Design Groups London

Design Systems London #17

DSL is a non-profit community aimed at creating a platform for every enthusiast to share experiences, ideas and approaches on Design Systems. We are excited to invite you to our autumn edition of DSL! 🍂 DSL #17 will happen on 16 September, organised by YLD and sponsored by Revolut. Tickets go live on Monday, 17 August, at noon, so make sure you set your reminder and reserve your seat to join us: [https://dsl17.eventbrite.co.uk/?aff=mt](https://dsl17.eventbrite.co.uk/?aff=mt) The evening's agenda and talks line-up to be announced soon. **Who are [Revolut](https://www.revolut.com/ "https://www.revolut.com/")** People deserve more from their money. More visibility, more control, and more freedom. Since 2015, Revolut has been on a mission to deliver just that. Our powerhouse of products — including spending, saving, investing, exchanging, travelling, and more — help our 75+ million customers get more from their money every day. As they continue the lightning-fast growth,‌ 2 things are essential to their success: their people and their culture. So far, they have 13,000+ people working around the world, from their offices and remotely, to help them achieve their mission. And they're looking for more brilliant people. People who love building great products, redefining success, and turning the complexity of a chaotic world into the simplicity of a beautiful solution. **Who are [YLD](https://www.yld.com/ "https://www.yld.com/")** Founded in 2013, YLD is a technology consultancy headquartered in London, with offices in Lisbon and Porto. The business supports clients across the UK, Europe, and the US, working with technology leaders across a diverse range of sectors. These include heavily regulated industries such as fintech, health, energy, and media, where compliance, data governance, and audit requirements shape every technical decision. YLD brings together AI-augmented software engineering, product design, and data engineering under a single offering, built around a fluid, embedded team model where composition is shaped by the client brief, not a fixed org chart. YLD is hiring - check out the [job page](https://www.yld.com/join-us "https://www.yld.com/join-us") Join the conversation on [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/yld/ "https://www.linkedin.com/company/yld/")

#3 - the UX of third spaces

**Meet likeminded UX professionals over coffee/brunch and discuss ways to use design to create third spaces that evoke a feeling of comfort and belonging.** ​**The Problem:** When was the last time you discovered a place that made you feel a sense of comfort and belonging, and what contributed to that feeling? ​For our third **design impact lab** session, we’ll be discussing how simple interventions can help create better third spaces for communities. ​**The Flow (Sunday 6th September 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM):** * ​**10:30 \| Coffee & Intros \(Paris Baguette Southbank\):** We’ll meet for coffee & brunch to kick things off. You'll meet other attendees and discuss the problem space. * ​**10:45 \| Conversation Game:** We'll break up into small groups of 4-5 and play a Japanese conversation game designed to encourage you to discuss this topic in a fun way. * ​**11:15 \| Discussion:** After the game, we'll break up into pairs and exchange UX intervention ideas. * ​**11:30 \| Free Discussion:** We'll wrap up with free discussions about UX, design, third spaces or whatever is on your mind. *** ​**Pre-Event Mission:** ​Your mission is to think about the third spaces (cafes, pubs, libraries, community spaces etc.) in your city or community that you love to go, and what makes them special to you. *** ​**The Details:** * **Location:** [Paris Baguette Southbank](https://maps.app.goo.gl/5fwo9QUZFZr8mqYh7) (1 min from Waterloo Station) * ​**Capacity:** We’re keeping this to a small group to ensure everyone can connect and contribute. Please ensure your RSVP is up to date and let us know if you're unable to attend. * ​**Vibe:** Friendly and relaxed! No laptops, just notebooks and fresh air. *** ​**Why Join?** ​If you’re a designer or researcher who wants to use your skills for more than just conversion, come say hi. ​It’s a chance to meet like-minded people and consider how design can solve universal human problems. ​**Who is this for?** ​Our events are for UX designers, researchers and other strategic and creative thinkers who are passionate about using their skills for social good, not just profit. Please note that this is not a networking event, or a place to find a job. ​**Who is the host?** ​Hi! 👋 I'm Max - a London based design researcher. Until recently I was based in Tokyo, where I ran a small design agency and spent over 10 years as a meetup organizer. I'm exploring ways to bring designers together to use our skills to work on meaningful problems. If that sounds like something you're interested in, I'd love to have you join! \*This event is being advertised on multiple sites, so the actual number of attendees will be different to what appears on meetup.

