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Arts University Plymouth launches Centre for Circular Materials
Tuesday, 3 February, 2026 — Arts University Plymouth has launched the Centre for Circular Materials, bringing together established research, making, prototyping and partnerships.
Founded in 1856 as the Plymouth Drawing School, Arts University Plymouth has 170 years of practice-led teaching and skilled making rooted in the South West. From regenerative dye grown in Plymouth to experiments with locally sourced clay and prototypes that rethink regional waste streams, Arts University Plymouth has been building a distinctive, place-based trajectory in circular materials since 2009.
<p>Arts University Plymouth has now brought this work together through the new Centre for Circular Materials, a research hub dedicated to how materials are chosen, used and kept in circulation across creative practice, design fabrication, and partnerships.</p>
The Centre for Circular Materials is about taking responsibility for the materials and systems we use in the 21st century. It brings into focus the work we’ve been developing for a long time, and makes a clear commitment: to design out waste at the point of creation, not simply manage it at the end.
Professor Paul Fieldsend-Danks, Vice-Chancellor & Chief Executive
Biomaterial workshop with live algae incubator in Fab Lab South West
<p>The Centre for Circular Materials brings together artists, designers, researchers, students and partners to develop practical, materials-led approaches to circular design and innovation.</p>
<p>Recent examples of activity include:</p><ul><li dir="ltr"><p dir="ltr"><a href="https://www.aup.ac.uk/posts/plymouth-textile-experts-launch-sustainable-dye-garden">Of the Ground: regenerative colour through a natural dye garden</a></p></li><li dir="ltr"><p dir="ltr"><a href="https://fablabsouthwest.org.uk/projects/agrikinetics-turning-miscanthus-grass-into-sustainable-packaging/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Agrikinetics: miscanthus grass packaging to replace imported pulp</a><a href="https://www.aup.ac.uk/posts/innovative-brewery-collaborates-with-plymouth-college-of-art-team-to-capture-and-reuse-co2"><br /></a></p></li><li dir="ltr"><p dir="ltr"><a href="https://www.aup.ac.uk/posts/innovative-brewery-collaborates-with-plymouth-college-of-art-team-to-capture-and-reuse-co2">Barnaby’s Brewhouse: capturing CO₂ for a circular brewing economy</a></p></li><li dir="ltr"><p dir="ltr"><a href="https://www.aup.ac.uk/posts/glass-with-an-address-an-address-to-a-beach-by-abigail-reynolds">Glass with an address: Sea glass made with local kelp</a></p></li></ul>
Students experiment with colour from Arts University Plymouth's natural dye garden
The Centre for Circular Materials brings together work our academics have been building for years and gives it a shared direction. It starts with materials as a creative decision and a responsibility, and asks what circularity looks like when it’s rooted in the South West, in what we can source, grow, reuse and remake here.
Associate Professor Stephanie Owens, Dean of Arts, Design & Media
<p>Building on <a href="https://www.aup.ac.uk/research/supported-projects/making-futures">Making Futures™</a> and <a href="https://www.aup.ac.uk/research/supported-projects/fab-lab-south-west">Fab Lab South West</a>, the Centre for Circular Materials forms a centre of material expertise that offers researchers and practitioners both within and outside the South West a means to accelerate new knowledge and build responsible material methodologies, demonstrating how circular approaches to production and culture can be achieved.</p>
