Design Vancouver Festival Kicks Off in September With 66 (!) Events for Design Lovers

For some, September marks ‘back to school.’ For us, it’s simply the start of design season.

Between IDS Vancouver and the Western Living Designers of the Year Awards, it’s a time of year that has long been dedicated to celebrating the design scene. And this year, with the re-introduction of the Design Vancouver Festival, it looks like the most wonderful time of the year will extend even later.

DVF is a fresh iteration on 2014’s Vancouver Design Week, and absolutely jam-packed. The fest will run September 19 to 29, 2024, with 66 design-centric events that include open studios, industry gatherings, architectural tours and design talks. More than 28 studios and designers are already committed to participating, with more architects, interior designers, furniture makers, artists and graphic designers anticipated to sign on as we get closer to the festival start date.

It’s a project intended to “relaunch design leadership on the West Coast,” explains Becki Chan, who’s organizing the festival with the rest of her Open Format Studio team. (If the name sounds familiar, it’s because they’re also the folks behind the cult-favourite PechaKucha design talk series).

Most of the events are free or pay-what-you-can, in an attempt to make design accessible and affordable for all. Chan and co. are anticipating more than 25,000 attendees to engage with studio tours, open houses and panel discussions featuring the city’s most interesting design minds.

The 11-day fest kicks off on the 19th with PechaKucha at the Vancouver Playhouse (one of the few ticketed events). As always, a curated cast of creatives will get 20 slides, and 20 seconds to talk per slide, to whip through provocative ideas or do a captivating show-and-tell.

Type enthusiasts can soak up some inspo at the DVF edition of the Type Brigade speaker series; architecture buffs can walk through an innovative 12-family Passive House residence at the Urban Village Cohousing building tour, or catch a downtown walking tour led by the Architecture Foundation of B.C.

Designers are welcome to mix and mingle at Vancouver Special’s P4A (Party 4 Architects) event, or pop into Supermarket Studio to see how custom carpets are made. Kids will have a blast making mini tree houses, and even foodies have something to look forward to—Vanmag’s pasty chef of the year, Kenta Takahashi, will lead a two-hour workshop on the architecture of dessert.

Like we said, there’s 66 events happening (we didn’t even mention the lemonade-stand building competition or the Bulthaup pop-up market!) and to describe them all would not really be in line with the West Coast minimalism that drives so many of our local designers. Head to the website to check out the extensive schedule and design your perfect Design Festival.