Now in its seventh year, The Mills Fabrica Innovation Award honours one exceptional graduating student from the MA Material Futures course whose work embodies visionary thinking and transformative potential in sustainable design and technology.
Each year, The Mills Fabrica presents the Innovation Award to a graduating Central Saint Martins student in recognition of exceptional creativity and vision in material innovation.
The winner receives vital support to further their project, including a three-month residency in Hong Kong or London, mentorship, access to coworking space and the Fabrica Lab, plus exposure through media, events, industry networks, and a cash prize.
This year’s award drew submissions from across the MA Material Futures cohort, reflecting the program’s commitment to interdisciplinary experimentation and future-facing design.
Led by Course Leader Mael Henaff and lecturer Agi Haines, the selection committee shortlisted six outstanding projects based on originality, sustainability impact, and material innovation. The 2025 Finalists were: Peerasin Hutaphaet, Damla Ertem, Jude Zantain, Kamonchanok Wongwiboonsat, Justina Alexandroff and Carolina Aghemio.
The final decision was made during the CSM Shows 2025, where Amy Tsang, representing The Mills Fabrica, visited the exhibition to evaluate each project firsthand. Her feedback, combined with insights from the Hong Kong team, led to the unanimous selection of this year’s winner.
Fresh from winning The Mills Fabrica Innovation Award, MA Material Futures graduate Justina Alexandroff speaks about her speculative, insect-inspired project and the values that shaped it. She reflects on the challenges of field testing her project and the gratitude of being given space to imagine what comes next.
How did you feel after finding out you won?
I was really surprised. I was definitely overwhelmed with gratitude and I'm just getting my head around the fact that I will be spending three months in Hong Kong.
Give us a breakdown of your project.
I began this year reading this book called An Immense World by Ed Yong. It was about all the different kinds of perceptions and senses of different animals. That was very much like my attitude going into this project. I was interested in insect vision. They have superior senses to us. That was the basis of the project.
How did your project evolve during your time at CSM, and what challenges did you face in bringing it to life?
I think it’s a shared one between anyone doing a Masters, it's just resources and time. You might have lots of grand ideas that you'd like to develop, but it can be quite limiting.
For example field testing these objects. I haven't been able to do contained experiments to be able to say whether they do or don't work. I don't have that data yet and that wasn't really going to be possible in the time frame of the masters. But saying that, I think CSM has been incredible. Any challenge that you have, you go and speak to a technician and they just help you figure out what your alternative is.
What does receiving The Mills Fabrica Innovation Award mean to you?
I now have space to grow one of my ideas, which is amazing. It's such a privilege to get 3 full months to figure out if there's a version 2, version 3, version 4, whether it can be field tested, whether it can be scaled, to ask all these questions that without it, I would never have been able to ask.
What advice would you give to future MA Material Futures students who want to use design as a tool for social or environmental change?
I would say go into the course with a clear ideology. I think having a really secure sense of what you care about is really key and it's easy to lose that throughout the course.
The partnership between The Mills Fabrica and Central Saint Martins, established in 2018, continues to champion a new generation of design thinkers who merge scientific inquiry with artistic vision. It underscores a mutual belief in the power of education and industry collaboration to foster systemic change.
Through this award, The Mills Fabrica not only celebrates individual excellence but also reaffirms its dedication to transforming the textiles, apparel and biomaterials industries through innovation.