FUNCTIONALISM, AND THE BUS

200 years ago the first ‘omnibus’, carrying, without booking, up to 20 passengers, ‘inside’ and ‘on top’, to an advertised timetable, along a fixed route, cheaply, set off from Paddington, for the Bank of England, along the ‘New Road’\*. So we’re going to meet at Stockwell Station, once the terminus of the world’s 1st deep-level, electric railway, and then walk, or ride the No 2 bus\*\*, from the 1952 Stockwell Bus Garage (pictured) to Victoria Bus Station, busiest in London, by way of the dramatic 2004 Vauxhall Cross Bus Station, 2nd busiest, noting along the route the features added to the system since that time, which we now take for granted, like: route numbers, fixed stops, 2 covered decks, a distinctive logo, red buses, own typeface, quiet, clean vehicles, a co-ordinated network, and interchange to other routes and to other transport modes. Stockwell Garage, designed by Adie Button, is a vast monolithic ‘art object’, a single sculptural shell of reinforced concrete, filling an entire city block, and capable of stabling 200 buses as part of the tram replacement project, in a column-free space the size of 4 Olympic swimming pools. Arup Associates’ design of the Vauxhall Interchange won a competition in 2002: a 200m long, 12m wide, ribbon of stainless steel, covering the bus stops, then launching skyward at 20˚, like a pair of skis poised at the top of a jump, to catch sunlight on PV cells. Since 2013 it has been repeatedly earmarked for removal to facilitate the luxury housing developments: we may be among the last groups to see it alive! Both follow the tradition of ‘functionalism’ led by Frank Pick, CEO of the LPTB\*\*\*, and his architect, Charles Holden, from 1934: the design of the transport system was to be simple and fit for purpose. Buildings would be light-filled, modernist beacons, the architecture an exact expression of the passengers’ patterns of use, and superfluous ornament would be excluded, leaving geometric clarity. But just as it reaches maturity the bus network is facing challenges: average speeds falling, the gap between off- and peak demand widening, and becoming unpredictable: costs rise while income falls, funds are short and design standards are slipping. So, for inspiration, we’re going to look for functionalism, with an open mind, on the buses, and in the serious, weird, wonderful and even downright wacky buildings along the route. Including: · London Borough of Lambeth’s George Finch-designed Edrich House, the Wates LPS pre-fabricated storey-height slab system subordinated to the architect’s design with stunning results. · Vauxhall Cross, aka the MI6 HQ, by Terry Farrell & Co, 1989-92. Charles Jencks described it as a ‘hanging garden’. · Berkeley Homes’ 1400-apartment St George Wharf, 2001-10, memorable for its broken-curve gable roofs. *Shortlisted* for the ‘UK’s Ugliest New Building’ award, but in urban myth *twice* voted ‘Worst Building in the World’. · The 1976-85 Drummond Gate buildings, by William Whitfield, and Chapman Taylor. · The much pinnacled, red-panelled Nova Building, 2016, in Victoria Street, by PLP Architecture, really did win the Carbuncle Cup, in 2017, and was described by the judges, as, among other things, ‘a hideous mess’ and ‘a crass assault on the senses’. Not enough functionalism? We will console ourselves at the 'Marquis of Westminster' PH in Warwick Way, or outdoors at 'Franca Manca' at the Nova Building, depending on weather and group preference. Hope you can come! Andy \*now Marylebone, Euston and Pentonville Roads \*\*if it’s too hot to walk. You will need a valid Oystercard or ticket, or a contactless debit card. The route 2 is one of the oldest continuously operated routes in London, first operated in 1905, by the very earliest motor buses. \*\*\*the London Passenger Transport Board bought out all London’s privately owned transport companies, paying them in cash and stock, and was responsible for transport from Luton to Horsham, and from Windsor to Tilbury.

