ABOUT
Mathilde Wittock
Born in Brussels
Lives & studies in London
MA Biodesign, Central Saint Martins
BA Product & Industrial Design, Central Saint Martins
Design is intrinsic to my being, having been generated from childhood through observing my mother's work as a sculptor and my father's importance placed on natural environments. Both have instilled the burning passion for achieving my goals to access the continually evolving design world, where I want to be a changemaker in facilitating individuals' lives. In addition, our increasingly interconnected world and pressing concerns accompanying it, such as global warming, are driving the omnipresent need to sustain, and thus the necessity to draw on natural resources to create a closed-looped system with zero waste. Consequently, I have entered the Master of Bio-design at Central Saint Martins to assimilate the knowledge and practical know-how and understand the optimal way of channelling my innovative thought process into tangible projects.
Biological organisms embody processes which, in many cases, solve similar problems to ours but with a more excellent economy of means. By applying biomimetics to design, we can tap into a wealth of ideas from 3.8 billion years of research and development: the many species which have survived natural selection.
In adjacent to my zeal for nature, I am constantly astonished by people and their way of thinking. The environment we grow up in immediately impacts who we are and who we become, implying we can influence people's behaviour through architecture and design, for instance. During my university projects, I understood that psychology is a crucial tool to comprehend better human behaviours, values and ethics, which are critical to human and nature-centred design.
With a critical yet creative mindset, I pursued a career in the design industry, starting with an Art & Design foundation degree at Oxford, where I graduated with high distinction. This led me to Central Saint Martins, where I earned a high distinction in the Product & Industrial Design (BA) degree course. I also gained valuable experience through a placement year as an industrial designer at Pentagram in London and a design-maker at the Atelier Van Lieshout in Rotterdam. Finally, I completed a two-year master's program with distinction at Central Saint Martins, where I explored the integration of living systems in design.
Today, I find myself at the intersection of design, sonology, and biology with a focus on narrative, biomaterial, and sensory design. My passion now lies in exploring the diverse applications of sound through materiality while emphasizing ecological consciousness and creating immersive experiences.