From May 14–20, NYCxDesign Festival 2026 will take over New York City as its official design week, bringing together 250+ events across 10 design disciplines in 7 days. It is one of the most influential moments on the global design calendar, where architecture, urbanism, interiors, product design, technology, art, and more converge into a single, citywide experience.
NYCxDesign is not confined to a single venue, but it unfolds across New York through galleries, streets, waterfronts, studios, and public spaces. This turns the city into an open platform for ideas, experimentation, and exchange. From large-scale exhibitions and keynote conversations to neighborhood tours and open studios, the festival captures design in motion.
The 2026 edition continues this momentum, offering a program that is as diverse and dynamic as New York itself.
Keynotes & Conversations
NYCxDesign 2026 brings together some of the most influential voices in design through a series of curated keynote experiences.
An Evening with Santiago & Gabriel Calatrava
One of the most compelling events of the festival takes place at the Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church & National Shrine, where Santiago Calatrava and Gabriel Calatrava come together for an intimate keynote conversation.
Set within one of Lower Manhattan’s most significant contemporary landmarks, the discussion offers a rare opportunity to hear directly from the architect behind the project alongside his collaborator and son. The focus moves between architecture, legacy, and the making of civic space. Before the keynote, visitors can opt for a 30-minute guided architectural walk through the Oculus, led by Gabriel Calatrava. This pre-event experience provides behind-the-scenes insight into the design, engineering, and construction of one of the world’s most recognizable transportation hubs.
The tour also frames the relationship between the Oculus and the Saint Nicholas Church, allowing participants to understand both projects as part of a larger urban and architectural narrative.
Night Cruise with Hervé Descottes
Taking a completely different format, NYCxDesign 2026 hosts a keynote aboard the Manhattan I yacht, departing from Pier 62 at Chelsea Piers.
This two-hour night cruise transforms New York’s waterfront into a moving classroom. Hervé Descottes, one of the world’s most influential lighting designers, shares insights into his philosophy and process, explaining how light interacts with architecture at an urban scale. Along the route, participants encounter key projects including Pier 17, the Domino Sugar Refinery, the Newtown Creek Wastewater Resource Recovery Facility, Hunters Point Library, and 8 Spruce Street. Each becomes a case study in how illumination shapes perception, identity, and public space at night.
Future Now AI Summit
Making its debut in 2026, Future Now is a one-day summit dedicated to exploring the rapidly expanding role of artificial intelligence in design.
Unlike speculative discussions, this program positions AI as an active force already shaping creative practice. The morning session focuses on academic research and experimental thinking, offering insight into emerging ideas and future directions. The afternoon shifts toward application, where leading professionals present how AI is being used in real-world projects, from conceptual stages to execution.
Through keynote talks, panel discussions, and fireside conversations, the summit creates a comprehensive view of how design is being adopted across architecture, product design, graphic design, and art. Hosted by Will Hall, Chief Transformation Officer at PreSeason, the event bridges theory and practice in a direct and accessible way.
NYCxDesign Salon: Open Studios & Design Dialogues
NYCxDesign also prioritizes smaller, more conversational formats. A new series of salon-style open studio gatherings, curated in collaboration with INC Architecture & Design, led by Adam Rolston, creates spaces for informal exchange. These sessions allow visitors to engage directly with designers, moving beyond presentation into dialogue. At a broader level, the festival reinforces its role as a global platform, welcoming international participants and positioning New York within a wider network of design discourse.
The Housing Crisis: Real Solutions from Real People
This salon turns attention to one of the most urgent and complex challenges facing New York today: housing. Hosted by INC Architecture & Design in collaboration with The Living City Project, the discussion brings together policymakers, civic leaders, and academic voices to move beyond abstract debate and engage with real solutions. At a time when affordability has become a central priority for the city’s leadership, the conversation positions housing not just as a policy issue, but as a design problem with long-term spatial and social implications.
The Hybrid Horizon: Product Design and Development for Crossover Applications
Hosted by Goodrich, this salon explores how furniture and lighting are evolving to meet the fluid demands of contemporary life. Products originally designed for hospitality, contract, or residential use are increasingly crossing over into new contexts, requiring designers to rethink function, flexibility, and identity. The conversation brings together perspectives from across the industry, from product development and design to branding and retail. The discussion examines how products can adapt to multiple environments while maintaining coherence.
