Design the future — together.
A free two-day festival opening up architecture and the built environment to the next generation — hands-on workshops, studio tours and live debate at the Royal College of Art.
Friday 9th & Saturday 10th October 2026
Hosted at the Royal College of Art, Battersea.
Free to attend
Festival of the Future 2025 · Photo: Patrick Dempsey
Careers in design can feel out of reach — Festival of the Future exists to change that. Across two days at the Royal College of Art, young people and communities work alongside the architects, engineers, planners and civic organisations shaping our cities, discovering the many routes in and the power they have to shape the world around them. Following a first edition that welcomed over 2,000 young people to the RIBA in 2025, it's back for 2026 — free to attend, both days.
Festival Line Up
Industry: Allford Hall Monaghan Morris (AHMM), dMFK, DSDHA, Elliott Wood, Foster + Partners, Hawkins\Brown, HTA Design, Heyne Tillett Steel, Maccreanor Lavington, RSHP, Tibbalds, and ZHA.
Civic Organisations & Collectives: Archimake, Beyond the Box, Build the Way CIC, Deaf Architecture Front, EDIT, HomeGrown Plus, Mass Collective, MATT + FIONA, Open City Accelerate, POoR Collective, Royal Institute of British Architects, Thornton Education Trust, (to)scale.
Schools of Architecture: Architectural Association School of Architecture, London School of Architecture, Ravensbourne University, Royal College of Art, University of Westminster, London Metropolitan University, Central Saint Martins University of the Arts London.
Festival of the Future 2025 · Photo: Patrick Dempsey
How booking works
Festival of the Future runs as four free, separately-booked events:
Friday · Schools Day (11–16): booked by teachers, not individual students — book a place for your class and we'll assign your students to activities on the day.
Friday evening · Accelerate Debate: open to everyone — book an individual ticket.
Saturday · 16+: individuals book their own ticket, then explore the day freely.
Saturday evening · Designing Better Futures: open to everyone — book an individual ticket.
Day and evening are separate events — a day ticket doesn't include the evening, so if you want both, book both.
Friday · Schools Day
For secondary schools (ages 11–16)
A day of hands-on workshops with practising architects, engineers and designers. Teachers book a class — we build the timetable around your students.
Friday evening · Accelerate Debate
Open to everyone. Part of Accelerate Debates — our series scrutinising the issues shaping the built environment and education. This debate hands the floor to a panel of young people, tackling the real experiences and challenges of accessing and working in the sector, and finding common ground to move things forward.
Saturday · 16+
A-level, degree & MA students, and recent grads
Studio tours, portfolio clinics, talks and workshops for the next generation of architects, designers and city-makers — plus the evening panel.
Saturday evening · Designing Better Futures
People. Place. Culture.
Open to everyone. Our festival finale — and a celebration of eight years of Beyond the Box. An evening of panels, music and networking, bringing together voices from practice, community and policy to ask what it really takes to build a better future.
Friday 9th · Schools Day
9.45am arrival and sign in · activities 10am–5.30pm · Evening debate from 6pm.
How to Time Travel! — Architectural Association (AA)
From baroque to bonkers, explore how buildings reimagine the past. Collage, redraw and rethink London's details — and meet the AA's Accelerate programme for 16–18s.
Inside Foster + Partners: Studio Tour & Drawing Lab
Visit the newly renovated Foster + Partners studio, followed by a hands-on architectural drawing lab with the team — a curated experience for young designers at the festival.
Experience of the City — RSHP
Architect Jack Newton shares his journey — from growing up in London to landmark projects at home and abroad — and how creativity, teamwork and problem-solving shape our cities. He'll also explore the many routes into architecture, followed by a live Q&A.
Re:Imagine London — ZHA
Reimagine London's waterfront — in Fortnite. In this facilitator-led workshop with ZHA, work in teams to balance homes, nature, movement and public space, and build your own vision for a more vibrant city.
Paper Towers: Shape, Strength and Stability — Elliott Wood Can you build a paper tower strong enough to carry weight and survive the wind? In this hands-on engineering challenge, shape, fold and brace paper into towers — then test them under load and against a fan to discover how real buildings resist gravity, wind and everything in between.
AI in Architecture: Creative Tool or Creative Threat? — AHMM
Watch your drawings transformed live by AI, hear how architects really use it day to day, and have your say in the debate: creative tool, or creative threat?
