making a New Africa: From Material to Market, bringing together design, research, manufacturing, culture and commerce around one defining question: What will Africa make next?

At the centre of the 2026 edition is 180 New Ideas, a major presentation of new African thinking across furniture, lighting, materials, textiles, product and industrial design, architecture, prototypes and experimental work.
The wider programme connects participants, partners and audiences across 58 countries, while more than 100 designers, studios and innovators will take part in the flagship Design + Innovation Exhibition at the National Theatre Lagos, organised across five perspectives spanning Nigeria, the African diaspora, Anglophone Africa, Francophone Africa and Lusophone Africa.

Rather than presenting African design as a single aesthetic, the exhibition brings together different material cultures, geographies and ways of making, offering a picture of what Africa is designing, developing and producing now.
Designer and curator Norman Teague, founder of Norman Teague Design Studios in Chicago, leads the curatorial programme, working alongside Nana Biamah-Ofosu, Ousmane Mbaye and Júlio Rafael across the Anglophone, Francophone and Lusophone perspectives.

Under From Material to Market, Design Week Lagos moves the conversation beyond representation to examine how African materials, knowledge and creative talent can become products, businesses and industries, following the journey from raw material and craftsmanship through innovation, manufacturing, branding and market access.

The festival will officially open at the National Theatre on 21 October with IDEA Honours, recognising three figures whose work has shaped architecture, design and culture internationally.

Professor Lesley Lokko OBE will receive the Architectural Leadership Honour; Marva Griffin, founder and curator of SaloneSatellite, will receive the Architectural Legacy Honour; and Yinka Shonibare CBE will receive the Cultural Impact Honour.

The IDEA Honours award plaques have been designed by Pa Demas Nwoko, MFR, connecting this year’s honourees to one of Africa’s most important multidisciplinary practitioners. Nwoko is a winner of a Venice Architecture Biennale Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement.

DEMAS NWOKO: A LIVING LEGACY

A major presentation, Demas Nwoko: A Living Legacy, will explore Nwoko’s practice across architecture, art, design objects and cultural thinking. Rather than approaching his work through a single discipline, the exhibition will bring together different aspects of a practice in which building, art, objects, materials and ideas have remained deeply interconnected.

Selected material associated with his acclaimed Venice Architecture Biennale presentation will form part of a broader portrait of Nwoko as architect, artist, designer, maker and thinker.

Presented in the year he turns 90, the exhibition places his body of work in dialogue with a new generation of African designers and makers.

A new international research project will bring together selected student research from five leading schools of architecture and design, including Yale and the Royal College of Art, in one curated installation examining Africa through five lenses:
Material. Making. Climate. City. Culture.

Rather than presenting separate school exhibitions, the project will bring together drawings, prototypes, material studies, films, maps, texts and physical artefacts around the question: What knowledge, materials and new models of making will shape the next Africa?

The From Material to Market conversation will extend directly into African industry, with Aliko Dangote, Founder and President/Chief Executive of the Dangote Group, delivering the opening keynote at the Design Week Lagos Industry Forum.

The National Theatre will be transformed through a series of new commissions, installations and exhibition environments created for Design Week Lagos 2026. Tosin Oshinowo and Studio Contra, founded by Olayinka Dosekun-Adjei and Jeffrey Adjei, will create two major public installations for the festival hub. The exhibition architecture is led by Adeyemo Shokunbi.

The 2026 edition of Design Week Lagos also marks the 10th anniversary of Made by Design, the curated trade platform connecting architecture, interiors, furniture, lighting, materials and product design with buyers, architects, developers and industry.

A special highlight of Design Week Lagos 2026 will be the pre-launch of the Design Museum Africa at the Yoruba Museum.

Following presentations in Milan and Paris, the ‘All Roads Lead to Lagos’ programme returns to Lagos with designers including Adaora Enwonwu and Athanasius Johnson.

Design Week Lagos 2026
18–25 October 2026 at National Theatre Lagos & across the city

Lee Sharrock
Lee Sharrock PR
+44 7814 862834