About...

Ian Lambert has been designing furniture and related products since 1990. He has undertaken numerous commissions and exhibited work across the UK (including at London Design Week and the Lighthouse in Glasgow), China and the US.

Ian is the Dean of Graduate Studies and Research at the College for Creative Studies (CCS) in Detroit, where he is also the chair for the MFA in Design for Climate Action. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and holds a PhD from the University of Edinburgh: his thesis explored making as knowledge (see page 40).

Ian was co-chair and submissions chair for the Cumulus Conference (Design for Adaptation) 2022, in Detroit. He is on the steering group for the Research Through Design (RTD) conference series, having been co-chair for the conference in 2017, and on the organising committee in 2019.

His research interests lie in material practice, climate action, and making-as-thinking. His award winning collaborative work with ocean plastic on the west coast of Scotland (pages 11-14) has been widely published, and he is a member of the Detroit River Coalition, literally bringing his work upstream! Since 2020 he has collaborated with the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History on urban lumber (pages 15-19).

The work shown here is mainly practice-led research, along with a few projects, ideas, and artefacts going back to the 1990s.

Ian is always keen to hear from potential partners for collaboration on projects. You can contact him via Instagram or Linkedin, or through CCS.