Recast — Hawkins\Brown + Build the Way
Meet the Build the Way trainees and their Recast showcase — crafted tiles made from reclaimed materials, and the story of a regenerative, alternative route into the profession.
Can You Build a Bridge? — Heyne Tillett Steel
Take on the Great Spaghetti Structure Challenge. Team up with real engineers to build a bridge that carries the heaviest load — and learn how structures actually stand up.
Thinking Space — MATT + FIONA
Armed with nothing but recycled paper and tape, build a space to think in — working solo, in pairs and as a group to discover the quiet power of making together.
A Eutopia for All — RIBA
Imagine a city with no barriers — one everyone can enjoy, feel safe in and belong to. Drop in with RIBA to design and build your own truly inclusive city.
Building the Future: Architecture from Leftovers — London Metropolitan University Turn leftovers into architecture. With London Met's School of Art, Architecture and Design, discover how discarded and reclaimed materials can be reimagined into something new — a hands-on, socially engaged take on designing for a more sustainable future.
Live Talk with Foster + Partners
Go inside one of the world's leading studios. Foster + Partners share how great design happens through collaboration, with time for your questions at the end.
Playing Professionals — University of Westminster
Architecture is about far more than buildings. Step into different professional roles, tackle a live design brief, and discover the many careers a design education opens up.
Behind the Blueprint — dMFK Architects
What does it really take to become an architect? Demystify the routes in, then try it yourself — design a floor plan for a real scheme. Complete beginners very welcome.
Design Your Future: From Desk to Career — Ravensbourne University London
Can the objects on your desk shape your future? Sketch your ideal workspace, use AI to find your role models, and map real routes into built-environment careers.
Re-imagining Waste — DSDHA
Turn waste into wonder. Make your own earth tile from reclaimed offcuts and add it to a growing collective mosaic — a hands-on introduction to circular, sustainable design.
As the schools day closes, the festival opens up. The Open City Accelerate Debate is a free evening of live, honest conversation about the future of the built environment — and who gets to shape it. Real talk, big questions, and a drink in hand.
Open to everyone.
Friday evening · Open City Accelerate Debate
Open City Accelerate Debate - Rethinking Recruitment 2025
Saturday 10th · 16+
Saturday: 9.45am arrival and sign in · activities 10am–5.30pm · Designing Better Futures from 6pm.
Out of Architecture — (to)scale
An architecture degree opens more doors than you think. Meet people who've taken their skills into adjacent careers, and discover the many directions your training can take you.
Pass it On — London School of Architecture
Design your own ideal space, then hand it on. Work through a real design brief, inherit someone else's, and learn how architects read and build on each other's ideas.
POoR Collective RCA Trailblazers: meet POoR Collective (Power Out of Restriction), award-winning RCA alumni putting young people at the heart of the built environment. Hear their journey from RCA to practice, then join a hands-on workshop in community-led design.
London 2050: Speculative Mapping — Architectural Association (AA) Picture a fairer, greener, more vibrant London in 2050. Inspired by the sci-fi worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin and Octavia Butler, use creative mapping to reimagine your neighbourhood — then collage everyone's maps into one collective vision of the city that could be.
Inside Foster + Partners — Studio Tour Step inside one of the world's leading studios. Take a guided tour of Foster + Partners and hear first-hand how one of the most celebrated practices around really works, thinks and designs.
EDIT RCA Trailblazers: meet EDIT, a feminist architecture collective challenging the biases built into our spaces through design, research and exhibitions. Hear their story from RCA to practice, then explore co-design and inclusive making in a hands-on workshop.
Fit for the Future — HTA Design How can housing meet the climate emergency? Drawing on projects like Sutton Estate, Hanham Hall and the Aylesbury Estate, HTA explore retrofit, regeneration and new-build — and how thoughtful design cuts carbon while improving how we live.
Building Together — RIBA Youth Forum
Led by young people, for young people. Drop in to the RIBA Youth Forum for hands-on, creative activities exploring everything from social housing to accessible cities.
Deaf Architecture Front RCA Trailblazers: meet Deaf Architecture Front, a Deaf-led practice embedding Deaf perspectives and DeafSpace principles into architecture and public space. Hear their journey, then join a workshop on inclusive design that works for everyone.
Designing Better Ways to Engage Young People — Thornton Education Trust
How do you design meaningful ways for young people to shape the places where they live? Take on a real design challenge drawn from Thornton Education Trust's research into how councils, architects and developers engage young people in the built environment. Map different approaches, then co-design practical tools that could help the industry do it better.
