Makerversity

Welcome to the newest cohort of the Black Designers and Makers Residency! ✨

We're so excited to be supporting a wonderful group of Black designers, makers, creatives and innovators. Giving them the space, community and resources to do what they do best. Each resident joins us for 12 months with full access to the space and a monthly grant to put towards their work and ambitions.

We cannot wait to see what they create 🙌

Introducing resident Japhet Dinganga

A multimedia artist working with installation. Using raw and found materials he explores what it means to simply be. His work digs into the overlooked objects, spaces, and traces of everyday life. He is uncovering the social habits, labour and shared histories embedded within them.

Welcome to the community 🙌

Makerversity Presents...💿 PAINTROOM LATES 💿

This Thursday, Somerset House Residents Bar The Paintroom opens its doors to the public for an intimate evening of broken beat, house and soulful underground sounds.

Soundtracked by London stalwarts and .wun with special guest .

The night brings together over three decades of collective experience across the city's clubs, airwaves and record labels. With appearances on respected UK imprints like WOLF, Wah Wah 45s, Tru Thoughts and radio shows on Balamii and NTS and Worldwide FM.

Expect deep selections, musical journeys and a warm dance floor atmosphere in one of the capital's most unique settings.

Get tickets here: https://ra.co/events/2463251

How to get here:

The Paint Room is in the residents studios of Somerset House. A runner will give you access on the night.
Please wait at the New Wing reception of Somerset House. This is on Lancaster Place following on from Waterloo Bridge. We will go down stairs but we do have lifts for accessibility, the runner with ask you to check.

Find us here: ///agrees.hosts.attend

Contact number: 07749506915

Congratulations are in order! 🏆🌟

Huge well done to two of our incredible Makerversity alumni and members who have just made waves at the Manufacturing Futures Innovation Challenge 2026!

🥇 Pulpatronics took home the top prize, winning £15,000 for their fully recyclable, metal-free RFID tags that are cutting carbon emissions and electronic waste in inventory management. Groundbreaking stuff.

🥈 Tera Mira were runners-up, earning £5,000 for their compostable, seaweed based alternative to elastane. An amazing step forward for sustainable materials in fashion.

We love to see it! Backing brilliant makers is what Makerversity is all about 👏

Many applauses for them 👏👏👏

Looking to cut shapes and route your builds to the next level 🪚✨?

Meet our Table Router. A workshop powerhouse that lets you shape edges, cut joints, create grooves and add intricate profiles to wood with total precision. From decorative mouldings and rebates, this piece of kit keeps your work smooth, consistent and clean!

Perfect for furniture making, joinery, prototyping or adding those professional finishing touches 🔩📐

And to one up any other router, our Workshop Manager has built our one from scratch to be perfect for the space!

Book a tour to see what machines we have in store 👉 Find out over on our website: https://www.makerversity.org/

Introducing Makers with a Mission resident Harith Wilson 🛠️✨⁠
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Harith Wilson is a design engineer and Innovation Design Engineering graduate from the Royal College of Art and Imperial College London, working at the intersection of human centred design and social impact. His practice focuses on creating work that responds not only to function, but also to emotional, spiritual, and cultural experience.⁠
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Hi latest project is MANTIS, an ergonomic assistive prayer chair designed to support elderly and mobility impaired Muslims in performing prayer with comfort, dignity, and independence. Acting as an assistive system rather than a static chair, MANTIS supports key transitions of prayer through inclusive and culturally sensitive design.⁠
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Drawing from contemporary furniture and subtle Islamic aesthetics, the project challenges the clinical language of assistive products, creating something users can feel proud to have in their homes and places of worship.⁠

⁠At Makerversity, Harith will develop MANTIS from prototype to production-ready product through iterative prototyping, material testing, and user engagement.
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👉 Follow .blak to see what how he progresses in the space!
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A bar, a café and the best place to be 🍹

Managed by Makerversity, The Paint Room at Somerset House is where residents and makers come to work, meet, and have a couple aperol's. Monday to Friday, 9–4pm, no booking needed.

We've been loving hosting our Wednesday Workshops there, bringing the community together to learn something new. One of our faves? Kombucha making😎 🍵

Need the space after hours? We've got a late licence and can host your next event, meeting, or private hire well into the evening.

Oh, and we cater for events across the building too. ☕️

Introducing Makers with a Mission resident Weronika Turowska 🌱🧫⁠
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studio is led by biodesigner and material researcher Weronika Turowska, whose practice explores regenerative design through living materials, microbial systems, and organic waste streams. Working with mycelium, algae, bacteria, and food waste, she develops experimental biomaterials that rethink how we design, produce, and relate to matter.⁠
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A key part of her work is De-LAB, a collaborative research and publishing project sharing open-source biomaterial recipes and tools to make biodesign knowledge more accessible.⁠
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At Makerversity, Weronika will expand De-LAB as a collaborative platform. Where she will be testing biomaterial processes, developing new applications, and running workshops that bring hands on biomaterial experimentation to wider communities.⁠
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👉 Follow .studio to see her biomaterials transform 🍄⁠ ⁠
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Congratulations to our latest Under 30’s cohort 👏👏⁠
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Last week we hosted our Under 30’s exhibition in Makerversity, showcasing our latest groups wonderful pieces and projects that they’ve been working on in the space. ⁠
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Ranging from glasses that support people with dyslexia and photophobia to jewellery that draws on historic British symbols and early 2000s nostalgia. ⁠
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Have a peak and see what was on display last week 👀✨