Hello, I'm Julia. I'm a social entrepreneur. I began my career as an industrial designer, graduating from the Royal College of Art. In 2014, I retrained as an artisan baker and have been working in the food industry ever since. Most recently, I have published a cookbook called 'How to eat your Christmas tree' which looks at recycling and reuse in an age of deforestation and climate crisis. I've run a number of small businesses, from a microbakery to a guerilla design shop, but my projects always have community, collaboration, and the environment in mind. I am currently based in London.
For enquiries and collaborations, please email me at
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Current Work
These are the projects that I am working on.
My current work looks at food as an important design tool to educate and empower.
How to eat your Christmas tree
Cookbook and Supper Club
(2015 - 2020)
'How to eat your Christmas tree,' is a cookbook about reuse, recycling and rethinking about how we deal with one of the most joyful, but wasteful times of year in the face of a climate crisis. The project started life as a supper club in 2015, where 5 delicious courses were served to diners using leftover Christmas trees, as a way of encouraging people to rethink waste at Christmas time. The supper club ran every December/January for 6 years and was then turned into a cookbook, published by Hardie Grant in 2020.
You can buy the book here.
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The Bread Companion
Nomadic Teaching Bakery
(2014 - 2020)
TBC started life as a travelling, teaching bakery to encourage people to make their own bread! After running workshops everywhere from inner city London to the Californian desert and teaching hundreds of people how to bake, as well baking/consulting for a number of clients, the physical bakery and events were put to bed after the Covid19 pandemic. TBC now exists as an online platform for breaducation - virtual bread making classes and recipes will be published soon.
Visit the The Bread Companion's website.
Side Hustles
Some sneaky collaborations that I am involved with on the side.
Meta Studio
A bespoke, data inspired jewellery studio
(2020 - Current)
In collaboration with designer and friend, Jess Jones, we have recently re-established our jewellery studio, Meta, after starting the project at university together, over 10 years ago. The studio combines data driven design, high tech production processes and works with artisanal, heritage makers in the UK to create meaningful, bespoke jewellery collections.
View the full collection here.
Queimado, Lisboa
Restaurant in Lisbon, Portugal
(2019)
I am investor in the fire-fuelled restaurant, Queimado, run by chef Shay Ola and architect Hannah Reusser. The restaurant operates from boutique hotel, Esqina, in downtown Lisbon alongside its sister bar and vinyl room, Static. The project is also currently running a satellite pop-up space in Bairro Alto where new and upcoming chefs to Lisbon test out exciting concepts.
Find out more about Queimado here.
Designers on Holiday Kitchen
Summertime Kitchen Residency
(Every summer since 2015)
I run the outdoor kitchen at the Designers on Holiday Project in Gotland, Sweden each summer for two weeks. The kitchen feeds roughly 20 campers every day, three times a day for the duration of the design adventure holiday. The kitchen aims to be a collaborative cooking, making and eating space, with a zero-waste policy that harnesses the beautiful ritual of outdoor cooking.
Follow the DOH Kitchen Instagram page, for all of our previous food adventures.
Archive
Here is some older work and projects, many of which are from when I worked as an industrial designer.
Teaching
Tutor at Kingston School of Art, London
(2015 - 2018)
I taught on the Masters in Product and Furniture Design course and the Art Foundation part time until 2018. Tutoring involved writing and running projects and briefs, running individual and group tutorials for students and supporting students to create work for their final shows.
Hat 001
Range of hats
(2014)
Designed in collaboration with RCA colleague
Dustin Jessen as part of our joint graduating project at the Royal College of Art. 'Hat 001' was a project made in collaboration with one of the UK's last remaining hatters, Walter Wright and Sons. The hat looks like a casual, baseball cap, but is produced using higher quality materials and much simpler manufacturing techniques used to make a top hat, streamlining the hatting process overall.
Big Small
RCA Independant Graduate Exhibition
(2014)
"The (design) world is a funny place, full of opposites and contradictions. Big vs Small, Rich vs Poor, Analogue vs Digital, Global vs. Local, Craft vs Mass Manufacture." To try to unpick these concepts, after graduating from the RCA in 2014, I curated an exhibition of work by fellow Design Products graduates. Big Small Show was part of the London Design Festival 2014 and hosted, not only an exhibition but a series of events such as a Swearing Competition, talks and the installation 'Commodity Casino.'
Royal College of Art Christmas Fete
A market place for art students
(2012 - 2013)
As UK University fees were increased and cuts in funding for the arts became more pronounced I started an MA at the Royal College of Art. During Christmas 2012 and Christmas 2013, I collaborated with the Student Union to galvanise the students of the RCA to sell their work with no retail fees. The RCA Christmas Fete was the College's first student run Christmas sale in its 174 year history and was an opportunity, not only for students to make some money, but for the public to pick up work by future art and design stars. The Fete is still run by the RCA Student Union each year.
Navigating the High Street - An A-Z of London
Royal College of Art Dissertation
(2013)
In 1938, Eric Ravillious and J.M Richards published an illustrated book of High Street shops. It contained all sorts of shops that don’t exist anymore, but that were crucial to everyday life at that point in time. As part of my dissertation at the Royal College of Art, I went on a High Street safari in London and compiled a list of current shops, looking at what their presence on the high street meant to the communities which surrounded them. This was a way of navigating the city that I grew up in. It was a type of A-Z of the every changing High Street and consequently the ever changing city...
