See the city: what to do in London this May, 2018

Urban Village Fete at Greenwich Peninsula

Sunday May 20, The Gateway Pavilions, Peninsula Square, SE10. Admission: free (greenwichpeninsula.co.uk)

Designed for everyone to enjoy, this one-day music and arts festival, right, is a great free day out and organisers are expecting about 25,000 visitors.

Designer makers will be out in force with a curated band of art activists, plus fashion and homeware entrepreneurs including Laura Nelson for contemporary silver, Rolfe & Wills for minimal homeware, Nylon Sky for graphic jewellery and stationery, and Fronté and Edy and Bridge for retro tailoring.

Dabble in one of the many art/ design workshops, including Sprayskool, with all-day spraypainting on a communal mural. Do a Jazz Re:freshed dance workshop, or try your hand at making a model boat with Clayground Collective.

And for that welcome pit stop, graze delicious food, from top cooks at Cakehole to The Cheese Truck.

The Future Starts Here

Until Nov 4, The Sainsbury Gallery, Victoria & Albert Museum, SW7. Tickets: £15 (vam.ac.uk)

What can we expect in the next few years, in our homes, out and about, globally, in the universe and even after death? In the V&A’s cavernous new show space, view “100 projects shaping the world of tomorrow”.

See smart appliances, activate robots, bone up on satellites, assess “artificial intelligence” and push into the furthest reaches of the internet, with its rich cultural resources and power to educate, connect and control.

Meet the tech giants such as Google, Apple and Facebook, plus independent designers, architects, engineers and entrepreneurs, along with co-operatives, activists, agencies and governments.

There’s a solar shirt that powers your phone, a toaster that manages your home, a carbon-neutral city, pictured, and ideas to tackle poverty, scarce resources and climate change. How about a “house that prolongs your life?” Its uneven surfaces improve reactions and your immune system.

Midcentury East

Sunday May 20. Haggerston School, E2. Admission: £10 on the door — show this page to get two tickets for the price of one (modernshows.com)

Find midcentury modern furniture from 60 dealers selling authentic oneoffs in the Sixties brutalist setting of this Ernö Goldfinger-designed school.

How about an Arne Jacobsen Grand Prix Chair, below, from The Modern Warehouse? “It’s design heaven,” says retro graphics queen Orla Kiely, whose own show opens at the Fashion & Textile Museum in SE1 on May 25.

Spot celebrity shoppers from the worlds of interiors, media, fashion and theatre. Columbia Road Flower Market, Brick Lane and the design boutiques of Shoreditch are near, so make a day of it.

Rationalism on Set: Glamour and Modernity in 1930s Italian Cinema

Until June 24. Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, 39a Canonbury Square, N1. Admission: £6.50; concessions £4.50 (020 7704 9522; estorickcollection.com)

Here’s where film buff meets design addict. This intriguing show — if a little niche — illuminates the fringes of modernism.

Funded by a RIBA bursary, architect Valeria Carullo, curator at the RIBA Photographs Collection, has researched film set design in the Thirties.

She discovered many Italian designs for romantic comedies were modernist masterpieces. Contemporary architects took part with enthusiasm and panache; here was a chance to aesthetically “educate” the public.

See the results in vintage photographs, film clips, sketches and periodicals.

Regent Street RIBA Windows Competition

Until May 24

Check out this year’s RIBA windows competition on London’s premier W1 shopping street.

Top UK architects have used expertise and ingenuity to create thoughtful shopfront showcases for leading brands.

Uniqlo’s latest linens are marked with tubes charting fibre growth from seed to fabric.

Jo Malone has a secret garden handmade in paper, while refracted light and diffused perfume create a “sensorial fragrance veil” at L’Occitane.

Smeg elevates a humble cast-iron pan stand into sculpture, while displays for denim specialist 7 For All Mankind respond to light and movement. Window notes introduce the architects and set out their stories.