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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BeMobil
Motor rehabilitation enables the reintegration of people with physical handicaps in their families and professional environments. Because of innovative technologies and new treatment approaches there are several possibilities to support patients in relearning their independent mobility for self-determined living.
Multidisciplinary partners from different fields like universities, business´ and clinics are developing interactive aid-care systems, as well and arm- and gait-supporting systems, like intelligent prostheses, ortheses, rehabilitation robots and virtual-reality systems for patients with neurological diseases and injuries. The common goal of the the BMBF-funded innovation cluster „BeMobil“ is the optimization of human-computer interaction in rehabilitation context.
The Design Research Lab supports, in cooperation with the Department of Cognitive Psychology & Cognitive Ergonomics of the Technical University Berlin, different projects within this cluster. Through participatory design research methods, users are involved throughout the entire development and design process, in order to ensure the everyday practicality of the technical aids that are being developed.