3D London | 3D Networking Community

3D London, Wednesday 2nd September @ Truckles This month we're thrilled to welcome back our annual 3D London quiz, now in its third year. Hosted by quiz-masters **Ryan, John, and Luis** Get your teams together and prepare for a fun evening. Tip. The questions will cover topics including Architecture, Animation, Archviz, VFX, photography, general randomness and more. This year, we are excited to announce that there will be excellent prizes, provided by our sponsors. **First-place** team wins £500 cash (sponsored by Sinilab.ai) Chaos and SiNi swag (sponsored by Chaos & SiNi) —————————— RULES ————————- Teams STRICTLY of 4 to 5 people NO phones or smart watches allowed NO trading answers with other teams. Each question will be repeated ONCE. EXTRA - Place “Render Farm” on the side of one question of your choice before the answers are revealed. Full marks = double its points. Anything less = minus 5 points. At the end of the quiz questions, swap your answer sheet around with another team. Mark and count the score truthfully. Reasonable spelling mistakes are accepted if the intended answer is clear. In the event of a tie, there will be a tie-breaker. ———————————————————————- **Runner-up** team - Chaos and SiNi swag (sponsored by Chaos & SiNi) Thanks to our sponsors for supporting our monthly meetups. **[SiNi Software](https://www.sinisoftware.com/)** , **[Chaos](https://www.chaos.com/) , [Sinilab](www.sinilab.ai), [NTI](https://www.nti-group.com/uk/) , [Itoosoft](https://www.itoosoft.com/) , [Heata](https://www.heata.co/)** #3dlondon #pubquiz #monthlymeetup

AI Signals #34: Agent Harnesses, and Geometric Thoughts

​Supported by [lenses.io](https://lenses.io/?utm_source=luma) **Agenda** 06:00pm - Doors open 06:30pm - Welcome 06:35pm - [Alper Nebi Kanli](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alpernkanli/), [Optimizely,](https://www.linkedin.com/company/optimizely/) "How LLMs Represent Concepts Internally: A Tour of the Geometry" 07:05pm - Break 07:20pm - [Tun Shwe](https://www.linkedin.com/in/tunshwe/), [Lenses.io](https://Lenses.io) "Understanding Agent Harnesses" 08:00pm - Lightning Talks: * TBA **Please note you will be unable to enter the venue before 6.00pm.** RSVPs will close 24 hours before the event, you may be unable to register after this time but you can still watch online. If you can't join us in person you can watch remotely via [our YouTube channel](https://youtube.com/@ai-signals-community). **Our hosts may require that we provide a list of all attendees, please ensure that you register with a name that matches your government issued ID or bank card: if you do not we cannot guarantee you entry to the building.** Please RSVP for the event well in advance if you plan to attend in person and unRSVP if you can no longer attend as limited spaces are available. Large language models look like they just predict the next word, so it is surprising how much structure they build inside. They actually represent concepts: you can find directions in their activations for things like gender, sentiment, or even truthfulness, and you can use those directions to steer what the model does. This talk starts there, with the evidence that concepts really are represented inside these models. Then it goes one level deeper: what does it actually mean for a concept to be "a direction"? The answer depends on geometry, on how you choose to measure, and that choice does more work than it looks. You will come away seeing the inside of an LLM a little more clearly, with a few surprises about something many of us use every day.

