Clerkenwell Design Week 2026: Our Top 4 Highlights

Clerkenwell Design Week was back for its 15th year last week, with more than 450 brands exhibited across showrooms, venues and installations spread across EC1. Each year we like to explore the festival to gather new inspiration for our residential and workplace projects. Below are our favourite four new finds from our day exploring the festival.

Clerkwenwell Design week 2026 pamphlets collection

CDW 2026 was another great year for discovering new products. Image Credit for all images: 4SA

1) Benchmark Furniture - new modular slatted workspace system

Benchmark introduced its new modular workspace system of slatted timber units housing teapoints, desktops, seating and storage. We could see these contemporary pieces sitting elegantly adjacent to historic detailing in an open plan heritage workspace setting.

Timber slatted furniture

Timber slatted seating module

Timber slatted desk

Timber slatted desk module

Benchmark’s timber slatted seating module at Clerkenwell Design Week

2) Ecousta — Contour 3D acoustic panels

Ecousta’s Contour 3D panels are made from 75% recycled plastic bottles, and are fabricated in the UK. The eight panel designs across the range explore rhythm, geometry and texture, turning acoustic treatment into a design feature.  For Cat B fit-out projects, having a material that offers both acoustic attenuation and adds textural interest is a win.

Acoustic panels made from recycled plastic bottles

Acoustic panels made from recycled plastic bottles

3) Spark & Bell — the Poet's Corner Collection

Spark & Bell is a B Corp certified lighting studio working from Hove, with a workshop that handmakes everything to order. Their new table lamps Poe and Beckett bring together solid hand-turned hardwood bases and bone china shades and would work equally well on a living room sideboard, or in a workspace break out area.

Timber and linen table lamp

Timber and linen table lamp from Spark & Bell

timber and china table lamps

Poe and Beckett timber and china table lamps

4) Studio Haran — Aura, and the Dawn Flush wall light

Studio Haran is a Cornwall-based studio combining hand-turned oak with slip-cast ceramic to create light fittings. We like to specify light fittings with a quiet elegance that work equally well in both a period home or its contemporary extension in order to create visual continuity between connected spaces of different ages. The simple restraint in Studio Haran’s Dawn Light in matt white, or the soft muted tones in their new ceramic glazed Aura collection below fit that brief.

Ceramic wall light

Timber and linen table lamp from Spark & Bell

Why these four?

What ties this year's picks to our own work is a respect for materials, a commitment to longevity, and a preference for design that earns its presence quietly. Modular furniture designed as a coordinated language across a workplace. Lighting handmade in small workshops to high standards. Acoustic surfaces made from bottles that would otherwise be in landfill. This is the direction we want the industry to keep moving in, and it was great to see so much of it on show at CDW again this year. For more of our favourite product finds, visit our round up from CDW 2025 where the thread is consistent: material quality, longevity, and quiet elegance.

Photographs by 4SA, taken on the studio's walk through the many venues and showrooms of Clerkenwell Design Week.

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