First staged in 2003, the London Design Festival (September 19-27) is one of the world's most important annual design events. A major feature of the London Design Festival each year is the ambitious programme of special projects and installations.

Assemble has designed “a forest of timber columns” for a V&A exhibition which marks what would have been British furniture designer Robin Day’s 100th year. Titled Robin Day Works in Wood, the installation, a nod to Day’s childhood growing up near the woodlands of High Wycombe, will be displayed outside the V&A’s Britain 1500-1900 Galleries.

One of Day’s last designs was a chair made for Ercol, which was part of a project called Onetree where designers were asked to create objects using timber from a single oak tree. At the time Day said: “As a designer, I greatly enjoy working in timber. Unlike synthetic materials, it has unpredictability, an infinite variety of texture and pattern, smells good when worked and is sympathetic to the touch – it has soul.”

Born in 1915, Robin Day was one of the designers who created a modern British style in the early 1950s. Like other designers of the time, he firmly believed that mass-produced furniture could be well designed and sold at affordable prices. Here, Day at work in 1953 on the Q Stak chair.

September 19-October 4 at the V&A; londondesignfestival.com