Curiosity Has Always Been the Starting Point
Stuart Melrose is a multidisciplinary British artist and designer working somewhere between art, design and engineering. Since establishing the studio in 2007, Stuart has deliberately resisted being defined by a single discipline or style. Instead, his work has grown through curiosity, experimentation and a fascination with materials, technology and how things are made.
The result is a diverse body of work spanning public art, sculpture, furniture, product design, interiors, architectural installations, lighting and interactive experiences. From limited-edition furniture to permanent public artworks and installations capable of transforming entire buildings, the scale changes dramatically, but the starting point is often the same: What if?
Art, Design & Engineering
Stuart’s approach combines creative experimentation with a strong technical understanding of manufacture. Traditional making skills sit alongside CAD/CAM, 3D modelling, visualisation, animation, digital fabrication, 3D printing, programming, electronics and interactive lighting.
Technology, however, is rarely the subject of the work. It is simply another material. Sometimes the greatest technical achievement is making it disappear completely, leaving people to experience the idea rather than the engineering behind it.
Research Through Making
Many of the studio’s best-known projects began as experiments. Cathedral structures and traditional boat building helped inspire Apollo. Planetary layers and brightly coloured sweets led to Strato. Experiments with seamless bonding created Glacier, while the Arctic landscape and Northern Lights inspired the illuminated Svalbard table.
The same thinking later moved into public art. A fairground high striker was transformed into an interface for a 15-storey building for Light Up Reading, while Welcome Home changes from a Spitfire into a penguin as the viewer moves around it.
Different materials. Different scales. Different answers.
The curiosity remains the same.
Designing for People
As the studio’s work has moved increasingly into public spaces, people, place and storytelling have become central to the design process. Research, conversation and collaboration help uncover the stories that can make an artwork genuinely belong somewhere.
This was particularly important for The Armoured Heart, developed through conversations with families and communities affected by knife crime, and in Stuart’s work creating playful and sensory environments for children with additional needs.
For Stuart, successful public art should do more than occupy a space. It should give people a reason to stop, look, discover, interact — and sometimes simply smile.
From Objects to Places
Some of Stuart’s most ambitious work has been created in Reading, from the Reading Cultural Awards, Pride of Reading Awards and Abbey Ruins, to the interactive Thames Tower High Striker and The Armoured Heart.
Most recently, Stuart worked collaboratively with artist Kev Munday and a multidisciplinary team to create Royals, Residents & a Rock Festival at Station Hill — the studio’s largest project to date. Combining community storytelling, architecture, material innovation and more than 100,000 individually addressable LEDs, the illuminated artwork has received international design press coverage and a 2025 HI-MACS® European Architecture & Design Award.
Collaboration
Stuart regularly works alongside artists, architects, engineers, fabricators, programmers, lighting specialists, schools and communities, assembling the right creative and technical expertise for each project.
His work and collaborations have involved organisations and practices including Zaha Hadid, Foster + Partners, Disney, Microsoft, Xbox, BAA, Google, Oracle and Discovery Channel, alongside councils, cultural organisations, schools and private clients.
The audience may change enormously.
The commitment to the idea doesn’t.
Twenty Years of Curiosity
Stuart’s work has been exhibited at 100% Design Futures, Designersblock, Grand Designs Live, the Ideal Home Show, Interiors Birmingham, The Design Show Liverpool and his own solo museum exhibition at The Willis Museum.
His work has appeared across international design media including The Sunday Times Style Magazine, ICON, FX, OnOffice, Elle Decoration and Design Week, as well as television and news coverage from the BBC, ITV and Channel 4. Stuart has also judged a design competition alongside RIBA Stirling Prize-winning architect Amanda Levete and returned to Plymouth University, where he studied 3D Design, as a guest lecturer.
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