Thomas Thwaites (designer)

Thwaites studied economics and biology at University College London, followed by a master's degree in Design Interactions from the Royal College of Art i n 2009.^[3]: 192

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."^[3]: 35 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.^[4] He published The Toaster Project: Or a Heroic Attempt to Build a Simple Electric Appliance from Scratch, and gave a TED talk "How I Built a Toaster - From Scratch".^[5] 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".^[1]

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 GoatMan: How I Took a Holiday from Being Human and an Ig Nobel 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.^[2][10]

• Thwaites, Thomas (2011). The Toaster Project: Or a Heroic Attempt to Build a Simple Electric Appliance from Scratch. Princeton Architectural Press. ISBN 978-1-56898-997-6.
• Thwaites, Thomas (2016). GoatMan: How I Took a Holiday from Being Human. Princeton Architectural Press. ISBN 978-1-61689-405-4.

• List of Ig Nobel Prize winners