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a subject area of the Industrial Design department at Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle under the direction of Prof. Mareike Gast

The variety of ways to shape products and applications using materials and technologies is already immense. And every day, new possibilities arise. The question that this poses is: Where do we want to steer this potential? What is possible? What is plausible?

To help shape the future critically, actively and effectively we believe it is essential to be familiar with today’s standard technologies – because nothing is really new. The experiment plays a central role in exploring technologies: in order to get a feel for the respective technologies, to truly grasp fundamentals and question them, to be able to think ahead and, above all, to do exploratory research.

Many future issues – particularly sustainability – have become pressing and acute. In order not only to name and reveal the manifold aspects o sustainability, but also to design them, we experiment with materials, with hypotheses, with scenarios – in our own workshops and laboratories, in close exchange with other disciplines, and with potential users. We question the familiar. We investigate circulating materials and products. We develop concrete answers for real actors in order to meet the urgent questions with approachable visions that are indispensable for a critical and future-oriented debate and transformation.

Biotechnology plays a central role in the exploration of tomorrow’s materials and technologies. On the one hand, it promises great potential – especially with regard to resource- and climate-friendly production. At the same time, the fear of alienation from nature is increasing. Our goal is to extract what is desirable from what is (technically) feasible with the means of design, because renewable materials, manufacturing processes using living organisms, and adaptive and resilient products and systems will play a central role in design and in our future way of life.