What’s really going on inside today’s design studios?
At London Design Festival, we partnered with Dezeen to host Worst Case, Best Fix — a live panel unpacking the real pressures of practice with CAKE Architecture and Cúpla Studio. Instead of portfolio polish, the panel focused on the systems and failures behind the scenes: what breaks, what gets fixed, and how designers are building better ways to work.
The conversation was honest, specific, and deeply rooted in day-to-day reality. From spreadsheets crashing before client handover, to early projects running over budget, to the overwhelming admin that piles up behind creative work — the stories were as familiar as they were revealing.
Both CAKE and Cúpla spoke to how crucial structure has become — especially as small teams grow and projects scale. They shared how platforms like Programa are helping reduce version chaos, centralise decision-making, and give clients a clearer sense of progress. Instead of juggling email threads, product specs, and last-minute changes, they’re building systems that surface what matters and filter out noise.
The takeaway wasn’t “tech fixes everything.” It was more considered: technology should remove the friction — not replace the craft. What studios want isn’t automation of design thinking, but relief from formatting documents, tracking invoices, or redoing spec sheets when clients change their minds.
The session also touched on mindset. Oliver Wit of CAKE shared that being young and uncertain when they launched the studio was actually a strength. Not knowing the “right way” gave them freedom to build something new. Gemma McCloskey of Cúpla highlighted that recruiting is about alignment, not just skill — team culture matters more than credentials on paper.
As part of the evening, studios also explored what clients often don’t see: how much clarity, peace of mind, and creative energy can come from well-designed internal systems. The mental overhead of managing projects was just as important to address as deadlines or deliverables.
For studios navigating similar challenges — managing team bandwidth, communicating clearly with clients, juggling dozens of decisions across stages — this conversation offers both reassurance and practical insight.
Whether you’re building your first workflow or rethinking an old one, these lessons from the field are worth a listen.
Lessons from our London Design Festival gathering where industry leaders shared their unfiltered truths
During this year's London Design Festival, something remarkable happened at the Moroso Showroom. Instead of the usual glossy success stories, a group of accomplished architecture and design studios gathered to share something more valuable: their real experiences, complete with the challenges, missteps, and hard-won wisdom that shaped their practices.
When "failures" become foundations
Oliver Wit, co-founder of CAKE Architecture, took an unconventional approach to discussing setbacks. Rather than pinpointing specific project disasters, he rattled off a darkly comic list of recurring challenges: not having enough resource (mentioned three times for emphasis), projects coming in over budget, failing to understand the mating habits of bats sufficiently, and the day he and business partner Hugh arrived at site in identical outfits.
We looked like Tweedledee and Tweedledum.
Oliver Wit, Co-founderCAKE Architecture
The real revelation came from his admission about starting young without benchmarks. The uncertainty of not knowing if you're doing things "right" is rarely discussed but universally experienced.
The complexity and strangeness of starting practice when you're relatively young and you don't have that much experience or you don't have enough benchmarking of how different practices operate.
Oliver Wit, Co-founderCAKE Architecture
The Excel apocalypse that sparked innovation
The room collectively recognized the nightmare of product scheduling in spreadsheets. Manual data entry in size four font, version control disasters, and the constant risk of file corruption that could wipe out weeks of work.
Microsoft Excel was literally designed for data scientists. Whoever decided that we should use it as a pseudo design presentation vehicle for product specs needs to get their head checked.
Zoe Lowres, Co-founderPrograma
One designer's breaking point came after losing four weeks of work to a corrupted Excel file. This led to a fundamental question about why the design industry lacks the streamlined systems that other industries take for granted.
Building systems that actually work
The conversation shifted to how studios are solving these challenges. Several practices shared how they've moved beyond inherited procedures and piecemeal solutions to build frameworks that actually support their creative work.
Programa is something that we now have fully integrated into the office and use across all projects.
Gemma McCloskey, FounderCúpla Studio
The shift from spreadsheet chaos to streamlined systems brought unexpected benefits beyond time savings. Studios discovered that proper tools create clarity not just internally, but with clients who often lack literacy about the design process.
The client doesn't necessarily have that literacy or awareness of the design process, and the sort of traffic light system that Programa has is very useful.
Oliver Wit, Co-founderCAKE Architecture
For CAKE Architecture, starting with a framework rather than a blank page made them think more clearly about their procedures.
Something like Programa, which gives you a start of a framework, makes you think about that a bit more clearly rather than sort of the terror of the blank page.
Oliver Wit, Co-founderCAKE Architecture
The peace of mind factor
Beyond efficiency, studios emphasized something harder to quantify but equally valuable: the psychological relief of having projects properly organized. The mental load of tracking hundreds of moving parts was taking a toll that went beyond lost hours.
It's not just about alleviating more time for design, but it's also peace of mind to be able to go on to one platform and just feel like your project's in order.
Oliver Wit, Co-founderCAKE Architecture
This sense of control proved transformative, especially during high-pressure moments like contractor starts and delivery deadlines.
Just to kind of have it all there under one umbrella, I just find it really satisfying. It just gives me a sort of sense of calmness.
Gemma McCloskey, FounderCúpla Studio
Technology: tool, not master
The panel offered a sharp perspective on technology's role. While AI dominates industry conversations, the consensus was clear about what actually needs automating.
I want AI unstacking my dishwasher. I want AI doing my laundry. I want AI doing all the mundane, time-consuming things of everyday.
Zoe LowresCo-founder, Programa
The goal isn't to eliminate the human aspects of design but to remove the administrative burden that keeps designers from designing.
Automate all of that so that we can get back to fostering a great culture in the office. We can get back to delivering the outcomes that our clients want and hopefully do it with a ton less stress.
Gemma McCloskey, FounderCo-founder, Cúpla Studio
The discipline of architecture
Architecture demands repetition and struggle to master. But choosing what to struggle with makes all the difference.
What are the things that you don't want to struggle with anymore? Formatting and all of that sort of dull stuff. And what are the things that actually I do need to be drawing and redrawing?
Gemma McCloskey, FounderCupla Studio
The concern about AI and junior designers raised important questions about skill development.
If a grad isn't going through the process of doing that in the first place, how do they develop it to the point where they can actually then correct it?
Oliver Wit, FounderCAKE Architecture
The takeaway
The evening's most practical wisdom came early and resonated throughout: stay curious, stay humble, and stay connected.
Be open about what you're doing. Be inquisitive. And certainly, don't think that you know it all at any point.
Zoe Lowres, Co-founderPrograma
This wasn't about presenting perfect facades. It was about professionals who've faced the same corrupted files, the same budget overruns, the same resource struggles - and found ways to keep creating remarkable work anyway.