Toronto will once again become a living, breathing design showcase next month as the 16th annual DesignTO Festival unfolds across the city! The 10-day winter event runs Jan 23 to Feb 1, 2026, and is known as Canada’s largest annual celebration of design, transforming everyday streets, shop windows, galleries and public spaces into sites of wonder, interaction and reflection.
Best of all: it’s free!
Visitors will be able to wander, touch, listen and discover how design shapes our sense of place and community, so expect everything from bold experiential installations to intimate photographic works and immersive atmospheric environments.
If you’re looking for a good starting point, check out one of these installations first:
Beneath One Sky
Jan 23-Feb 1, 2026 | 2 St. Clair Ave W
Walk beneath light, cloud-like sculptured mesh forms hung overhead like a shared canopy, and you’ll experience what it feels like to exist under a collective, airy sky!
S.A.D.
Jan 1-Jan 31, 2026 | Sankofa Square, 1 Dundas St E
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This photographic installation by Steven Beckly turns Sankofa Square into an evocative gallery of light and reflection! Eight digital screens display intimate, luminous imagery that plays with the changing rhythms of urban life, casting the square as both a backdrop and a stage. This exhibition runs for 75 seconds every 5 minutes on 5 screens at Sankofa Square. They are viewable outdoors 24/7.
Suspended Vessels
Jan 23-Feb 1, 2026 | The Drake Hotel, 1150 Queen St W
Clusters of hand-blown glass droplets hang like ethereal ornaments through the iconic Drake Hotel’s windows. Under ultraviolet light, they’ll glow an otherworldly green, shifting with perspective and mood.
The Weather Holds
Jan 23-Feb 2, 2026 | The Bakery, 2 Fraser Ave
This immersive installation from Teston + Zhang plays with air, mist and microclimates to create atmospheric “zones” that feel like part science experiment, part poetic space. You’ll step into a playful, immersive environment where air, mist, and temperature shape unexpected spaces outdoors.
While installations and exhibitions are the core of DesignTO, the programming also includes talks, tours, workshops and panels that invite deeper engagement with how design intersects with community, identity and urban life!
For full schedule details, visit the DesignTO festival website or follow @designtofestival.