ZINE MAKING with LESS STRESS PRESS: cultivate creativity

A special event to share the creative practice of zine making 💭✍️✂️🎨📖 IN A NUTSHELL, zine making creates opportunities to: * spend time exploring ideas * hone in on something you love or care about: a cause, a message, a skill, a place (the possibilities are endless) * get creative with collage, drawing, writing, printmaking (etc.) * produce compelling and unique booklets that you can print cheaply and share with friends and strangers offline After lots of creative brainstorming of their own, Bonny and Ellie have landed on zine making as the perfect way to both open up space for playful, low stakes creativity, and focus their minds on bite sized projects. You will soon be able to see some of their zines [here](https://www.instagram.com/lessstresspress). They’re excited to share with you! **IN THIS WORKSHOP, we will:** * Introduce the practice * Share some examples: brief history of zine making, LessStressPress examples * Get to know each other’s interests * Brainstorm using collage and scribbles: get into a low stakes, creative headspace * Use a template to plot our zines: 2 covers and 6 pages of content * Design our first zines (everything is possible with analogue materials, but if you love digital design, bring a laptop) * Sharing circle * **Optional finale:** * Visit the print shop visit together * Print copies of our new zines * LESS STRESS PRESS Pop Up: hand out copies of our new zines to strangers :-) **BY THE END OF THE DAY, we'll have** * learned a new practice to spark creativity and clarify thinking * met a new group of people and learned about the things they care enough to make a zine about * had some thought provoking conversations * produced our own original zines, ready to share :-) **NOTES ON THE GENERAL ATMOSPHERE:** Although we’ll be learning a new practice we'll also be aiming to have an enjoyable day, with good humour and fun. This will be less like school and more like a relaxed hang out in a café with an additional creative twist. **WHO SHOULD COME:** Everyone! We believe that the more perspectives, the richer the experience. This group is not about being experts, it is about thinking creatively together and learning new ways to develop and communicate ideas. **WHERE WE'LL MEET:** We'll be meeting in a beautiful little creative studio in Stoke Newington. The exact address will be provided to attendees directly. **[SUBSTACK](https://experimentsingroupwisdom.substack.com/)** \- newsletter and reflections **[WHATSAPP GROUP](https://chat.whatsapp.com/DcSICl49X509EFdGBo3hKg)** \- stay in the loop **[INSTAGRAM](https://www.instagram.com/lessstresspress)** \- see what we look like \(content coming soon 😅\) **[WEBSITE](http://www.alltogether.one/)** \- everything else **#creativity #inclusivity #openmindedness #creativepractices #community #newskills #zinemaking**

MACS Goes To...NIGO: From Japan With Love

**Join MACS at the Design Museum for NIGO: From Japan With Love on 12 September!** From the back streets of Harajuku, Tokyo, to the global stage, this is the first-ever museum retrospective exhibition outside of Japan that charts the career and life of the Japanese creative director, NIGO, one of the first creatives to bridge the worlds of streetwear and luxury fashion. Over a 30-year career, NIGO has helped define some of the most influential trends in contemporary fashion, successfully crossing fashion, music, architecture and interior design. This landmark exhibition features over 700 objects, with highlights including a recreation of NIGO’s teenage bedroom, rare designs, ceramics hand-thrown by NIGO himself, and a life-size glass tea house made especially for the exhibition. His work draws on influences spanning vintage Americana, streetwear, hip-hop, traditional Japanese craft and growing up in 1980s Tokyo. Read more here: https://designmuseum.org/exhibitions/nigo-from-japan-with-love **MEET DETAILS FOR 12 September:** **☕️ FROM 1:45 PM: MEET AT DESIGN MUSEUM CAFE** (optional) Address: 224 – 238 Kensington High Street, London W8 6AG Look out for the MACS sign on the café table. **🏛️ 2:30 PM: ENTER THE MUSEUM/EXHIBITION** Address: 224 – 238 Kensington High Street, London W8 6AG **🍻 4:30PM- LATE: PUB SOCIAL** (optional) We'll head to a local pub to chat over drinks! Address: *Location tbc 48 hours before event.* **🎟️ TICKETS:** You’ll need to purchase your own ticket. Please book here: **https://designmuseum.org/exhibitions/nigo-from-japan-with-love** and choose the 2:30PM slot (or thereabouts) on 12 September. Ticket: £17.09 (no donation) Ticket with Art Pass: £8.55 (no donation) Members: free, no need to book **📍GETTING THERE:** https://designmuseum.org/plan-your-visit **📲 EVENT WHATSAPP GROUP:** Please join the event WhatsApp group to help you find the group on the day. The link will be posted in the event comments on this page around 48 hours before the event, for those on the Going list. N.B. Joining the WhatsApp group will make your phone number visible to other members in the group. **🌟 PLEASE READ:** All MACS events are run entirely by volunteers, so please note we do what we can with the time and energy we have available! Our events have an attendee limit as we prefer a smaller, friendlier group. If you RSVP but can no longer attend, please change your RSVP as soon as possible so that we know numbers. Thank you for being part of MACS! 🧡🏛️🩵 Image credit: HI 622, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Scala Talks: Diffs for humans and AI agents & Scala 3 Macro annotations

