Material Futures

Can artificial flowers help bees find real ones? For her MA Material Futures project, Faux Flora, CSM graduate Justina Alexandroff explores how design could support pollinating insects in polluted urban environments. Air pollution can disrupt floral scents, making it harder for bees and other pollinators to locate essential plants. Faux Flora responds with an artificial flower system designed to act as a visual and scent-based guide, leading insects towards nearby flower-rich areas. Combining parametric 3D design, artificial chemistry and biomimicry, the project reimagines how technology, cities and other species might work together. Explore Faux Flora by @justina_alexandroff_ via the link in bio. @materialfutures

During Milan Design Week 2026, Material Futures staff team developed an interactive sonic-light installation in collaboration with @teenageengineering , @midiware , @nothing and @dropcity_org . Using Teenage Engineering and Nothing equipment, the installation became a living instrument, composing a responsive soundtrack to support the growth of mint. Based on plant bioacoustic research, the sound frequencies act as mechanical stimuli. The work explored how vibration may encourage cell wall growth, nutrient absorption, metabolic activity, and the yield of mint oil. As visitors interacted with the space, the installation became a living instrument where audience participation had a direct impact on the environment. This miniature ecosystem reflected how even the smallest human actions can contribute to the nurturing of non-human species. Special thanks to @dropcity for supporting the installation, and to @odduniverse.xyz for providing the stools used in our workshop spaces.

Join us on Thursday 7 May, 10am–12pm (UK) / 6–8pm (Japan), for ‘Listening to the Landscape: Repairing the Ruptures through Situated Materials and Sensibilities’, a public online event and collaborative initiative between Kyoto-based PERSPECTIVE and MA Material Futures and MA Regenerative Design at Central Saint Martins. Sign up via link in bio. This gathering brings together an international community of design and research to share practices, research, and reflections on what it means to listen to the landscape. Repairing the Ruptures explores acts of mending and proposing, advancing and regenerating, cultivating attentiveness, ritual, and the weaving of interconnected systems. Inspired by practices of ‘worlding’ (Haraway) we aim to open speculative and situated ways of making-with, generating new possibilities for collective futures in which place and species can thrive. Creating responses that share new ways of listening, tracing, and activating: unpacking living systems and their invisible, subtle languages; repairing social and cultural practices that activate landscapes of care through community relationships. We are pleased to be joined by Professor Atsuro Morita and Theun Karelse, who contributed to the collaborative project. Together, we will explore what it means to learn from, and practice with, more-than-human systems. The event will feature contributions from our research participants, who will share their entry points, alongside graduates establishing their practices and collaborators offering their perspectives. This includes Sachiko Takamuro from Perspective, who will reflect on listening, ghosts, and monsters, inviting us to consider how we are shaped by, and entangled within, our relationships. Don’t miss it! Join us on ZOOM! Project led by Charlie Bridge, Judith van den Boom and Maël Henaff in collaboration with Sachiko Takamuro. All research work will be available on a newly launched website from 7 May onwards! @perspective_kyoto @materialfutures @ma_regenerativedesign @csm_news @theunkarelse #atsuromorita

Milano 26 Material Futures 2026 Cohort are exhibiting during Milan Design Week with @dropcity_org Vault 50, Via Sammartini 38-60, 20125, Milano IT 20-26 April 2026 Credits: Graphics @daly.shan 3D Modelling @edwardl.410

What would be a stage for a waterfall to perform? 🌊 As part of our Work in Progress Shows, Javier Durango @jvrdurango from @materialfutures invites us to experience Pistyll Rhaeadr not as scenery, but as a living, expressive being. Stream 002 explores new ways of connecting with the waterfall through sound, movement and touch. Using underwater instruments designed for and played by the waterfall, alongside haptic wearables for humans, the project creates a sensory experience that lets us listen, vibrate, move and commune with Pistyll Rhaeadr in new ways. In a world shaped by cities, gadgets and algorithms, this work asks what it might mean to reconnect with nature through performance, presence and feeling. Discover more about what you can do on MA Material Futures via the link in bio @jtm_csm

Apply to @materialfutures and @mabiodesign until the 18th March 2026 at 1pm GMT.

OPEN CALL — Material Futures X Dropcity Submit your material sample to be part of Dropcity’s Material Library at Vault 62, launching at Milan Design Week 2026. We’re looking for innovative materials that challenge convention and imagine better futures. Selected samples will be exhibited in the material library indefinitely. Apply via the form in bio. Deadline for the application is 15th of March Selected participants must ship their sample to Dropcity by April 1st.

