Meet The Winner Of The 2025 Ralph Saltzman Prize

The Design Museum in London has bestowed its fourth annual Ralph Saltzman Prize to the geo-alchemist glass artist Lulu Harrison. Her project, Thames Glass, creates a new form of glass using sands, wood ash, and waste mussel shells all sourced from inside and around the River Thames.

“In collaboration with the head of ecology at Thames Water,” Harrison says, “I discovered a way to incorporate powdered shells from invasive quagga mussels—an ongoing issue that costs Thames Water millions of pounds to manage—into unique glass batches.” This recipe incorporates traditional glassmaking craft with a forward-thinking embrace of circularity.

Introducing Lulu Harrison, The 4th Annual Ralph Saltzman Prize Winner

The prize, created by Lisa Saltzman in memory of her father, Designtex co-founder and president Ralph Saltzman, honors designers who innovate material and manufacturing processes, and who have set up their own practice within the previous five years. “I hope he would have liked Lulu Harrison’s originality, left-of-field thinking, experimentation with working with an everyday material and, mostly, her commitment to sustainability,” Saltzman said in a statement.

Harrison grew up on the shores of the River Thames in Oxfordshire, and began working with glass while earning an MA in Materials Futures at Central Saint Martins. “Collaboration played a big role in my learning,” she says, “and throughout my research and experimentation I worked closely with glass studios both in the UK and in Murano.” The resulting work has been shown by institutions including the V&A and the London Design Festival.

Incorporating Traditional Glassmaking With Circularity

The prize jury—a quartet of the heavy-hitters Konstantin Grcic, Seetal Solanki, Stephen Burks, and Michelle Ogundehin—first selected a shortlist of designers, including Ella Bulley, Sarah Brunnhuber, Samy Rio, and Johanna Seeleman. They then awarded Harrison a £10,000 bursary (approximately $13,400), and the chance to show her work at the Design Museum in an exhibition running from June 24 through August 25, 2025. “It’s an incredible opportunity for my career and for getting my work out into the public sphere,” Harrison says. “I hope this work encourages others to think more locally and engage with circular design.”  

Think Outside The Glass With Lulu Harrison’s Award-Winning Project