The East London Gallery Betting on Design’s Next Generation

When you speak to anyone who came of age in London’s design world in the late 1990s and early 2000s, they tell you that the scene was as much about the spaces between the products as the products themselves.

While independent shops championed (and paid) emerging talent, galleries provided opportunities for experimentation, and a network of events, studios and chance encounters helped launch careers.

Today, that ecosystem feels noticeably thinner.

It’s a problem that Duncan Riches, creative director of Shoreditch Design Week and now founder of ‘Unit D’ gallery, has been thinking about for years.

Located in a former workshop space in Shoreditch, Unit D is a new gallery dedicated to emerging designers, affordable design objects and, perhaps most importantly, bringing people together in real life. Rather than focusing on collectible pieces with four-figure price tags, the gallery asks designers to create work that ordinary people can actually buy – ideally for less than £50.

“We’ve got an incredible design scene in London,” says Riches. “We’ve got loads of really good makers. We just need to create a new connection between the makers, the designers, and the people who want to engage with their work.”

The project grew from a simple opportunity: a vacant ground-floor unit in the building where Riches has had a studio for more than a decade. But what emerged was less a traditional gallery than an attempt to rebuild some of the infrastructure that once made London’s design scene feel vibrant.

Riches has conceived a schedule that is made up of a series of short shows which open on Wednesday and close on the Sunday. The likes of Andu Masebo and Michael Marriot have already take over the space, and currently, it’s occupied by Mentsen – a south London studio who have created a series of wooden shelves.

“I kept feeling that people wanted to get together face to face again,” he says. “There was an appetite for it.”

Part of that appetite comes from what Riches sees as a gap in today’s design landscape. Independent retailers that once championed emerging talent have largely been replaced by established brands, while many young designers struggle to find places to show work that sits outside the ultra-expensive collectible design market. “There isn’t really a place where you can show everyday work anymore,” he says.

“Good design should be in people’s hands”

Riches’ belief has shaped Unit D from the outset. Participating designers are encouraged to create affordable, useful objects rather than one-off statement pieces. The challenge has proven surprisingly liberating.

“Good design should be in people’s hands,” says Riches. “It shouldn’t only exist as inaccessible, rarefied objects.”

The approach also speaks to a generation living differently from those before them. “I think the industry is missing a trick generationally,” he says. “So many people under the age of 35 are renting. They don’t necessarily want big permanent objects. They want things they can buy now and live with.”

That younger audience is already finding its way to the gallery. Riches has actively encouraged students to attend openings and sees Unit D as a place where emerging designers can encounter a creative community in person rather than through a screen.

“You’ve got to give young people hope,” he says. “You’ve got to say: this is a place for you. You can show work here.”

Whether Unit D becomes a permanent fixture remains to be seen. Riches is candid that the project is still an experiment. But at a time where cultural discovery increasingly happens online, there is something refreshing about the simplicity of the idea: create a place, open the doors, and get people in the room. Sometimes, that’s how a scene begins.