Thomas Thwaites is a British designer and writer. He describes himself as "a designer (of a more speculative sort), interested in technology, science, futures research & etc."[1]
Thwaites studied economics and biology at University College London and in 2009 gained an MA in Design Interactions at the Royal College of Art.[2]
In a nine-month project as part of his MA course, Thwaites attempted to build a toaster from scratch. The project was inspired by a quote from Douglas Adams' 1992 novel Mostly Harmless: "Left to his own devices he couldn't build a toaster. He could just about make a sandwich, and that was it." A toaster has about 400 components: he simplified the materials list to copper, steel, plastic, mica and nickel and attempted to mine, refine, and otherwise process all the raw materials needed.[3] He published The Toaster Project: Or a Heroic Attempt to Build a Simple Electric Appliance from Scratch (Princeton Architectural Press, 2011:), and gave a TED talk "How I Built a Toaster - From Scratch".[4] The tools and artefacts from the project are on display as an installation in the Victoria and Albert Museum, in room 76 "Design 1900 to Now".[5]
He later spent several days living among goats in the Alps, using prosthetic goat-like legs and eating grass using an artificial rumen, to explore the life of goats.[6] [7] This resulted in (Princeton Architectural Press, 2016;) and an IgNobel Prize.[8]
In January 2017 he appeared on BBC Radio 4's Museum of Curiosity. His hypothetical donation to the imaginary museum was a history book written in 2222AD, covering the present time.[9]
In 2017–2018 he was a visiting professor in the Industrial Design department of Rhode Island School of Design.[10]