Developed in collaboration with Ellen MacArthur Foundation, the Circular Futures Lab saw designers, makers and creative entrepreneurs from Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam meet for a week long programme of design workshops in the UK.

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation's Circular Design Guide developed with IDEO formed the guiding framework of the activity, through a series of exploratory hands-on workshops around material research, circular solutions and design strategies. Programme collaborators included Materiom, an international research platform focused on open source biomaterial recipes, Open Cell, a hub of studios and biolabs for early stage design start-ups and Design Museum, London. These UK workshops lead to a series of follow-on projects in the form of creative collaborations and design workshops disseminating the delegates’ learnings in the Southeast Asian region. 

The programme began in November 2018 with an online session for the Disruptive Innovation Festival, entitled Future Circularity: New Voices in Southeast Asia, featuring two of the programme delegates, Creative Technologist Irene Agrivina Widyaningrum and Architect Adi Wibowo. 

Circular Futures Lab is developed by the Creative Economy and Architecture Design and Fashion teams at the British Council, in collaboration with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

For more information, read the press release by Ellen MacArthur Foundation.