We
The Design Research Lab is a laboratory for experimental design and research reflecting on the digital society. Through playful interventions, critical making and collaborative reasoning we investigate possible futures. As a platform and network, we are deeply involved with the requirements and policies needed for an inclusive and sustainable development of the digital society from a design perspective.
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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Community Now?
Community Now? is an interdisciplinary research project between the German Society for Design Theory and Research (DGTF), the Design Research Lab/UdK and the Academy for Art and Design, funded by the Future Forum Foundation (DIZF) and in partnership with the Jewish Museum Berlin, Goethe-Institut Tel Aviv and Hansen Center Jerusalem. What does intercultural Community Building mean today? How can we connect engaged communities from Jerusalem and Berlin? The aim of the project is to develop, together with existing civic initiatives, design tools and strategies that strengthen the structures of the communities and give them a new public. Through digital formats and local interventions like Living Labs, “Community Now?” develops alternative ways of empowerment and political participation. Beyond the familiar themes of diplomatic relations between Israel and Germany, we are interested in the understanding of individual citizens and in their commitment. We aim to establish students tandem and an interdisciplinary collaboration between designers, artists, scientists, public institutions and civil society initiatives. The results lead to exhibitions, interventions in public space and in the museum context, Living Labs, interdisciplinary symposia in Berlin and Jerusalem as well as in a subsequent publication.
Projects that were realised within the Community Now? project:
Symposium: Community Now? The Politics of Participatory Design