Workplace Design Show announces theme for 2026 edition
(UK) – The newly announced theme for Workspace Design Show, Connected Realities, invites the industry not just to attend but to participate in a collective showcase of how work can evolve when physical and digital no longer compete but collaborate.
Taking place from 25–26 February at the Business Design Centre, London, this edition encourages exhibitors and visitors to explore how hybrid models, immersive technologies, and intelligent environments are transforming the modern workplace — not just as spaces we use, but as environments we experience, engage with, and belong to.
“We’re moving beyond furniture and floor plans. Today’s most successful workplaces behave almost like living organisms, responsive, sensory, and human,” says Esha Bark-Jones, Event Director for Workspace Design Show. “Connected Realities is a celebration of that evolution, the moment where physical design and digital intelligence finally operate in harmony.”
Rather than treating the theme as a backdrop, Workspace Design Show is turning it into a full-scale design challenge, asking exhibitors to interpret Connected Realities through the way they build and behave within their stands. Whether through AR-enabled product demos, blended material palettes, live data walls or wellbeing-driven sensory environments, the show floor is set to become a living exhibition of this reality’s workplace behaviour.
Leading brands have already confirmed participation in the challenge, alongside design partners Gensler, Peldon Rose, MCM Architecture, M Moser Associates, and Area, who will help bring the theme to life.
On day one of the show, the inaugural Workspace Design Awards will take place, celebrating completed workplace projects from around the world. The Workspace Design Awards are assessed by senior occupiers, developers and workplace transformation leaders, meaning entries are evaluated from the perspective of the people who actually live with the results.
Entry is free and open to architects, interior designers, design consultancies, fit-out companies, occupiers, developers and workplace strategists for projects completed between 1 January 2023 – 30 October 2025.
