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JAMES LANG / CSM / UCL BARTLETT BIO-ID

Designer–engineer.

I build products, systems, and bio-integrated materials — from wearables to water to living substrates.

Computational design, robotic fabrication, and product engineering — taken from research brief to validated prototype to commercial production. Currently designing R&D systems at KSM Technologies; previously built robotic clay-extrusion workflows at UCL Bartlett.

See selected work ↓ scroll
002 / SELECTED WORK

Five other projects, in order of relevance.

  1. 02
    Hydro-Plantéa Atrium — bio-integrated canopy on the Thames Iron Works site

    Hydro‑Plantéa Atrium

    Why this matters: atria and glazed buildings burn energy passively — a canopy that photosynthesises power turns dead overhead surface into a working skin.

    Bio-photovoltaic canopy prototype integrating plant-based HBPV cells into a tessellated structure. Group MArch project, UCL.

    • Bio-Systems
    • Prototyping
    • Integration
    Role Systems integration · prototype build Year 2024
    Read the case study →
  2. 03

    NX Water · KSM Technologies

    Why this matters: a home-water product a family actually brings into their kitchen — shipped, not conceptual.

    Lead product design for the NX Water sub-brand at KSM Technologies: filter housing, control panel, exterior aesthetics, and full brand identity. Chinese design patent granted on the filter housing (Dec 2025). Brief-to-prototype engineering collaboration delivered IP outcomes for the programme. Further engineering and testing specifics available under NDA.

    • Product Design
    • CI/VI System
    • Patent
    • NDA
    Role R&D Designer (lead) Year 2023 — 2025
    Read the case study →
  3. 04
    WAM — wearable artificial muscle knee-support

    WAM wearable artificial muscle

    Why this matters: within one year of a hip fracture, around 20% of patients die and 50% become permanently disabled — the evidence base supports acting before the fall.

    A knee-worn EMG + 3D-knit wearable for early-stage fall prevention in older adults. Surface EMG monitors muscle weakness; embedded knit structures deliver targeted support; a companion app surfaces trends to the wearer and their physiotherapist. BA final-year (Unit 9) at Central Saint Martins.

    • Wearables
    • EMG Sensing
    • Soft-goods Fabrication
    Role Solo — BA final-year Year 2022
    Read the case study →
  4. 05
    SOGES — circular wind-energy system; frosted-housing turbine product render

    SOGES circular wind-energy system

    Why this matters: Sky Group held ~800 tons of decommissioned satellite-dish steel in inventory — a stockpile sized for productive reuse rather than landfill.

    A Sky Group-briefed circular reuse system that converts decommissioned satellite-dish steel into a subscription-based urban wind-energy platform. Turbine, battery, home-energy hub. Reviewed by Cambridge and Sheffield aerospace academics. BA final-year (Unit 10).

    • Circular Design
    • Energy Systems
    • Engineering
    Role Solo — BA final-year Year 2022
    Read the case study →
  5. 06

    Mel Studio 3D-print studio · co-founder

    Why this matters: running a studio teaches you the part design school can’t — quoting, scheduling, failure, and delivering to a paying client on a real deadline.

    Co-founded and bootstrapped a 3D-printing studio from £5k to 10+ machines in 5 months. Delivered batch orders, film props, and bespoke prototypes; ran scheduling, maintenance, supplier quoting, and client delivery end-to-end.

    • Additive Manufacturing
    • Operations
    • Client Delivery
    Role Co-founder Year 2022–2023
    Read the case study →
  6. 07

    Sesame local-first visual taste tool

    Why this matters: designers carry visual references in scattered folders — an embedding-native tool lets taste itself become searchable, without uploading your work to a server.

    A desktop app that learns your aesthetic taste using CLIP embeddings — semantic search, style briefs, and 3D cluster mapping. Built from scratch as a native macOS app. Now in private beta.

    • AI / ML
    • Desktop
    • Local-first
    Role Solo — design + build Year 2025 – 26
    Read the case study →
+ 6 smaller studies, experiments, and side projects

vasé — Urban Farming Tools

RSA brief. Bonsai- and ikebana-inspired tool set for indoor growing.

