Citywide Festival Convenes More Than 163,000 Designers, Innovators, Cultural Leaders, and Enthusiasts Across Hundreds of Events
The NYCxDESIGN Festival returns May 14-20, 2026, bringing together more than 163,000 designers, innovators, industry leaders, and enthusiasts for a week-long celebration of creativity, collaboration, and cultural exchange. Established in 2012 as New York City’s official design week, the festival has grown into one of the world’s leading design gatherings, activating all five boroughs of the city with dynamic programming.
“NYCxDESIGN represents a global platform that showcases the ideas, talent, and innovation that make New York City such an influential design destination, and home to the largest concentration of creatives per capita anywhere,” said Ilene Shaw, Executive Director of NYCxDESIGN. “Across neighborhoods and disciplines, our annual festival brings together the people and perspectives that define NYC’s extraordinary creative energy, welcoming more than 163,000 participants and attendees from the region and around the world.”
Throughout the week, participants from across the city, including global brands, schools and universities, cultural institutions, emerging studios, and independent makers, come together through exhibitions, installations, talks, tours, parties, and cultural programs that highlight New York’s expansive design ecosystem. The celebration amplifies the importance of the city’s creative energy, drawing a mix of local, domestic, and international attendees, with one-third of festival-goers traveling from outside New York City to participate.
“The NYCxDESIGN Festival has played an integral role in bringing together New York City’s exceptional creative talent and reinforcing the city’s role as a global design hub,” said Jeanny Pak, Interim President & CEO of New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC). “This year’s theme, Design Connects Us, reflects the strength of the city’s creative sectors to bring together people and ideas from across industries and communities, and NYCEDC is proud to support another year of programming that celebrates creativity, collaboration, and innovation across the five boroughs.”
Key events include the following highlights:
May 14, 6:00pm ET, NYCxDESIGN Festival Opening Night Party, at Halo Twenty Eight – The festival’s official kickoff event sets the tone for a week of creativity, connection, and celebration. Featuring culinary experiences by Pinch Food Design and beverages from Massican Wines and Fort Hamilton Distillery, guests will gather at one of New York City’s most striking new venues for an evening of culture, entertainment, and dynamic exchange. Bringing together leaders and creatives from across design disciplines, this highly anticipated event is an annual standout.
May 14-20, NYCxDESIGN Presents the Design Pavilion by Lexus in Times Square – Lexus returns to the NYCxDESIGN Festival with an immersive installation blending design, craft, art, technology, and innovation. Through daily programming, the experience invites visitors of all ages to engage with leading artists, industrial designers, and visionary creatives, with all offerings grounded in “The Lexus Standard of Amazing.”
May 14-20, NYCxDESIGN Exhibition: SHINE, at The Seaport – Presented in collaboration with COOL HUNTING, sponsored by Kikkerland Design, and curated by award-winning industrial designer Harry Allen, SHINE builds on the success of the 2024 and 2025 Festival exhibitions. It features original light objects by 70 designers exploring craft, technology, personal expression, and function.
May 14-20, Oui Design! – Presented by Villa Albertine, the fourth edition of Oui Design! celebrates French craft and design as an NYCxDESIGN International Spotlight. Organized as a dynamic program of exhibitions, open studios, talks, and special events throughout NYC, it highlights the evolving dialogue between French and American creative communities. A major week-long exhibition at Villa Albertine’s Payne Whitney Mansion will run concurrently, showcasing Craft & Design residency laureates, many of whom are presenting in the United States for the first time.
May 15, FRATO Opening Breakfast – The Portuguese furniture brand will welcome press and key members from the design community to its Midtown showroom for an intimate morning gathering, offering guests an opportunity to connect over breakfast while previewing the brand’s newest collection.
May 15, Fisher & Paykel Panel Conversation and Reception – The luxury appliances brand will host an engaging panel exploring the idea of legacy, an enduring theme that resonates across creative practices and the human experience. Set within Fisher & Paykel’s New York Experience Center, the conversation will inspire reflection and connection, with a reception by Chef Sam Mason to follow.
