KATE REED
Designer
HISTORY
50 works



Floral Oscillations

Floral Oscillations
WearableElectronics2024

A wearable necklace featuring multiple LCD screens housed in floral-shaped brooches, each displaying continuously evolving mathematical visualizations.

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Violacein

Violacein
BiologyBiodesign2021

A naturally occurring bacterial pigment cultivated for textile dyeing, offering an antibiotic alternative to synthetic dyes with a distinctive purple hue.

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Greenhouse Glass

Greenhouse Glass
WearableGlass2024

A wearable incubator crafted from hand-blown borosilicate glass vessels, connected through chain-mail metalwork. Each vessel functions as a portable biological culture chamber.

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Sally

Sally
SculptureElectronics2024

Sally is a synthetic AI companion housed within a conch shell, creating an intimate space for human-computer interaction.

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Synthetic

Synthetic
WearableTextiles2020

A textile synthesizer worn on the body, converting touch, pressure, and light into sound through conductive thread circuitry integrated into fabric.

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Glitch Sensorium

Glitch Sensorium
RoboticsDigital Fabrication2023

A thermal weather oracle that translates environmental data into ephemeral heat patterns on nichrome heat-sensitive material.

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Whispering Moon

Whispering Moon
SculptureMetal2019

An algorithmic poetry generator housed in a sculptural metal form, composing environmental letters to Earth through randomized verse combinations printed on receipt paper.

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Dusk Mother

Dusk Mother
Computational DesignWorld Building2023

A procedurally generated digital ecosystem constructed through parametric modeling and AI-assisted worldbuilding, where environmental algorithms simulate the delicate balance between arid and humid biomes.

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Parasite

Parasite
WearableMetal2019

A copper wearable that activates through galvanic skin response, drawing power from the wearer's perspiration to illuminate its parasitic form.

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Jewelry

Jewelry
SculptureMetal2018

A series of experimental jewelry pieces exploring fundamental metalsmithing techniques with copper, brass, and bronze.

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Eye Spy

Eye Spy
WearableElectronics2020

A counter-surveillance necklace featuring AI-generated moth imagery designed to disrupt and confuse facial recognition systems.

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Mating Collar

Mating Collar
WearableTextiles2019

A reactive textile collar that responds to the wearer's physiological excitement through kinetic movement, mimicking animal courtship displays.

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Metal Casting

Metal Casting
Computational DesignMetal2022

A sterling silver paperweight exploring computational surface tension simulations translated into cast metal form.

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Synthetic Ecology

Synthetic Ecology
WearableDigital Fabrication2022

A wearable piece featuring AI-generated floral forms that bridge digital design and physical manifestation through 3D-printed transparent structures.

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Bugeyed

Bugeyed
WearableElectronics2021

A wearable featuring six LCD displays that broadcast personal surveillance data, creating overwhelming visual feedback inspired by compound insect vision.

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Glass Dragon

Glass Dragon
SculptureGlass2024

A sculptural dragon form crafted from borosilicate glass, featuring blooming organic elements that emerge from the creature's body.

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Gemini

Gemini
WearableTextiles2020

Generative speculative portraits of potential offspring, rendered on molded leather surfaces.

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Symbiosis Storytelling Crowns

Symbiosis Storytelling Crowns
WearableMetal2020

A series of connected wearable crowns that whisper stories into the wearer's ear, forming a global network for sharing and recording oral narratives.

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Aluminum Swirl

Aluminum Swirl
SculptureMetal2017

A sculptural exploration of aluminum sheet forming through roller mill techniques, connected with copper rivets using traditional cold-connection methods.

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Sonic Invisibility Cloak

Sonic Invisibility Cloak
WearableElectronics2020

A wearable acoustic device that masks the wearer's sonic footprint through real-time audio sampling and playback, crafted from formed bronze and brass.

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Crystal Interfaces

Crystal Interfaces
Computational Design3D Printing2021

A touch-responsive electronic interface grown from conductive salt crystals, creating a naturally-formed sensor that can be dissolved and regrown in new configurations.

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Botany Bots

Botany Bots
RoboticsDigital Fabrication2019

Autonomous robotic planters that navigate spaces independently, following a lead plant through computer vision and exhibiting collective behavior patterns.

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Bare Bone

Bare Bone
Wearable3D Printing2020

A luminous wearable exoskeleton that provides ambient light and psychological comfort through embedded LEDs within a parametrically-generated 3D-printed structure.

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Exo-lung

Exo-lung
WearableMetal2019

Exo·lung is a wearable lung that pulses with air as the wearer becomes excited.

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Glass Mask

Glass Mask
SculptureGlass2025

A mask composed of hundreds of hand-formed borosilicate glass petals, creating a translucent veil that shifts between visibility and concealment.

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Worry Prosthetic

Worry Prosthetic
WearableLeather2018

A wearable musical instrument constructed from sewn leather that embodies the emotion of worry through its slumped, inward-turning form and responsive sound generation.

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Root

Root
Computational Design3D Printing2021

Root is a wearable object created using parametric modeling and 3D printing to explore how biological growth processes can inform product design.

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Angry Prosthetic

Angry Prosthetic
WearableMetal2018

A wearable musical instrument featuring sharp bronze prisms that translate aggressive gestures into sound, embodying the emotion of anger through form and interaction.

