Late Debate: Designing the Tube

Give your brain a New Year workout during London Transport Museum’s fun Late Debate on the evening of 26 January 2017. Guests will be able to enjoy interactive debates, talks and workshops, as well as a bar, live music and the Museum’s special Designology exhibition.
Debates and talks

Guests will have the chance to join one of four keynote talks and debates by leading industry experts, designers and authors.

Off the Rails: Learning from the past and influencing the future: In this panel discussion, expert historians, authors and contemporary designers will explore designing for the railways, sharing learning from past and debating recommendations for the future.

Connect or forget: Powered by New London Architecture: Work with New London Architecture and a panel of expert speakers to consider how the Tube, and wider transport network, has the ability to connect or forget regions and communities.

Delight and surprise: Explore how our journeys can be impacted through moments of delight and surprise, and how such moments make us a world class leader in design. Give your views on how important it is for our stations to celebrate heritage, promote a sense of nature, engage with art and culture, and make an impact through well curated advertising.

Tales from Weaving Futures: Powered by PechaKucha*: Enjoy a PechaKucha of textile tales, design debates and weaving wonders. All brought to you by the designers, artists and industry professionals involved the Designology Weaving Futures studio programme.

Serious play and entertainment

As well as debates and talks guests can get involved in some fun but serious play, offering the chance to explore and create, as well as enjoy the Museum and network with other guests. Serious play activity includes:

Live music: Busking sounds of voice, harmonica and hammered dulcimer extraordinaire Ben Henry Edwards, accompanied by Sam Lewis.

Network mapping: Work with New London Architecture in a giant mapping activity. Use coloured threads to highlight and explore the web of our combined modes, routes and communities across London, inspired by the Connect or Forget debate.

Secrets behind the Tube map: Work with Tube obsessed Londonist Video Journalist Geoff Marshall to explore the history, anomalies and oddities of our much loved London Underground Map. Then have a go at creating your own Tube map for London.

Illustrate an idiom: Explore station design through our new Crossrail exhibition and Transport for London’s beautiful Underground Station Design Idiom. Then have fun coming up with your own station designs and idiom illustrations.

Digital weaving: Drop into the Designology studio and meet our resident Weaving Futures curators and weavers. Watch live weaving on a state-of-the-art TC2 digital jacquard loom and try your hand at a ‘weave inspired’ activity.

Meet the authors and designers: Meet David Lawrence, author of British Rail Designed 1948-97, Nick Tyler, author of Accessibility and the Bus System: Transforming the World and Wallace Henning, Designer at Koto, who has just succeeded in reproducing the British Rail Corporate Identity Manual.