We
The Design Research Lab is a network of people, organisations, and non-human agents engaged at the intersection of technologies, materials, and social practices. Our aim is to design socially and ecologically sustainable tools, spaces, and knowledge that support people’s participation in a digital society – based on common principles of inclusiveness and respect for the planet. This puts the basic democratic right to take part in the digital sphere into practice. We start our research from individual lifeworlds and the needs of minoritized groups, beyond consumer majorities.
We are an interdisciplinary team of designers, researchers, tech-enthusiasts and critical thinkers from Berlin University of the Arts, German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society, as well as Einsteincenter Digital Future (ECDF).
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Open Cities Symposium 2016
Concluding symposium of the international co-operation “Community Now? Conflicts, Interventions, New Publics” (2013-2016)
In recent years, openness, self-organization and participation have become key terms in the discursive paradigm of administrations, institutions and companies. In our understanding open cities are inviting and understandable for newcomers, they cultivate negociation and participation and are flexible enough to re-adjust to changing needs.
As designers, programmers, planners and scientists that work on meaningful tools to support processes of self-empowerment, we work in an intense middle ground between different stakeholders. In times of a discursive omnipresence of participation we should frequently double check: How can our engagement really contribute to a more democratic urban development?
The current refugee migration is amplifying the struggles about openness and participation. This influx has created issues concerning registration, housing, education, security and health. Numerous innovative initiatives have stepped forward where administrations have been unable to cope with these urgent needs. Simultaneously, we witness the rise of strong discourse that seeks to close borders and even suspend civil rights.
In this situation we want to rethink our role as researchers, designers or urbanist and the tools we are working with. Can fences, surveillance and deportation camps really go together with the proclaimed openness? How robust are our tools and concepts of participation? Do we need to engage in re-designing the open cities in order to stand the test of time?
The Symposium is part of the project: Community Now? Conflicts, Interventions, New Publics