My name is Lorena Delgado Piña and I am 28 years old. I am an architect and recently, I am a fashion tech designer at Fab Lab IED Madrid, where I specialized in biofabrication materials applied to the body and architecture.

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I am from Madrid, Spain. I was born and live here, but I share part of my life and my home in Torrenueva, Ciudad Real, a village at the south of Spain where my whole family comes from. Torrenueva is a village founded in the 12th century by the knights of the Santiago Order to protect the Castilian border with Granada´s Kingdom during those years. The village is known because it is located on the Quixote Route and an area of "rare soils" (limited and very valuable minerals and chemical elements). Since the 19th Century, its people and my family have lived off the mineral extraction and the crops fields. But due to health and pollution issues of these "soil", the mines were closed. However, agricultural activity continues in the village highlighting the cultivation of orchards, olive trees and vineyards.

I have always grown up between the city and the country . Between architecture and nature. And this has conditioned my personality and my vocation.

I always want to be an architect since my father (who was a builder) he took me with him to see his execution buildings. That was a easy decision, I studied my degree and master of Architecture at Alcalá University in 2018 with high honors. But during my studies I became interested in other different design disciplines that I would like to explore.

My passion of Fashion Tech design started with my masters Elena Zapico and Raquel Buj, founders of Zap and Buj, who I met at a masterclass and they gave the opportunity to colaborate with them on their latest fashion runway, Growing Landscapes, for Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Madrid 2019.

They put me in touch with the Maker world and digital fabrication tools applied to wearable technology. And from that moment... I fell in love! 😍

In 2019, they encouraged me to apply a schoolship for their Master in Fashion Futures at Fab Lab IED Madrid. I won it and had the chance to learn a little about computacional design, electronics and bioexperimental materials applies at different scales.

Here you can see some of my previous works. If you are interested, visit and follow my social media to get more information about my lastest projects.

After my studies at Fab Lab IED Madrid, I wanted to explore more about the possibility of natural supplies and biofabricated materials in design disciplines. So, I began to experiment to obtain biofilms with different ingredients, resistances and thicknesses. Now a days, I am researching (at home) with compost, seaweeds and waste vegetables with molds that I designed and fabricated at the fab lab. These are some of my results with orange peels and waste beet.

Fab Lab IED Madrid is the innovation and technology base at Istituto Europeo di Design located in Carabanchel District (south-west Madrid). Here I not only studied, also I met greatest people with whom I establised a good relationship.

When I started my adventure in biomaterials research, the fab lab supported me and shared with me everything I need for my work. They liked this job so much that they gave me the opportunity to join them as part of the fab lab staff, teaching biomaterials in different master's and design degrees. Here you can see some approaches to biomaterials from my students.

For complemented my knowledge and teaching them to the future "biomakers", the Fab Lab gave me as a "Christmas present" the opportunity to be here at Fab Academy. I am very exited and scared at the same time to do it (I admit it) but I can only promess one thing: I will try to work hard to enjoy and learn the maximum that I can, with the greatest company of my instructor from Fab Lab Leon (Adrián, Nuria and Pablo) and my companion crewmates (Alberto, Mauro, Mickael and Sergio). 💚

Wish us luck!!