Material Futures is where science, technology and design collide.  Discover MA Material Futures as well as our other Postgraduate courses at our M School Postgraduate Open Evening. You’ll have the opportunity to speak with course teams and current students, tour our King’s Cross campus and experience our student-led exhibition, A Common Thread.    The Lethaby, Central Saint Martins  Tuesday 10th March 2026, 5:30pm–7:30pm    Apply to MA Material Futures by 18th March 2026 at 1pm GMT.    Follow the link in @jtm_csm bio to book a place on the M School Postgraduate Open Evening.    Image credits:    1. ‘Faux Flora’ by Justina Alexandroff   1. ‘Regenesis’ by Kamonchanok Wongwiboonsat  3. ‘GROWink’ by Peerasin Punxh Hutaphaet

Concrete, but make it sound. 🔊🧱 Analogue Resample is a modular sound sculpture by Ben Richardson from MA Material Futures @materialfutures , that processes audio entirely through analogue acoustics, no digital effects, no plugins. Each concrete module physically reshapes the waveform using mass, resonance and geometry - creating boom, compression, phase shift, muffling, distortion and amplification. Together, the modules become a tactile, architectural signal chain. Material Futures is where science, technology and design collide, exploring how we might live tomorrow through multidisciplinary, research-led making. Want to explore MA Material Futures and postgraduate study at CSM? Join our Postgraduate Open Evening link in bio for details. Video by Ben Richardson Find Ben: @materialresponse

OPEN CALL : LISTENING TO THE LANDSCAPE: REPAIRING THE RUPTURES THROUGH SITUATED MATERIALS AND SENSIBILITIES. Join us for this exciting extracurricular research project in collaboration with Perspective, Kyoto | Material Futures | Regenerative Design from 4 February to 18 March 2026 (+ public event 30 April) This open call is for students Material Futures and students+graduates MA Regenerative Design. We work online, situated as remote research groups. Check your email for briefing and application information. Repairing the Ruptures is a collaboration between Kyoto-based PERSPECTIVE and MA Material Futures and MA Regenerative Design. Through this open call, we are forming a research team to explore and propose new ways of mending, reimagining, and transforming worlds from a regenerative ethos. Inspired by practices of worlding (Haraway), we aim to cultivate speculative and situated ways of making-with, not only repairing what is broken, but generating new possibilities for collective futures where place and species thrive. The briefing asks for responses that share new ways of listening, tracing, and activating: unpacking living systems and their invisible, subtle languages; repairing social and cultural practices that activate landscapes of care through community relationships. These project approaches are open entry points but require local connection and hybrid translations, built on situated interventions. Repairing the Ruptures is about mending and proposing, advancing and regenerating, cultivating attentiveness, rituals, and the weaving of whole systems. Deadline 12 January #repairingtheruptures #designcollaborations #materialfutures #regenerativedesign #perspectivekyoto @materialfutures @perspective_kyoto @ma_regenerativedesign @csm_news

CSM @materialfutures is proud to be part of Camden Inspire Festival with a showcase of six graduate projects that explore how design, science, and technology can shape a more sustainable and imaginative future. BUCK ST, CAMDEN TOWN 20TH SEPTEMBER FREE, JUST DROP BY This exhibition brings together the work of emerging designersincluding: @jazzthejedi , @thisisbyron_ , @punxh.13 , @amburnsdesigns , @alarasipahioglu , and @ecolattice_ who are challenging conventional approaches to materials and making. Each project offers a unique response to pressing issues facing our world today, from rethinking waste streams and resources to reimagining the role of design in everyday life. #MaterialFutures #CamdenInspireFestival #CentralSaintMartins #CSM #GraduateShow #DesignInnovation #FutureOfMaterials #SustainableDesign #CreativeResearch #DesignForChange #EmergingDesigners #ExperimentalDesign #DesignExhibition #LondonDesign #CamdenCulture

MAMF 2025 Swipe ➡️ to see some of the projects 1 Made from Cigarettes by @ooliviagino 2 Invasive Futures by @sajalanubhuti 3 Carbon FootPrint by @jude_zantain_ 4 Snow seed by @the.real.llama More detail : Photography: @pascal_schonlau #csm2025 #materialfutures