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Happy Prosthetic

Happy Prosthetic
WearableWood2018

A wearable musical instrument with hand-carved wood petals that generate uplifting sounds through playful movement, embodying joy through lightweight form and interaction.

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Pollution Cloud

Pollution Cloud
WearableElectronics2020

A wearable that visualizes invisible air pollution in real-time through illuminated fiber optic cables, creating a personal pollution cloud around the wearer.

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Body Accordion

Body Accordion
WearableDigital Fabrication2013

A wearable musical instrument that translates body flexion into sound, creating live performances controlled entirely by the wearer's physical movements.

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Mended

Mended
BiologyBiodesign2021

A fully functional textile garment cultivated from living organisms over ten days, creating a self-knit structure that is entirely biodegradable.

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Bioplastics

Bioplastics
BiologyBiodesign2020

An experimental series of biodegradable materials created from organic waste, exploring bio-resin, bio-foil, and bio-plastic as sustainable alternatives to petroleum-based polymers.

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Cocoon

Cocoon
WearableDigital Fabrication2015

A transformative wearable shroud constructed from laser-cut wood, exploring themes of mortality, spirituality, and metamorphosis through repetitive religious iconography.

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Antlers

Antlers
WearableDigital Fabrication2014

A wearable sculptural piece exploring the duality of armor and attraction in modern courtship rituals, constructed entirely from laser-cut plywood.

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Textile 3D Printing

Textile 3D Printing
TextilesDigital Fabrication2020

An experimental series exploring direct 3D printing onto textile substrates, creating flexible structures that move with fabric while adding dimensional reinforcement.

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Natural Dyes

Natural Dyes
BiologyTextiles2020

A comprehensive study extracting pigments from botanical and insect sources, exploring how mordants and modifiers create over 243 unique colorways on natural fiber textiles.

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Plant Tissue

Plant Tissue
BiologyBiodesign2022

Living plant tissue cultures grown in vitro without hormone exposure, developing into undifferentiated forms that are neither root nor shoot.

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Sea Sprouts

Sea Sprouts
Computational Design3D Printing2021

A 3D-printed wearable employing barnacle growth algorithms paired with living terrestrial plants, creating hybrid ecosystems that merge marine and land biology.

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Molded

Molded
Computational Design3D Printing2021

A series of 3D-printed jewelry generated from slime mold pathfinding algorithms, creating wearable forms that solve network optimization through biological computation.

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Hand Drive

Hand Drive
RoboticsDigital Fabrication2015

An open-source wheelchair attachment enabling rowing-motion propulsion, almost entirely 3D-printable and costing $40 to produce.

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Dawn Mother

Dawn Mother
Computational DesignWorld Building2023

A procedurally-generated migrating ecosystem within Eden, featuring light, airy forms filled with vascular tubes and bulbous creatures, housing water and winter biomes.

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Keepers

Keepers
Computational DesignCharacter Design2023

Two solitary character forms within Eden that wield and maintain energy, created through hand-modeled mesh sculpting in Maya and ZBrush.

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Dawn Creatures

Dawn Creatures
Computational DesignCharacter Design2023

Eden is a digital oasis meticulously sculpted using procedural and parametric modeling techniques, where every pixel tells a story. Each Mother in Eden is an entanglement of life, with networks growing throughout. Within these complex networks are creatures who reside. The male and female creatures in this ecosystem were designed in Houdini.

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Dawn Corpuscle

Dawn Corpuscle
Computational DesignLevel Design2023

Eden is a digital oasis meticulously sculpted using procedural and parametric modeling techniques, where every pixel tells a story. The Corpuscles are designed with polygon modeling, topological thinking, and procedural modeling. Made in Maya and Grasshopper with non-destructive and reversible workflows (Nurbs,SubD,Mesh).

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Migration

Migration
Computational DesignCustom Scripting2023

Eden is a digital oasis meticulously sculpted using procedural and parametric modeling techniques, where every pixel tells a story. The Migration shows the creation of an ever changing planet, via a closed loop generative systems. This was created via custom C# scripting, bridging the gap between biology and computer science.

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Dusk Creatures

Dusk Creatures
Computational DesignCharacter Design2023

Eden is a digital oasis meticulously sculpted using procedural and parametric modeling techniques, where every pixel tells a story. Each Mother in Eden is an entanglement of life, with networks growing throughout. Within these complex networks are creatures who reside. The male and female creatures in this ecosystem were designed in Houdini.

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Dusk Corpuscle

Dusk Corpuscle
Computational DesignLevel Design2023

Eden is a digital oasis meticulously sculpted using procedural and parametric modeling techniques, where every pixel tells a story. The Corpuscles are designed with polygon modeling, topological thinking, and procedural modeling. Made in Maya and Grasshopper with non-destructive and reversible workflows (Nurbs,SubD,Mesh).

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Rufus

Rufus
RoboticsElectronics2017

A compression-responsive MIDI controller constructed from piano wire and flex sensors, translating physical pressure into real-time sound manipulation.

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Slimeboards

Slimeboards
BiologyBiodesign2021

Slimeboards are living, electronic, circuit boards.

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