May 15, Friday Night on the Town – New York City’s design districts are partnering with showrooms across the city to present showroom programming from 4:00-10:00pm ET. Join the AN After Dark: NYC Design Districts Showroom Crawl with festivities throughout TriBeCa, Meatpacking, Flatiron, SoHo and NoMad; SoHo Design Night events; NoMad Design District events; ICFF Night Out events; and Interni’s Big Italy, a dynamic series of events stretching from NoMad and Madison Avenue to SoHo, in collaboration with the Italian Trade Agency, NYCxDESIGN, and ICFF.
May 15-19, NYCxDESIGN Keynote Program – Highlights include a featured talk on May 16 by international, award-winning architect and structural engineer Santiago Calatrava at the Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church & National Shrine, accompanied by a personal tour of the acclaimed Oculus guided by Gabriel Calatrava. In addition, award-winning architect David Rockwell will contribute to the series, exploring the recent transformation of the W New York – Union Square, offering insight into the hotel’s design vision and evolution, and the broader role of hospitality design in shaping contemporary urban experiences.
May 15-19, NYCxDESIGN Salon Series – This new series of salon-style open studio gatherings and conversations is curated in collaboration with INC Architecture & Design, an interdisciplinary design studio led by Adam Rolston. Marking one year since the opening of Private Office New York in the Meatpacking District, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars North America will host a Salon at the brand’s Private Office atelier, led by Domagoj Dukec, Rolls-Royce Global Director of Design. A key element of the brand’s participation features an immersion experience for a curated group of New York design students from a variety of disciplines, offering a behind-the-scenes look at the marque’s bespoke design process. The Salon lineup also includes participation from Brent Buck Architects, Charlap Hyman & Herrero, Goodrich, Heartwork, JG Neukomm Architecture, Ringo Studio, Schiller Projects, Scott Henderson Inc., and TenBerke.
May 15-19, NYCxDESIGN Tours – Featured tours include Defensible Dwelling and Placemaking in Brownsville: Live on Livonia, presented by the New York City Department of Transportation, which explores Brownsville’s emergence as a center for affordable housing and cultural activity shaped by community-led efforts and public reinvestment; Harlem Sculpture Gardens, a tour of large-scale sculpture and design works installed across parks, plazas, and public spaces in West Harlem, led by Executive Director and Chief Curator Savona Bailey-McClain and participating artists, and made possible by the West Harlem Art Fund; and the Wagner Park Tour, presented by the American Society of Landscape Architects, highlighting the rebuilt park’s integration of flood resilience, climate adaptation, and landscape design. The program also includes NYCxDESIGN High School Student Tours, which invite students to visit end-of-year exhibitions at participating institutions, including Cornell Tech (Design Tech and Cornell AAP), Fashion Institute of Technology (School of Art and Design), New York Institute of Technology (Architecture), New York School of Interior Design, Parsons School of Constructed Environments, and Pratt Institute (Design, Architecture, and Fine Arts).
May 16-19, Afternoon Light Design Fair, at WSA – Presenting 80+ carefully selected exhibitors across three days of discovery and commerce, the fair is open to trade and public audiences. Participating brands and studios include Anglepoise, Carl Hansen & Søn, Ford Bostwick, Gantri x Rarify, Humanscale Living, Matter Made, Matthew McCormick, Palet, Parma Tile, Phase Design, Resource Furniture, Symbol Audio, USM, Willett, and many others.
May 17, New York in Light: A Night Boat Tour – Renowned lighting designer, Hervé Descottes, will guide a tour as a part of the NYCxDESIGN Keynote program, exploring the city’s skyline from the water through light, form, and iconic landmarks. The tour is made possible by Signify Color Kinetics.
May 17-19, ICFF: International Contemporary Furniture Fair and WANTED at the Javits Center – Guided by the theme Common Ground: A Global Dialogue on Design and Shared Values, ICFF brings together the global design community and positions design as a unifying force. Programming includes an Emerging Designers Spotlight, the ICFF Editors Awards on May 17, ICFF Talks, Bespoke: The Art of Making, and WANTED’s Look Book, Launch Pad, Schools Showcase, and Design Schools Workshop.
May 18, NYCxDESIGN Awards Presented by Interior Design – Now in its 11th year, the awards recognize outstanding projects and products across New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, celebrating the diverse voices and creative contributions shaping the region’s design landscape.