🎉 Come along to the London Scala Talks! 🎉 In this event you'll hear from Jacob Wang and Dmytro Mitin. **Agenda** 6:00pm - 🥤 Doors open. Come along and grab a drink! 6:40pm - 🗣️ Jacob Wang: Difflicious - Diffs for humans and AI agents 7:20pm - 🍕 Intermission: Join us for some free food and drinks! Vegan, vegetarian options are provided. Let us know if you'd like something special - we'd be happy to accommodate. 7:50pm - 🗣️ Dmytro Mitin: Can Scala 3 Have Macro Annotations Again? Rebuilding Macro Paradise 8:30pm - 🥤 Socialising: Grab a drink and let's discuss the talks. 9:00pm - 🍻 Join us in a pub to discuss the talks! 🌐 **This event may have a live stream** Watch this space for more details. **🗣️ Jacob Wang: Difflicious - Diffs for humans and AI agents** Scala is used in applications with complex domain logic, and with that often means big comparison failures that is difficult to decipher. Difflicious is a Scala library/toolkit for diffing Scala objects: \- Structured diff results pin\-points the parts of the objects that are different \- Configurable diffing methods \(e\.g\. Compare a List order\-independently\) In this talk, we'll walk through Difflicious' various features and show you how it can improve your development workflow (and your AI agents', too!) ⭐ Jacob Wang ⭐ Jacob has been writing Scala for close to 10 years. He enjoys creating programs that mostly behave, as well as sharing this joy via open source & teaching. **🗣️ Dmytro Mitin: Can Scala 3 Have Macro Annotations Again? Rebuilding Macro Paradise** Scala 2's Macro Paradise allowed annotations to transform definitions and generate members, companions and other definitions before ordinary typechecking. Scala 3 has an experimental macro-annotation API, but newly generated definitions are visible only within the macro expansion. In this talk, we'll explore another approach: a pre-typer compiler plugin that brings back Paradise-style source transformation. We'll see where it fits into the Scala 3 compiler, how generated definitions become visible to ordinary typing, and how quasiquotes can make such transformations easier to write. ⭐ Dmytro Mitin ⭐ Dmytro Mitin is a Scala and Haskell developer and mathematician interested in functional programming, type systems, metaprogramming and compilers. He has taught Scala through online courses, answered extensively on Stack Overflow, and contributed to open-source projects including the Scala 3 compiler, Shapeless and ProvingGround. His current open-source work explores Scala 3 macro annotations, quasiquotes and semantic tooling. ———————————————————— 🗣️ Would you like to present, but are not sure how to start? Give a talk with us and you'll receive mentorship from a trained toastmaster! Get in touch through [this form](https://forms.gle/zv5i9eeto1BsnSwe8) and we'll get you started 🏡 Interested in hosting or supporting us? Please get in touch through [this form](https://forms.gle/3SX3Bm6zHqVodBaMA) and we can discuss how you can get involved. 📜 All London Scala User Group events operate under the [Scala Community Code of Conduct](https://www.scala-lang.org/conduct/). We encourage each of you to report the breach of the conduct, either anonymously through [this form](https://forms.gle/9PMMorUWgBnbk1mm6) or by contacting one of our team members. We guarantee privacy and confidentiality, as well as that we will take your report seriously and react quickly.

Houdini HIVEalt

Kant’s Cave: Philosophy & AI: Does AI Make Us Better Thinkers?

