Weronika Turowska
ma biodesign
Central Saint Martins UAL
Specialisms: Material Innovation / Contemporary Craft / Design Research
Location: London, United Kingdom
Weronika Turowska
First Name: Weronika
Last Name: Turowska
Specialisms: Material Innovation / Contemporary Craft / Design Research
Sectors:
My Location: London, United Kingdom
University / College: Central Saint Martins UAL
Course / Program Title: ma biodesign
About
Weronika is a biodesigner and material researcher exploring regenerative design, material innovation, and the emerging agency of living and responsive materials.
She recently completed her Master’s in Biodesign at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. Her latest work investigates the intersection of agential materials and traditional crafts. Fascinated by microorganisms, she explores how living systems can be incorporated into material design.
With a focus on biodesign as a tool for storytelling and ecological engagement, Weronika examines how microbes and living materials might transform indoor environments into adaptive, responsive spaces.
Envisioning living environments where materials shift from static decor to active, microbial design agents, this project explores how agential, microbial materials can respond to and interact with their surroundings. Despite us spending 90% of our time indoors, our spaces lack healthy materials that support beneficial microbes. By incorporating Bacillus subtilis spores—probiotic, soil-derived bacteria that absorb and release moisture based on humidity— the project introduces natural sensing and stabilising functions. Drawing from Polish folk mobiles, traditionally symbolic in their movement, the work revives them as agential, shape-shifting structures that integrate living systems into microbial, responsive indoor environments. Can making the invisible visible help us care more for the unseen—and can disappearing craft become a tool for cultivating microbial care? Rewilding, de-sterilising our spaces.
Competitions
Global Creative Graduate Showcase 2025
SYMBI is a calming tactile ball/pillow made from grown bacterial cellulose and aquafaba/algae bioleather. Anthropocentric concern with human health has made us question the world we have shaped through design. Symbi questions our material culture, but also how we live with chronic pain - how tactility can help with conditions such as trigeminal neuralgia when a user constantly feels pain - through touch and a soft, calming, tactile feeling. The necessity of finding alternatives to currently available PVC and PU-based non-biodegradable vegan leathers has led to exploring the potential of utilising commonly perceived as waste bacterial cellulose film from kombucha drink and waste aquafaba. The inside of the ball is stuffed with kapok, which comes from the fibres of a kapok tree (Ceiba pentandra). Natural colouring was achieved from charcoal and hibiscus plant. Our bodies are host to vast populations of microorganisms. Based on the knowledge that we are the microbes we try to fight, the design challenges the perception of how we can collaborate with microorganisms to design a softer, more symbiotic world. Just as the calming ball can biodegrade, so is the hope that the chronic pain will find its cure too.
Competitions
