Zurich Design Weeks 2026: Breaking the Mould

An unused rooftop reproduced on the ground at a 1:1 scale, objects removed from their usual context, savoir-faire revealed through the making rather than simply through the finished result. OUT OF… is the theme of Zurich Design Weeks 2026, running from 17 to 27 September 2026, inviting designers and visitors to move beyond established conventions, places and categories. Now in its fifth edition, Switzerland’s leading design event unfolds across more than forty locations, from institutions and studios to showrooms and independent spaces.

The programme opens with Nina Yashar, founder of Nilufar and one of the most influential figures in international collectible design. At House of Interiors, together with Swiss interior designer Iria Degen, she curates Objects of Desire, a dialogue between historic icons and contemporary research that brings together different generations and perspectives: from Gio Ponti to Martino Gamper, from Michael Anastassiades to Federico Peri, Sophie Dries, david/nicolas and Rooshad Shroff. Bronze, marble and glass provide the common ground for a selection exploring material research, savoir-faire and experimentation across the boundaries of design, art and craft.

The theme OUT OF… takes on an urban dimension with Die Stadt über unseren Köpfen, a project by HSLU Spatial Design and Remo Fässler at Europaallee. The footprint of the unused rooftop of Baufeld F is reproduced on the ground at full scale, making visible a space that exists above the city yet usually goes unnoticed. The gesture raises a question: in an increasingly dense city, how might elevated surfaces be used collectively? Rather than offering a predetermined solution, the project turns the site into a space for discussion and participation.
 

Dislocated Utility_Objects out of Place, curated by Natascha Madeiski and Paulina Reséndiz, also explores displacement, this time through objects. Inside the historic shower rooms of the former SBB railway workshops, design, art and craft interact with tiles, technical surfaces, traces of use and signs of time. Removing an object from the place for which it was conceived becomes a way to question its function and meaning, while blurring the distinctions between design, sculpture and installation.
At the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, the festival headquarters, the focus broadens to the history of Swiss design with the Swiss Design Collection, comprising around 2,500 objects that trace its evolution. During the Design Weeks, the museum also hosts an exhibition dedicated to Isao Hosoe, the Japanese designer who worked in Italy for much of his career, and Design for Inclusion, exploring the role of design in creating a more accessible society.

There is another way to move beyond the conventional logic of the object: showing how it is made. A Moment in the Making, a project by FDM Fine Crafts, brings to the fore techniques and gestures that usually disappear into the finished product. At a time when craft has firmly returned to the design vocabulary, makers including Véronique de Soultrait and Marianne Guély will work live, shifting the focus from the result to the time, manual skill and knowledge behind it.

Finally, the city itself becomes part of the project. Poster Safari takes graphic design beyond exhibition spaces, while Make Space For…, created by IKEA Switzerland with Dutch studio Raw Color, invites us to reconsider our relationship with things: what we want to keep, what we are prepared to let go of, and what we want to make room for. OUT OF… works best when it takes concrete form: when a rooftop becomes a possibility, an object acquires new meaning through a change of context, and design moves beyond its usual spaces and into the city.