ATTEND IN PERSON OR ON ZOOM ## Philosophy & AI: Does AI Make Us Better Thinkers? Is AI making us better thinkers, or gradually doing our thinking for us? Join **Philosophy For All’s Alexandra Konoplyanik and Anja Steinbauer** in conversation with **Tom Berman, founder of [RationalGrid](https://rationalgrid.ai/)**, for a philosophical discussion about AI and its impact on how we think. Much of the current anxiety around AI concerns cognitive dependency: if we increasingly turn to machines for answers, explanations and arguments, do we risk losing the ability - or even the inclination - to think things through for ourselves? But is this an inevitable consequence of AI itself, or does it depend on how we use it, and how our AI tools are designed? Is AI a cognitive threat, or an opportunity? We’ll explore questions including: * Does outsourcing some cognitive work necessarily mean outsourcing our thinking? * When does AI support thinking, and when does it replace it? * Is the danger inherent in AI, or in the habits we develop when using it? * Does the design of an AI tool shape the kind of thinking we do with it? * Can AI help us notice assumptions, objections and possibilities that we might otherwise miss? * What is the difference between receiving a good answer and actually understanding something? * Could AI make us more intellectually passive, but also, if used differently, more questioning and reflective? * What would an AI genuinely designed for better thinking look like? Taking the risks of AI-assisted thinking seriously without assuming the verdict in advance, we’ll ask whether technologies such as general-purpose chatbots and tools specifically designed for exploration and critical thinking might affect our minds in importantly different ways. And ultimately: **does AI think for us, or can it help us think better for ourselves?** This event is sponsored by [The Royal Institute of Philosophy](https://royalinstitutephilosophy.org/). For the full programme of events pls see [pfalondon.org](http://pfalondon.org)

In what ways can we benefit from “the Arts”?

\*\*\* Our first meeting in a second venue to allow more people to take part in our group \*\*\* NOTE: the pub does not charge for our space on the understanding that we all purchase something from the bar. Please support them. **Please arrive in time for a prompt start at 7:30.** We’ll inevitably spend some time exploring what distinguishes “art” from anything else. But most of our discussion will focus on the ways in which art can be beneficial to both the consumer and the creator. We’ll take a fairly broad interpretation of "the arts", including music, literature and other forms of creativity, in addition to the sorts of things you see in art galleries. (Hence my use of “consumer” instead of “viewer”/”listener”/”reader”). Some questions we might consider… * To what extent does “art” need to be pleasing to the consumer? * If not “pleasing”, what else draws people to experience it? * To what extent should art challenge us to think, or see the world differently? How does this vary across different art forms? * In what ways is being creative for its own sake, beneficial? * In what ways is expressing feelings through art a form of therapy? * What distinguishes works produced primarily to benefit the creator from works produced primarily to benefit the consumer? Who judges? On what basis? * “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist” is a quote attributed to Picasso. What did he mean? Was he right? Is “art” a licence to break rules? How healthy is that – for creators and consumers? * Marc Chagall, an early 20C painter said “If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing.” To what extent does successful creation and consumption of art rely on an emotional component / a rational component? * To what extent does a consumer need to understand the creator's intent in order to benefit from a work of art? * What effort does the consumer have to make to fully benefit from the art they consume? How does this vary across different art forms? * To what extent is the act of physically going to a gallery/concert/theatre… more beneficial than seeing photos of pictures in a book / listening to music at home / watching a play on TV etc.? * In what ways do the benefits of creating differ from the benefits of consuming? Relevant articles you may want to look at: [https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/oct/28/picture-of-health-going-to-art-galleries-can-improve-wellbeing-study-reveals](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/oct/28/picture-of-health-going-to-art-galleries-can-improve-wellbeing-study-reveals) [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2yr0d3m1no](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2yr0d3m1no) [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/may/20/art-cure-by-daisy-fancourt-review-is-culture-the-best-medicine](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/may/20/art-cure-by-daisy-fancourt-review-is-culture-the-best-medicine) Hope to see you there.

REGISTER INTEREST: ZINE MAKING with LESS STRESS PRESS: cultivate creativity

**Join our [MAILING LIST](https://thoughtexperiments.kit.com/59860c6d0d), if you'd like to receive invitations to future events (some of which will be hosted off of meetup).** What is a Zine and why should I make one? Zines are handmade booklets. They can be used to share information, ideas, stories, art (etc.). Zine making creates opportunities to: * spend time exploring ideas * hone in on something you love or care about: a cause, a message, a skill, a place (the possibilities are endless) * get creative with collage, drawing, writing, printmaking (etc.) * produce compelling and unique booklets that you can print cheaply and share with friends and strangers offline After lots of creative brainstorming of their own, Bonny and Ellie have landed on zine making as the perfect way to both open up space for playful, low stakes creativity, and focus their minds on bite sized projects. **Join our [MAILING LIST](https://thoughtexperiments.kit.com/59860c6d0d), if you'd like to receive invitations to future events (some of which will be hosted off of meetup).**