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Thora has experience in Architectural Design and Microbiology and is a practising designer specialising in living materials and biohybrid fabrication.
Thora H Arnardottir is a PhD researcher and a multidisciplinary designer with a background in architecture. She has a passion for pursuing analogy with nature through her work, not merely taking inspiration from our ecology but, speculating in regards to our changing relationship with it through engineered biological systems and new material processes. Her work addresses the possibilities of integrating biological systems in the built environment and focuses on more-than-human design and cross-species interaction. With expertise in biomineralization (MICP), her research aims at combining biotic agency with design concepts and innovative crafting techniques.
Thora holds a master's degree in Advanced Architecture from the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IaaC) in Spain and a bachelor’s degree from the Arts University Bournemouth (AUB), UK.
Currently, Thora is an Associate Lecturer at Central Saint Martins on the Biodesign Masters program and a Research Associate at the Hub for Biotechnology in the Built Environment working on an EPSRC Living Manufacture project, as well as finishing her PhD at Newcastle University in the school of architecture, planning, and landscape, where she is also a design-led researcher working on the EPSRC funded Thinking Soils project, that explores design potentials of living materials which respond to physical forces in their environment.
She is also a co-founder of the Biobabes collective, an experimental design and research collective and the founder of Unruly Matters Ltd.
Developing biomineralised tiles with locally sourced volcanic aggregates for Iceland's first eco-house.
An ongoing research project at the HBBE that focuses on creating a new biofabrication system based on controlled biological production of biopolymers through growth.