GLAM: Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Architecture & Me — HomeGrown Plus
Fashion meets architecture. Transform discarded materials into striking wearable design guided by circular-economy thinking — then bring it to life on a sustainable architecture catwalk.
Foster + Partners — Talk & Portfolio Clinic An introduction to Foster + Partners — their collaborative approach and landmark projects — followed by a portfolio clinic and careers conversations, with one-to-one advice on university, portfolios and routes into the profession.
Recast — Hawkins\Brown + Build the Way
Meet the Build the Way trainees and their Recast showcase — crafted tiles made from reclaimed materials, and the story of a regenerative, alternative route into the profession.
Architectural Photography Taster Day — Mass Collective Find your eye for buildings and space. Join Mass Collective for a phone photography walk, and talks from emerging talent sharing insight into how they’re building their practice.
Who Makes the City? — Tibbalds Who really decides what your high street looks like, or where new homes get built? Go behind the scenes of how cities and towns really get made.
'Silent Disco' Studio — Archimake Architecture, silent disco style. Scan the QR code, pop in your headphones and choose from a range of pre-recorded Archimake workshops, each guiding you through a real design task — then come together to draw and make. No set start or finish, so come and go, switch workshops and stay as long as you like. (Dancing permitted!)
Saturday evening · Designing Better Futures
People. Place. Culture.
Our festival finale lands on a special date — Beyond the Box's 8th birthday. Designing Better Futures brings community organisations, professionals and young people into one room for an evening of panels, film and networking: part honest conversation about who shapes the built environment, part celebration of eight years of doing it differently. A moment to reflect, connect and raise a glass — and one not to miss.
Open to everyone.
Beyond the Box’s People’s Pavilion Exhibition 2023 · Photo: Kirin Sall
Plan your visit
Everything you need for a smooth day with us
Where
Royal College of Art, Battersea — Studio Building, Howie Street, London SW11 4AY (///shirts.mirror.pitch)
Friday 9 & Saturday 10 October 2026 · arrive 9.45am · activities 10am–5.30pm · evening events from 6pm
Daytime: come to the Studio Building, Howie Street.
Evening events: Dyson Building, Hester Road.
Please travel by public transport — no parking on site. Nearest bus stop Battersea Bridge / Hester Road (19, 49, 170, 319, 345); nearest Tube Battersea Power Station. Step-free access and accessible toilets throughout.
Questions? admin@beyondtheboxconsultants.com
About Festival of the Future
Festival of the Future is a two-day celebration of the built environment — and everyone's right to shape it. Created by Beyond the Box, it exists to open up architecture, design, engineering and the many careers around them to young people who too often find those doors closed.
Why we're here
We believe careers in design shouldn't depend on who you know or where you're from. The built environment belongs to everyone, yet the people who design our streets, homes and public spaces rarely reflect the communities who live in them. The festival is our answer: a space where young people don't just learn about the built environment — they help shape it.
Festival of the Future 2025 · Photo: Patrick Dempsey
The story so far
We launched Festival of the Future in 2025 at the Royal Institute of British Architects, where over 2,000 young people from across the UK stepped inside the profession for the first time. In 2026 we move to the Royal College of Art's Battersea campus — bigger, bolder and more collaborative than ever.
More than a careers fair
Over two days, young people work alongside practising architects, engineers, planners and the civic organisations doing the real work in communities — through hands-on workshops, studio tours, live debate and co-design. From world-renowned practices to civic collectives and schools of architecture, the whole sector comes together in one place, because opening up the profession takes all of us. We don't tick boxes. We listen, and we act.
Festival of the Future 2025 · Photo: Patrick Dempsey
Who it's for
Friday is dedicated to secondary-school students (ages 11–16), booked in as classes. Saturday opens to 16+ — A-level, degree and MA students, and recent graduates. Our evening panel events are open to everyone.
The bigger picture
Festival of the Future is part of a national conversation about who gets to build our future. As the House of Lords Built Environment Committee has urged, engaging young people isn't a nice-to-have — it's how the sector grows the talent it needs. We believe the answer to that challenge isn't fewer routes into the profession, but more.
Who's behind it
Festival of the Future is created by Beyond the Box, a creative practice and community interest company working at the intersection of environment, culture and brands. Our purpose is simple: creating equity by design.
Join us on 9–10 October 2026 at the Royal College of Art.
Festival Sponsors
Academic Partners
Media Partner
Venue Partner