LFA2026

1 - 30 June 2026

The London Festival of Architecture (LFA) is back for a month long celebration of architecture and city-making in June 2026.

With activity happening across London, the Festival will once again be platform for conversation, testing new ideas, promoting emerging talent, helping shift us towards a more equitable, sustainable city.

All Festival activity for 2026 will focus on the theme of ‘Belonging’. You can find some initial thoughts from the Festival team and LFA2026 Curation Panel below.

LFA2026 has now come to a close – but you can let us know your thoughts on the progamme for a chance to win prizes! Head to the account section to find out more.

Animated BSL sign for Voices using white line drawing on bright pink background.

LFA2026 Theme:

Belonging

We live in a time of stark contrasts – of people, places and ways of thinking. And within this it is all too easy to fall into traps of anger, pessimism or passiveness. None of which lead to healthy, thriving, and safe cities. LFA2026 aims to be a platform for hope and belonging, a space to reimagine connection, and a vehicle for change in our city.

We want LFA2026 to be more than a moment. We hope it will plant seeds that grow long after June has come to a close – whether that be skills, ideas, and connections. We hope organisers can begin to rewild grey parts of the city, reclaim neglected streets, and show what happens when lived experience and professional expertise work together to create spaces in which people can belong. We hope organisers and attendees will ask hard questions, collectively take responsibility and, and celebrate the small, everyday acts of care and creativity through which a city becomes a place of belonging for all.

To kick off the conversation, below you can read a short essay co-created with the Festival team and Curation Panel.

London has always been a city of arrivals and reinvention, a city made and remade by the successive generations of migration and collaborations. It’s a layered city, with community-run spaces, grassroots projects, mutual aid networks and campaigns demonstrating how belonging can be created and sustained – even in the face of austerity, displacement and inequality. These collective forces demonstrate that belonging is not a passive state but an active practice of imagination, courage and solidarity.

Belonging is about more than being welcome and safe in the streets, parks, and buildings of our cities. It is entering a space feeling invited and having a sense of agency; accessing what you need to thrive; moving without fear of surveillance or harm. The use of ‘public’ means little if there are more barriers than freedoms. How can anyone belong when you feel threatened, ashamed or

Across the world, the notion of belonging is under pressure. Rising costs, a rapidly warming planet, censoring governments threaten who and what can shape our city. But what is the cost of not acting? When safe community spaces are forced to close, when people are priced out of the only area they’ve ever known, when residents are excluded from decisions about their own streets, the very idea of the city as a collective project begins to fracture, and gaps are left where neighbourhoods once gathered and held a shared sense of belonging. How can we preserve and reimagine these spaces and practices, and map ourselves back into the city? How can we design, build and maintain our spaces in a way that includes rather than excludes?

The built environment industry sits at the centre of this challenge. What gets built, preserved, demolished or upgraded often decides who belongs and who does not. Too often it is the same people – young people, disabled people, and communities from global majority backgrounds – who bear the greatest impact. This raises the central question: who belongs in this city, and who is still missing?

Belonging needs collective agency, not top-down delivery. We need to work alongside neighbourhoods, not above them. We need to remove barriers, create capacity, and use joy as an act of resilience and resistance. We must disrupt narrow and political definitions of belonging that divide communities and land, imagining a belonging that is porous, shared, and open to difference.

We want LFA2026 to be more than a moment. We hope it will plant seeds that grow long after June has come to a close – whether that be skills, ideas or connections. We hope organisers can begin to rewild grey parts of the city, reclaim neglected streets, and show what happens when lived experience and professional expertise work together to create spaces in which people can belong. We hope organisers and attendees will ask hard questions, collectively take responsibility and, and celebrate the small, everyday acts of care and creativity through which a city becomes a place of belonging for all.

Be a part of

#LFA2026

There are many ways to get involved in the Festival next year. Below you can find information on each area.

ATTEND

The LFA2026 programme will be launched in May 2026. Ahead of then, create your very own LFA Attendee Account here. And keep up to date via the LFA newsletter here.

ORGANISE

Want to take your involvement with LFA further? Each year we work to empower new individuals and organisations with their own LFA activity. The LFA2026 Call for Activity is now closed, but will reopen for LFA2027 in January 2027.