Framing Architecture: Photography, Representation, and Storytelling
Hosted by TenBerke, this salon explores how visual representation shapes the way architecture is understood, communicated, and remembered. Moving beyond the final photograph, the discussion considers the full lifecycle of images that accompany a project, from early drawings and renderings to archival material, construction photography, and completed building documentation. In conversation with invited photographers, the session examines how each stage of image-making contributes to the narrative of a project.
Exhibition Highlight: SHINE
The NYCxDesign exhibition SHINE, presented at The Seaport in partnership with COOL HUNTING and sponsored by Kikkerland Design, is one of the central showcases of the 2026 festival. Curated and designed by Harry Allen, the exhibition brings together 70 designers presenting original light objects. These works explore the intersection of craft, technology, and personal expression, positioning light as a design medium in itself.
The exhibition highlights how lighting operates across scales, from object design to spatial experience, reinforcing its role within contemporary design practice.
Design Tours
NYCxDesign expands into the city through a series of guided tours that reveal how design operates within real environments.
Wagner Park: Landscape and Resilience
At Wagner Park, a tour led by the American Society of Landscape Architects explores how climate resilience is embedded within public space.
The redesigned park integrates flood protection with landscape design, incorporating an 18-foot flood wall and a 63,000-gallon stormwater cistern beneath its surface. These systems protect Lower Manhattan from storm surges and rising sea levels while remaining invisible to visitors, demonstrating how infrastructure can function as part of the civic landscape.
Livonia Avenue, Brownsville: Housing, History, and Placemaking
Led by Mark Ginsberg, this tour offers a deep dive into over six decades of public and affordable housing design. The walk traces the evolution of Brownsville’s urban fabric, from 1940s superblocks developed by NYCHA to mid-century “Towers in the Park” typologies like the Tilden Houses, and later alternatives such as Marcus Garvey Village, which introduced low-rise, high-density housing with stoops and shared courtyards.
More recent developments, including L+M’s Marcus Garvey Extension, demonstrate how contemporary projects are integrating housing with community facilities and commercial space. The tour also highlights grassroots placemaking efforts, including urban gardens, public art, and street installations, emphasizing how design can support social and cultural transformation.
Italian Showroom Tours
A curated series of showroom visits across NoMad, SoHo, and beyond offers access to furniture, lighting, materials, and lifestyle design. These tours provide a more tactile and material-focused perspective on design practice.
Design Districts: Exploring NYC’s Creative Neighborhoods
NYCxDesign is experienced as much through neighborhoods as through events.
Atlantic Avenue: Local Design Ecosystem
Stretching through Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, and Boerum Hill, Atlantic Avenue becomes a hub of independent design. The Day of Design invites visitors into storefronts to meet makers and explore locally produced work across jewelry, furniture, ceramics, lighting, and more.
Studios host workshops, guest collaborations, and product launches, while the district’s restaurants and specialty food shops encourage visitors to spend the entire day exploring.
SoHo Design Night
SoHo transforms into a district-wide exhibition during its Design Night, where leading showrooms and galleries open their doors for an evening of installations and product launches.
Participating brands include Amura, Bang & Olufsen, Foscarini, Scavolini, Roll & Hill, and Studio Zung, among others. Organized by the SoHo Design District, the event reinforces the neighborhood’s role as a global center for contemporary design.
Harlem Design District: Design Connects Us
Harlem Design District positions design as a tool for connection, storytelling, and community impact. Through a series of activations, the program explores how design bridges history and future, people and place. Harlem becomes a forward-looking design ecosystem. Events include public art installations, youth workshops, and interactive exhibitions:
- Generative Histories Harlem, transforming academic research into a public experience
- Designers of Tomorrow, a youth-focused workshop and exhibition
- Harlem Renaissance 2.0, exploring identity and cultural memory through design
- The Inquiry Design Lab, an interactive space for storytelling and engagement
- The Heart of Hamilton Heights, a community-led urban design demonstration
With hundreds of events spread across seven days, you can navigate it in whichever way you like. Some visitors may follow keynotes and exhibitions, while others move through neighborhoods, studios, and public spaces. Most events require advance registration, especially keynotes, tours, and curated experiences such as the Calatrava talk or the Hervé Descottes night cruise. Others, including exhibitions, showroom visits, and district activations, are often open to the public or accessible with a simple RSVP. Planning is essential, but leaving space to explore is equally important.
© NYCxDesign Festival