May 18-19, Italian Trade Agency International Spotlight – Four curated tours will highlight Italian design and manufacturing showrooms across SoHo, NoMad, and Madison Avenue. Guests will be welcomed with VIP access and exclusive previews of new collections, fresh from Milan Design Week and Salone del Mobile.Milano.
May 19, Future Now AI Summit, at Cornell Tech – Responding to overwhelming demand, NYCxDESIGN’s AI Keynote expands into a full day of presentations and panels, featuring a keynote by Phil Gilbert, former Head of Design at IBM, with additional speakers from Adobe, Google DeepMind, IBM, Mastercard, MIT Media Lab, the School of Visual Arts, and SHoP Architects. The program will be hosted by Will Hall, CTO of PreSeason, and is made possible by Adobe. Exploring AI as an evolving creative medium, the summit examines how this new creative medium is reshaping authorship, accelerating imagination, and challenging the very nature of design.
May 20, DUMBO Festival Closing Party – The festival’s closing celebration will follow DUMBO x Design Day programming throughout the district, including activations by BIG, Fishs Eddy, Henrybuilt, Hudson Wilder, Reform, and Snøhetta, among many others.
And across the festival, a vast array of 200+ events spanning diverse design disciplines will take place in all five boroughs, with a concentration of activity in the city’s distinct design districts, including Atlantic Avenue, DUMBO, Flatiron and NoMad Design District, Harlem Design District, Hudson Yards, Meatpacking, SoHo Design District, and Upper Madison Avenue.
NYCxDESIGN’s annual festival reflects the diversity of the city’s design industries and their role in shaping innovation, culture, and the built environment. The full festival schedule will be announced at nycxdesign.org and made accessible through the NYCxDESIGN mobile app and the Bloomberg Connects app, both available in the App Store and Google Play, enabling visitors to easily navigate events across the city.
Special Thanks to Key Supporters
NYCxDESIGN thanks its 2026 Supporters that make the Festival possible, including NYC Economic Development Corporation, Bloomberg Connects, and SANDOW.
Additional Festival Partners include Adobe, Lexus, Fisher & Paykel FRATO, the Italian Trade Agency, Interior Design, Kikkerland, Santiago Calatrava Architects & Engineers, Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church & National Shrine, Villa Albertine, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars North America, INC Architecture & Design, ICFF, COOL HUNTING, Cornell Tech, Afternoon Light Design Fair, Dezeen, Signify Color Kinetics, The Seaport, Times Square Alliance, L’Observatoire International, Pinch Food Design, Massican Wines, Fort Hamilton Distillery, Halo Twenty Eight, and Arts Thread.
This year’s Media Partners include ArchDaily, Archiproducts, Architizer, Architonic, aspire design and home, AZURE, COOL HUNTING, Chapter, D5 Design Magazine, Design Diffusion World, designboom, Dezeen, EXCLAMA, The Fluxx, Glocal Design Magazine, Homecrux, IFDM, Interni, IRK Magazine, LUXE Interiors + Design, METROPOLIS, officeinsight, Sixtysix, Surface, The Architect’s Newspaper, and Visual Atelier 8.
About NYCxDESIGN
NYCxDESIGN was founded by the City of New York in 2012 to unify and amplify the city’s multidisciplinary design community, championing NYC as a global capital where design culture and industry converge. The internationally renowned NYCxDESIGN Festival – New York City’s official design week – is an annual, citywide celebration that showcases the immense talent and diversity of the city’s designers, makers, and manufacturers, along with cutting-edge design businesses and districts, and academic design institutions. The Festival attracts 163,000+ national and international visitors to the city annually, and features hundreds of events. Rooted in New York City’s uniquely diverse, pragmatic, and business-driven environment, NYCxDESIGN reflects a design culture that extends far beyond traditional categories, spanning industries from architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, interior design, industrial and product design, graphic design, lighting and sound design, to technology, art, and entertainment by design.
As an independent nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, NYCxDESIGN also leads impactful year-round initiatives that increase opportunity and inclusion within the city’s design professions, strengthening connections between New York’s creative community and the world.