Interview Dr Kate Black; words and portrait by Nick Smith

TUCKED AWAY in the red-brick Dickensian backstreets of Stoke-on-Trent, in the area of the industrial Midlands known as the Potteries, there's an old bottle kiln called Sutherland Works that's being restored. This is where you'll find Meta Additive, one of the UK's leading lights in additive manufacturing, or as Kate Black puts it: “in layman's terms, a 3D printing company that focuses on new materials.” For the past few decades, says Meta Additive's chief technology officer, this Next Big Thing has been “limited by the materials it uses”.