Design Week Lagos 2026 returns from 18–25 October with an ambitious programme spanning design, architecture, art and manufacturing, bringing together more than 100 designers and studios from across Africa and the diaspora. Highlights include IDEA Honours for Lesley Lokko, Marva Griffin and Yinka Shonibare, a major presentation of Nigerian architect and artist Demas Nwoko, and the pre-launch of a new Design Museum Africa.
Design Week Lagos returns from 18–25 October 2026 with Making a New Africa: From Material to Market, a programme exploring how African design can move beyond international recognition to shape manufacturing, commerce and industrial development. Centred on the question of what Africa will make next, the festival positions Lagos as an increasingly significant destination for global design, creative exchange and innovation.
At the heart of this year’s edition is 180 New Ideas, a major showcase spanning furniture, lighting, textiles, material innovation, product and industrial design, architecture and experimental work. More than 100 designers, studios and innovators will participate in the flagship Design + Innovation Exhibition at the National Theatre Lagos, with the wider programme connecting participants and audiences across 58 countries.
Rather than presenting African design as a single aesthetic, the exhibition explores the continent’s diverse material cultures, geographies and approaches to making. Five perspectives—Nigeria, the African diaspora, Anglophone Africa, Francophone Africa and Lusophone Africa—provide a framework for examining how designers are responding to local contexts while engaging with international conversations.
Designer and curator Norman Teague, founder of Chicago-based Norman Teague Design Studios, leads the curatorial programme, working alongside Nana Biamah-Ofosu, Ousmane Mbaye and Júlio Rafael across the Anglophone, Francophone and Lusophone perspectives.
IDEA Honours: Celebrating Architecture, Design and Cultural Impact
The festival’s official opening at the National Theatre on 21 October will feature the IDEA Honours, recognising three influential figures whose work has helped shape architecture, design and culture internationally. Professor Lesley Lokko OBE will receive the Architectural Leadership Honour, Marva Griffin, founder and curator of SaloneSatellite, the Architectural Legacy Honour, and Yinka Shonibare CBE the Cultural Impact Honour.
The awards connect established international influence with African creative heritage. Their plaques have been designed by Demas Nwoko, the multidisciplinary Nigerian architect, artist and designer whose work is also the subject of a major presentation at this year’s festival.
Demas Nwoko: A Living Legacy
Demas Nwoko: A Living Legacy explores the breadth of Nwoko’s practice across architecture, art, design objects and cultural thought. Presented in the year he turns 90, the exhibition brings together different dimensions of a career in which buildings, materials, objects and ideas have remained interconnected.
Drawing on material associated with his acclaimed presentation at the Venice Architecture Biennale, the exhibition positions Nwoko’s work in dialogue with a new generation of African designers and makers. It offers an opportunity to consider how his multidisciplinary approach continues to inform contemporary thinking about architecture, craftsmanship and cultural identity.
From Material to Market: Connecting Creativity with Industry
This year’s theme extends beyond exhibition-making to address a central question for African design: how can the continent’s materials, knowledge and creative talent translate into sustainable businesses and competitive industries?
Aliko Dangote, founder and chief executive of the Dangote Group, will deliver the opening keynote at the Design Week Lagos Industry Forum. Bringing together industrialists, manufacturers, investors, financial institutions, policymakers, entrepreneurs and designers, the forum will examine the challenges of moving from raw materials to production, scaling manufacturing and connecting African ideas with wider markets.
The accompanying talks programme will explore manufacturing, finance, material innovation, product development, investment, cities and market access, with contributors including designer Jomo Tariku alongside figures from architecture, business and industry.
New commissions will also transform the National Theatre into a focal point for the festival. Tosin Oshinowo and Studio Contra, founded by Olayinka Dosekun-Adjei and Jeffrey Adjei, will create two major public installations, while exhibition architect Adeyemo Shokunbi will draw on the African courtyard and breeze-block screens to create a connected sequence of spaces for movement, encounter and exchange.
Five Schools, One Continent: Researching Africa’s Design Future
An international research installation will bring together selected student work from five leading architecture and design schools, including Yale and the Royal College of Art. Organised around five themes—material, making, climate, city and culture—the project will combine drawings, prototypes, material studies, films, maps, texts and physical artefacts.
Rather than presenting the institutions separately, the installation brings their research into a shared conversation about the knowledge, resources and new models of making that might shape Africa’s future. The initiative is intended to establish a longer-term platform connecting international student research with African designers, manufacturers, researchers, students and institutions.
Design Museum Africa and the Future of African Design
One of the edition’s significant developments is the pre-launch of Design Museum Africa at the Yoruba Museum. Conceived as a long-term institution for identifying, documenting, developing, collecting and presenting African design, the museum aims to strengthen connections between designers, manufacturers, collectors, galleries, museums, retailers and international markets.
Its proposed role extends beyond exhibition-making, offering a permanent platform through which African design can be researched, preserved and presented to broader audiences. The initiative reflects the festival’s ambition to build lasting infrastructure for the sector beyond its annual programme.
The 2026 edition also marks the tenth anniversary of Made by Design, the curated trade platform connecting architecture, interiors, furniture, lighting, materials and product design with buyers, architects, developers and industry. Over the past decade, the platform has provided a setting for product launches, commercial partnerships and business development. Its anniversary edition reinforces the festival’s emphasis on connecting creative ideas with production and market opportunities.
All Roads Lead to Lagos
The All Roads Lead to Lagos programme returns following presentations in Milan and Paris, bringing international attention back to Nigerian designers and their contribution to contemporary design.
Participants include Adaora Enwonwu, whose spatial and lighting practice draws on memory, ancestry and emotional landscapes, combining traditional craftsmanship with contemporary forms, and Athanasius Johnson, founder of Polar Bear Studios, whose furniture and objects explore the relationships between architecture, structure and collective form.
The programme proposes a more reciprocal model of international exchange. Rather than treating African design as something to be exported to established centres such as Milan and Paris, it connects international audiences and opportunities back to Lagos, positioning the city as a destination in its own right.
Lagos Becomes a Citywide Design District
From 19–25 October, Design Week Lagos will extend beyond the National Theatre into museums, showrooms, hotels, studios, creative hubs, architectural landmarks and cultural spaces across the city. Exhibitions, installations, product launches, talks and receptions will connect Lagos’s creative and commercial communities.
The wider programme includes the Design Week Lagos Talks, Industry Forum, Architecture Forum, National Interior Design Congress, workshops, masterclasses, student design tours, the DWL Student Competition, Sound by Design, Made by Design and the IDEA Awards.
For founder Titi Ogufere, the priority is to turn international visibility into lasting economic opportunity. “The next chapter of African design cannot be about visibility alone,” she says, highlighting the potential to transform the continent’s materials, knowledge and creative talent into products, production and industries.
With its combination of ambitious exhibitions, international research, new commissions and industry-focused programming, Design Week Lagos 2026 places design at the intersection of culture and commerce. Its central proposition is that Africa’s creative future will depend not only on the ideas its designers generate, but also on the infrastructure, manufacturing capacity and markets that enable those ideas to flourish.
Design Week Lagos 2026: Making a New Africa: From Material to Market
18–25 October 2026
National Theatre Lagos and venues across Lagos, Nigeria
designweeklagos.com
