As one of the festival’s most ambitious installations to date, The Beacon stood at 8m tall, creating a temporary intervention into the skyline of Spa Fields. Inspired by the Tower of Babel, the design celebrates the many different languages spoken in the area as recorded in recent census data. Visitors could climb the staircase to a viewing platform that overlooks where industrial Clerkenwell meets the historical.

Echoing the look of Perspex® brand’s iconic colour chain swatches, The Beacon was clad in a colourful grid of acrylic squares each labeled with a colour reference name and number. Each reference name was been translated into one of the different languages listed as spoken in Islington. The accompanying number reference represents the number of people recorded as primarily speaking that language. In doing so, the installation celebrated the internationalism of the area and of the design industry as a whole.

Photo Credit: Sally Hogarth, Clerkenwell Design Week, Perspex