International design competition to grow the colour of the future

Researchers at Northumbria University and Imperial College London have launched an international competition inviting designers, architects, artists and makers to create with a new generation of self-pigmenting, lab-grown materials.

Co-GROWN: Designing with Living Colour and Engineered Materials asks entrants to develop creative proposals using a new material platform developed by researchers in Northumbria's Living Construction Group, in partnership with Imperial College London.

Rather than relying solely on conventional post-processing and dyeing, the platform explores how colour can be generated biologically during material production.

Microbial systems can be engineered or combined to produce both structural materials such as bacterial cellulose, and pigments, allowing colour to become part of the material-making process.

The work was initially inspired by naturally pigmented biological materials, including black wool, and by the particular challenges associated with producing deep black colours. It has since expanded to explore a broader range of microbial pigments and biological colour-generation strategies.

Some of these approaches use microorganisms engineered to produce pigments, while others explore sequential or co-culture systems in which different microorganisms contribute to material formation and colour generation. This creates opportunities to rethink the conventional separation between making a material and colouring it.

The project also explores ways of improving the performance of biologically generated colours through biological and materials-engineering approaches.

Rather than assuming that naturally occurring pigments are inherently stable, the research investigates how their properties can be modified, combined or processed to make them more suitable for material applications.

The work responds to a well-documented environmental cost in fashion and materials manufacturing. For example, leather production is associated with high carbon emissions, significant water use and deforestation for grazing land, while textile dyeing is a major source of water pollution.

The team is therefore interested in whether biological approaches to material formation and colour generation could open up new, potentially lower-impact ways of producing coloured materials, while also offering designers new aesthetic and functional possibilities.

Co-GROWN is open to entrants from any creative background and does not require scientific expertise. Categories include fashion, craft, architecture, and product and industrial design.

Successful applicants will receive one-to-one mentorship from Northumbria researchers, either in person at the University or remotely, and will work with materials grown specifically for the competition.

The competition has been organised by Weronika Turowska, a Biodesigner and Senior Research Assistant within Northumbria University’s Living Construction Group.

She said: “Growing colour directly into a material, rather than adding it afterwards, opens up a completely different way of thinking about how we make things. We want designers and makers who might never normally work with biology to come and get their hands on these materials and see what they make of them.”

Co-GROWN forms part of Sustainable Style for Clean Growth: Innovating Textile Production through Engineering Biology, a UKRI BBSRC Engineering Biology Mission Award project led by Professor Tom Ellis at Imperial College London, working with Northumbria University and industry partners including Colorifix, Modern Synthesis.

The project brings together researchers across engineering biology, microbial biotechnology, materials science and biodesign. The investigators include:

• Professor Tom Ellis – Imperial College London
• Professor Meng Zhang – Northumbria University
• Professor KoonYang Lee – Imperial College London
• Dr Paul James – Northumbria University

Applications for Co-GROWN are open now and close on 26 October 2026. Full details, categories and how to apply are available at co-grown.design.