London Festival of Architecture returns to nature

After pointing the spotlight on the housing crisis, the future of the capital's skyline and London's evolving high streets, the final week of London Festival of Architecture goes back to nature by bringing together award-winning designer Thomas Heatherwick, garden and landscape designer Dan Pearson, and actress and campaigner Joanna Lumley to discuss the concept behind London's first Garden Bridge.

This headline event, which examines how nature can co-exist amidst the constraints of modern design, will address the practicalities of the project and the implications it will have on the capital’s residents.

The festival this week also enters into the realm of digital capital, with two key events that explore the theme of smart cities. ‘The Rise of the Smart City’ (24 June) debates what degree of influence technology should have on facilitating new models of city dwelling, whilst ‘Smart Cities London’ (27-29 June) brings together urban planners, architects, sustainability experts, technologists, researchers, developers and designers at the Google Campus, to co-create new prototypes to help London become a more liveable, competitive and sustainable city.

Visitors to the festival are treated to a series of landmark events at some of the UK's great cultural institutions. This includes the first public talk at the Serpentine Gallery by Chilean architect Smiljan Radic (27 June), creator of this year’s world-famous Serpentine Pavilion, who will discuss his remarkable design, in conversation with Serpentine’s Julia Peyton-Jones and Hans Ulrich Obrist. The V&A will also open its doors to architects, artists and designers, inviting them to develop a series of installations that re-animate the museum’s vast collection (27 June) in one of their ever-popular ‘Friday Late’ events.

The theme of housing will be revisited once more through the screening of Patrick Keiller's Dilapidated Dwellings(25 June), an essay film narrated by actress Tilda Swinton that portrays housing in Britain at the beginning of the 21st Century.

The theme of health and fitness will also be addressed by NLA and The Building Centre’s ‘Fit London’ exhibition, which looks at how physical activity can be encouraged through urban design to promote health and wellbeing in the city; an opening party (28 June) featuring fitness activities for everyone will launch this topical exhibition.