Heat Hatch — Foldable Cooktop

Compact conduction cooktop with smoke extraction. Design 2 Gather, Shanghai.

Blend Box — Blender Station

Counter-top blender enclosure that consolidates attachments and dampens noise.

Product Renders & CMF

KeyShot & Redshift visualisation across client and personal work.

This portfolio

Pure HTML/CSS/JS. EN/ZH bilingual, dark/light themes, dedicated case-study pages.

AI workflow experiments

Practical LLM + computer-vision integrations for design research and parameter exploration.

003 / HOW I WORK

Four moves, repeated until something ships.

  1. ⟶ 01

    Get to the constraint, fast.

    Most briefs underspecify the thing that will actually kill the project — a tolerance, a regulation, a commercial margin. Finding that constraint first saves weeks.

  2. ⟶ 02

    Prototype in the cheapest medium that proves the point.

    Cardboard before resin. Sketch before CAD. One print before a batch. A prototype’s job is to be wrong early, not to look finished.

  3. ⟶ 03

    Improve the workflow, not just the artefact.

    The ~40% setup-time reduction on Trace Terra wasn’t a single change — it was rebuilding the path from CAD to KUKA so each iteration cost minutes instead of hours. Tooling compounds.

  4. ⟶ 04

    Ship to a real user, not a jury.

    A studio-only prototype is still a sketch. The work I’m proudest of made it into a desert, a factory, or a customer’s kitchen.

004 / EXPERIENCE

Five years across product, fabrication, and research.

2025R&D Designer · KSM Technologies London / Remote

Led NX Water sub-brand: filter housings, control panels, full exterior aesthetics + brand identity. Continued thermal/airflow R&D. Patent granted Dec 2025.

2023–25MArch Bio-Integrated Design · UCL Bartlett London

Computational design, material R&D, robotic fabrication for climate-resilient systems.

2022–23Co-Founder · Mel Studio (3D-print) London

£5k seed → 10+ machines in 5 months. 200+ unit batches, film-crew props, bespoke prototypes.

2021Design Intern · Design 2 Gather Shanghai

Cooktop & blender concepts. Client-consultancy sessions on competitive analysis & pricing.

2020–21Freelance Product Designer · Bottloop / Incom Beijing

Co-designed a consumer bag from brief through to retail launch.

2020–21Product & VI Designer (placement) · Beijing KSM Beijing

Visual identity refresh, then R&D on product redesign. Continued part-time through 2021.

2017–22BA Product & Industrial Design · CSM, UAL London

User-centred product development with industrial placement year (2019–20).

005 / ABOUT
James Lang
  • Product design
  • Bio-integrated materials
  • Computational & robotic fabrication
  • Wearables & user research
  • Systems & circular design

I sit at the seam between design and engineering — the place where a CAD file becomes a thing that has to actually work.

I started in industrial design at Central Saint Martins, then spent five years moving deliberately between studios, factories, and research labs. The thread is the same throughout: take an ambitious brief, find the constraint that’ll kill it, and build the workflow that makes shipping possible.

Recent work has been heavy on robotic fabrication and bio-integrated systems (Trace Terra at UCL, NX Water at KSM Technologies). Alongside that I co-founded Mel Studio, a 3D-printing studio that bootstrapped from a £5k seed to 200+-unit batch orders in its first year. I read papers, run material tests in the kitchen, and write the scripts that connect them. I’m looking for a team where the answer to “can we actually make this” is the most interesting question in the room.

  • Based London · open to relocation
  • Languages English · Mandarin (native) · Spanish (learning)
  • Right to work EU · China · UK (pending)

006 / GET IN TOUCH

If a brief looks maybe-impossible,
that’s usually the brief I want.

Open to product, R&D, and design-engineering roles — in-house or studio. Freelance considered for projects that involve prototyping or fabrication R&D.

Email langdg22@gmail.com ↗ LinkedIn james-lang-design ↗ CV / Résumé Available on request — email me ↗