London Design Festival 2025
From the Ground Up: Five days of design with real application
Hackney Depot, a little-known hub of East London’s creative scene, traded its day-to-day anonymity for a five-day experiment in sustainable design. Anticipation had built for weeks, and by the time doors opened on Tuesday 16 September, designers, journalists and locals already primed by steady press coverage and community buzz, were ready to see what we had in store.
Our agenda
Tuesday 16 September began with a packed evening of conversation: the Materials Talk, the launch of From People to Planet: Lessons from a Design Agency, and an opening party that set the tone for the week.
On Wednesday 17 September the exhibition space shifted focus for a Design Declares activism workshop. Morrama co-led an interactive session using its inhouse designed D! card-based system to explore how much impact a single individual can have.
Thursday 18 September brought a quieter moment. Founder, Jo Barnard read from her new book and joined a fireside chat that opened up the realities of sustainable design and the hard questions that follow.
Saturday 20 September closed the schedule with Coffee & Conversation, giving visitors a chance to meet the Morrama team and revisit the projects with a more personal exchange.
Running and reflection
Thursday also started with movement. More than fifty designers and a few early-rising locals joined the OOO Run Club for a 5 km loop through Hackney. Andy led the pace with writer-runner Roddy Clarke alongside. This the second iteration of the project previously seen at Milan Design Festival 2025 with TDC PR.
“It’s the conversations that I enjoy the most,” Jo said afterwards. “Giving time to discuss a material, design or technology with a stranger and having your views challenged and built on is so valuable.”
The core show
At the heart of the week were five collaborations that set sustainability and commercial reality on the same track:
- Carbon Cell x Morrama Lab – carbon-negative, compostable expanded foam derived from biochar.
- Earthmade x Morrama Lab – products designed with lifespans that match their internal components.
- Batch.Works x Kibu – colour and finish achieved entirely through waste materials, no synthetic additives required.
- Shellworks x Wild – packaging designed to disappear naturally.
- Thermofibre x Eco-flo – plant-based medical materials intended to cut incineration waste and move toward carbon-negative solutions.
Imagery can be found on our Instagram
Making it happen
The exhibition was designed and produced by Morrama with collaborators and sponsors. Complete Fabrication produced the precision Earthmade battery parts. Smile Plastics supplied “Heron in Chestnut” tabletops recycled from white goods, the perfect setting for the five projects. Beavertown and Arrowtown provided free drinks throughout the talks, workshops and informal debates.
For the Morrama team the impact lay in the exchange, not the spectacle. “It was always great to see the surprise on their faces when they were hearing about a material they didn’t know about,” said designer Léa Berger. “Knowing that a good amount of people have learned something new by coming to From the Ground Up is a great achievement.”
Ben Melvin added, “The exhibition presented more questions than answers, and that’s the point. I hope people took inspiration and share a desire to explore how we can address long-standing needs in a more considerate way.”
From the Ground Up asked whether design can stay commercially sharp while acknowledging the planet’s limits. We think so.
Would you like to see Morrama at your region's design festival? Or, do you have an innovative material that could benifit from the Lab process? Get in touch to discuss opportunities.
Thanks,
Andy, Jo and the Morrama Team
