DESIGN IN(G) SOCIETY

In the winter semester 2012/13, a group of 130 9th semester graphic-, media- and product-design from German University in Cairo (GUC) and the GUC Campus Berlin have been participating in the Cairo- and Berlin-based Project “DESIGN IN(G) SOCIETY”. The intercultural project, related to the course “Advanced Research Methods”, focuses on the designer’s role in terms of understanding, influencing and creating social sustainable processes in urban context.

The guiding questions were: What role does the design of urban environment and public spaces play in terms of enabling or hindering social interaction? What role do “objects” play in this context? In this, a special fo­cus was laid out on social Interaction between people with “conflict potential” (e.g. old-young, man-woman, rich-poor, different cultural or religious backgrounds, state – people, etc….). The final goal of the course was, to find (designerly) ways of solving the social Problems, the participants discovered, using the broad range of de­sign-relevant issues and skillz (e.g. Product-, Service-, Information-, Interaction-, Event-, …Design).