PARTNER

The Festival would not be possible without our key partners. Check out the Partner with the Festival page here to find out how you can partner with the Festival. Or email us using this link here

KEEP UP TO DATE

Sign up to our social channels and newsletter to access all key LFA information. Sign up to the main LFA newsletter here.

FAQ:

First time hearing about LFA and have some questions? Explore our Festival History page here to learn more about the Festival past and present. Have questions about organiser Festival activity? Find out organiser FAQ's in the account section of the LFA website.

LFA2026: Curatorial Panel

Each year the LFA are delighted to work alongside our Curation Panel to shape the Festival theme and programme. LFA2026's panel includes key figures from across the built environment and beyond, including:

Black Females in Architecture
(she/her)

Neba Sere and Selasi Setufe MBE

BFA is a membership organisation and social enterprise. With over 500 members globally, BFA connects and supports black women within the architecture, design and construction industry. Through networking, advocacy, e…

Rumi Bose
(she/her)

Urban designer and placeshaping consultant

Rumi Bose is an urban designer and placeshaping consultant with 16 years of regeneration experience across London’s high streets and town centres. Rumi has prolific experience leading multi-disciplinary teams, work…

Thomas Bryans
(he/him)

Co-founder of IF_DO and IF/ Design Labs

Thomas Bryans is co-founder of IF_DO and IF/ Design Labs, and a committee member of Architecture LGBT+. His work explores how architecture can strengthen communities and spark civic imagination. He has a longstanding…

Sarah Considine
(she/her)

Head of the Design Unit at the Greater London Authority

Sarah is Head of the Design Unit at the Greater London Authority, where she oversees quality and inclusion in the built environment through design research, design review and advocacy. She has a range of experience a…

Tayshan Hayden-Smith
(he/him)

Founder of Grow to Know

Tayshan Hayden-Smith is a community leader, a creator of spaces, a champion for justice, and an advocate for the power of nature, art, and activism to transform lives. Born and raised in Ladbroke Grove, London, Taysh…

Tanisha Raffiuddin
(she/her)

Founder and Creative Director of Concept Culture

Tanisha Raffiuddin is an award-winning Founder and Creative Director of Concept Culture, and a Brand & Creative Strategist based in London. Tanisha founded Concept Culture out of a desire to combine her passion for p…

Kaia Charles
(she/her)

Curator and cultural strategist

Kaia is a curator and cultural strategist with over a decade of experience delivering cross-disciplinary, socially engaged programmes across galleries, museums, and the public realm.

Dr Maja Jović
(she/her)

Assistant Head of the School of Architecture + Cities at the University of Westminster

Maja is Assistant Head of the School of Architecture + Cities at the University of Westminster, director of Interdisciplinarity and Collaboration and co-founder and co-leader of MA in Architecture and Sustainable Her…

Andre Kong
(he/him)

Founder of andre kong studio

Andre is a London-based architect and designer, and the founder of andre kong studio - an emerging, award-winning practice imagining narrative-driven projects grounded in the principles of the circular economy. A pas…

Luísa Pereira Pires
(she/her)

Founder of Neurodiversity Architecture Network

Luísa is an intersectional neurodivergent founder, educator, interdisciplinary digital fabrication and computational designer and a part 2 architectural assistant. She has helped coordinate multiple projects and eve…

Corinne Wint
(she/her)

Senior Programme Coordinator at Zaha Hadid Architects

Corinne is Senior Programme Coordinator at Zaha Hadid Architects, leading on event and outreach programming. She has been involved in LFA initiatives for a number of years and her experience includes social impact, e…

Wilson Yau
(he/him)

Learning Officer at the Zaha Hadid Foundation

Wilson is a London-based artist and educator, with two decades of experience in teaching with a focus on architecture. He is the Learning Officer at the Zaha Hadid Foundation, delivering educational and community pro…

1 - 30 June 2026

Belonging

#LFA2026

LFA2026: Curatorial Panel

Black Females in Architecture (she/her)

Rumi Bose (she/her)

Thomas Bryans (he/him)

Sarah Considine (she/her)

Tayshan Hayden-Smith (he/him)

Tanisha Raffiuddin (she/her)

LFA2026: Mentors

Kaia Charles (she/her)

Dr Maja Jović (she/her)

Andre Kong (he/him)

Luísa Pereira Pires (she/her)

Corinne Wint (she/her)

Wilson Yau (he/him)