ALEKSANDRA PIOTROWSKA — HTBAA Fall 2026
About me
I am originally from Poland and spent six years living in the UK, where I studied BA in Media & Communication at De Montfort University, Leicester before completing an MA in Innovation Management at Central Saint Martins, London. I am now based in Barcelona.
Although my formal background is not in biology, looking back, I can see how my work has been gradually moving in this direction. Media taught me to understand how ideas, narratives and cultural shifts influence behaviour and shape the way we imagine the future. During my MA, that perspective expanded from communication into systems thinking, innovation strategy, regenerative design and emerging technologies. This is where I became increasingly fascinated by biodesign and the possibility of working with living systems rather than designing only within conventional industrial models.
That curiosity eventually brought me to Barcelona, where I joined Fabricademy at Fab Lab Barcelona to move from strategy into experimentation. There, I began working hands-on with biomaterials, digital fabrication and alternative material systems.
The project that pushed me furthest in that direction explored animal blood as a waste-derived biomaterial. I experimented with liquid and powdered pig blood, gelatin and other bio-based ingredients to create a latex-like material for fashion. It was deliberately provocative, but it also became a practical investigation into a question that still drives my work today: what if a material normally treated as waste could become the starting point for a completely novel material futures?
That project made me realise that I did not only want to speculate about alternative materials; I wanted to understand the biology, chemistry and manufacturing processes behind them.
HTBAA feels like the next step in that journey. I am entering biology without a traditional scientific background, which is exactly why I want to challenge myself with it. I want to understand the biological mechanisms behind the material ideas I have been exploring and learn how living systems, automation and biomanufacturing could become tools for designing new material economies.
My work is increasingly driven by one question:
What if waste, biology and emerging technologies could become the building blocks of regenerative manufacturing systems?
Contact info
Homework, Labs, and Projects
See the nav bar on the left to look through my work for How To Biomanufacture Almost Anything (Fall 2026)!