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Thora has experience in Architectural Design and Microbiology and is a practising design researcher specialising in living materials and biohybrid fabrication.
Thora H Arnardottir is a researcher and an interdisciplinary 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 concerning our changing relationship with it through engineered biological systems and new material processes. Her PhD titled 'Bacterial Sculpting' at Newcastle University in the School of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape addressed the possibilities of integrating biological systems in the built environment and focused on more-than-human design and cross-species interaction. With expertise in biomineralization (MICP), her research combines 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.
She is currently an Associate Lecturer at Central Saint Martins on the MA Biodesign program and a Senior Research Associate at Northumbria University in the Hub for Biotechnology in the Built Environment working on projects centred on the Living Construction theme.
Previously, she worked at Newcastle University, on the EPSRC-funded Living Manufacture project, and the EPSRC-funded Thinking Soils project, where she was a design-led researcher exploring the design potentials of living materials which respond to physical forces in their environment, as well as managed the HBBE Macro Bio-Design Lab.
She is also a founder and director of Unruly Matters Ltd and a co-founder of the Biobabes collective, an experimental design and research collective.