Gareth Owen Lloyd

Biography

Gareth Owen Lloyd is a designer, curator, and educator whose practice explores how the constraints of materials, making, and manufacture surface meaning about the worlds objects are made within.


At Chelsea he leads the third year Design for Place Studio, a pathway on BA Product and Furniture Design focused on local materials, manufacture, and the social realities of making. As Year Leader for the final year he coordinates unit delivery, assessment, and tutorials, and guides students through to their degree show and into professional practice.


He was Head of Maker Projects at Machines Room, London's first Fab Lab, from 2014 to 2019. The programme explored distributed manufacture, open source making, and circular economy, and was part of the British Council Maker Library Network. His studio Other Today was a founding partner of the EU Horizon 2020 Distributed Design Platform, producing publications, programmes, and exhibitions across Europe. He previously held a Senior Lecturer post on Product Design BSc at the University of Brighton and taught on Design Products MA at the Royal College of Art. He holds fellowships from the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) and the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA), a BA from Chelsea College of Arts and an MA from Goldsmiths, University of London.

Publications include:
- Driving Design Vol. II, Distributed Design Platform, 2025. Co-authored framework
- 'Systemic Objects: How the Materiality of Distributed Design Can Enhance Systemic Design', co-authored with Nat Hunter and James Tooze, in Driving Design. Distributed Design Platform, 2023
- 'Designing for Uncertainty? Start with Making! The Power of Distributed Design to Raise Consciousness of Complex Systems', co-authored with Nat Hunter, in This is Distributed Design. Distributed Design Platform, 2021
- 'Teaching Design to Distributed Students', co-authored with Nat Hunter, in Viral Design. Distributed Design Platform, 2020
- 'Version_01 Lamp: Make Your Own Lamp', co-authored with Nat Hunter and Milo McLoughlin-Greening, in Design Remix Share Repeat. Distributed Design Platform, 2019
- 'Assembling the Fab City London: Construction of a Local Ecosystem', co-authored with Liz Corbin, Nat Hunter, and James Tooze, in Fab City: The Mass Distribution of (almost) Everything. IAAC, 2018
- Perspectives on Making. British Council Maker Library Network, 2017

Practice and exhibitions include:
- Distributed Design Masterclass series, Fab Lab Barcelona and World Crafts Council Europe, 2023
- CIRCuIT — Circular Construction in Cities, EU Horizon 2020, London makerspace partner, 2019–2023
- CIRCuIT closing exhibition and participation event, Maker, Copenhagen, 2023
- Maps & Exhibits, curated exhibition, Relating Systems Thinking and Design Symposium (RSD11), University of Brighton, 2022
- Co-author, Products are Systemic Objects focus area, Relating Systems Thinking and Design Symposium (RSD11), 2022
- London Design Festival, Design District, 2022
- Distributed Design Finishing School, 2020
- A New Normal, Machines Room at London Design Festival, 2017
- Maker Library Network, Vitra Design Museum Gallery, Weil am Rhein, 2015
- Vestige: A Trace of Something Disappearing, Design Museum London, 2013