DesignLab is a practice-based, inter- and transdisciplinary research lab in the Centre for Media Arts & Creative Technologies. We tackle social, environmental, and technological challenges through culturally, contextually, and ecologically aware design.
Blending creativity, critical inquiry, and emerging technologies – from AI and immersive media to digital fashion and robotics – DesignLab explores how design can foster inclusive, sustainable, and planet-centred futures.
Based in Cambridge, one of the world’s leading innovation ecosystems, we connect expertise across arts, technology, health, and sustainability to address real-world challenges. Through creative experimentation, co-design, and community collaboration, we create new knowledge, prototypes, partnerships, and societal value that strengthen both regional resilience and global relevance.
Our activities are deeply rooted in place. In keeping with ARU’s civic focus, we engage local communities, public and private businesses, and the third sector through public events, participatory research, and co-creation. Applying our expertise to local challenges is at the heart of our work.
By bridging creative practice and technological research, DesignLab positions ARU as a national leader in design-led innovation, embedding imagination, inclusion, and sustainability into the fabric of our shared future. We bring the experiential, cultural, and social dimensions of design to the technology, health innovation, and gaming sectors that drive the Cambridge and wider East of England economy.
In doing so, we build collaborations, deliver tangible impact, and enhance ARU’s role in shaping a more creative, equitable, and sustainable future.
Dr Idrees Rasouli’s expertise lies in design and innovation for urban justice and a post-oil world, with a particular focus on interventions that heal, prepare, and transform. His research explores the role of design in addressing systemic inequalities, environmental transitions, and civic participation, especially within resource-constrained, post-industrial, and fragile contexts. Using an inter/transdisciplinary approach that integrates insights from social sciences, engineering, technology, healthcare, and business, he develops frameworks for inclusive, context-sensitive, and socially impactful design that bridge theory, practice, and societal change.
Dr Wendy Moody's multidisciplinary research spans design, neuroscience, engineering, and psychology. Her PhD combined clinical psychology and fMRI to explore psychological preferences in clothing design and the neural basis of self-perception. More recently, her collaborative work focuses on digital fashion, sustainability, emotion-led and conceptual design, chronic pain and the wearing experience, and bio-scientific influences such as enzymatic design.
Sarah Graham’s research explores storytelling through dress, examining how garments carry bodily memories and intimate connections to the body. She studies physical and digital interactions of these memories to inform creative processes and aesthetic sustainability. She documents archival garments to explore rituals, wear, repair, and personalisation. These garments’ narratives inform her textile approaches, emphasising craft and repair techniques rooted in feminine domestic practices.
Mark Hart’s research combines morphogenetic design and chance-based methods to create multi-dimensional objects through interactions between body, material, and time. Drawing on new materialism and theories of indeterminacy, it explores bodily memories embedded in non-traditional materials. His work produces performative artefacts that transform unpredictably in response to the body.
Dr Julia Johnson's research focuses on designing tools to support ethical practice in public services, including the NHS. She has developed participatory photography toolkits during her AHRC-funded PhD and recently prototyped a healthcare photography app, securing funding from the NHS. Her work has been published with Oxford Academic, with another paper forthcoming in the Journal of Arts and Communities.
Dr Lee Cheng's research interests include music, technology, education, computer games, immersive and interactive media, meta and sonic arts, law and policy. His current projects involve the design and evaluation of accessible digital musical instruments for children with special educational needs and disabilities, and the use of games for therapeutic purposes for school children.
Farzad Farzadnia’s recent work includes research in transformative technologies, focusing on robotics, design, coding, photography, videography, material research, and electronics. He is particularly interested in exploring the intersection of human creativity and emerging technological systems. His practice bridges experimental design, interactive media, and hands-on prototyping, aiming to develop innovative solutions that reshape everyday experiences and environments.
Thom Barrett’s work focuses on creating engaging, interactive experiences for time-constrained players that explore inclusive, sustainable, and technology-driven design solutions. His interdisciplinary approach integrates game design and digital technologies to develop immersive prototypes and socially impactful experiences, fostering participatory research methods.
Matthew Holland is an experienced game designer, game writer and lecturer in game design, with industry experience in large teams and independently. His research currently focuses on issues of repeatability and player agency in interactive narrative compared to more traditional storytelling. He has also worked in games studies and pedagogy for game development.
Dr Omayma Alqatawneh specialises in user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design, with a focus on design fiction, speculative design, and persuasive technologies. Her interdisciplinary approach integrates graphic design, 3D modelling, animation, and serious games to develop immersive prototypes and interactive narratives.
Dr Barış Işıkgüner's research explores advanced techniques in visual effects, interactive media, and game development, with a focus on integrating technical innovation with creative storytelling. His work investigates how digital media can enhance narrative, immersion, and user engagement in games and interactive experiences.
Dr Adam Twycross specialises in the visual and artistic dimensions of game design, examining how artistic principles influence immersion, engagement, and player experience. His research includes the development of visual assets, environmental storytelling, and creative approaches to interactive media.