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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Emergency Apparel
Emergency Apparel is a follow-up to the Knit Alarm functional model that we constructed as a feasibility study for a textile that could be used to trigger an alarm in case of medical emergencies. While the first version of the emergency wearable was knit, the new version is a tailored blazer where the electric connections are integrated into the lining. The two pocket flaps on the front have a conductive cover, and there are narrow stripes from conductive fabric on top of the flaps. Pressing both flaps firmly up and onto the blazer front activates the alarm. This is to avoid that the alarm can accidentally triggered.
The electronics are hosted in the left pocket of the jacket and contain a micro controller, power supply, and a bluetooth model for connection to a mobile phone. The blazer has an inner pocket to host the mobile device. The battery can be easily removed, as it uses an inductive coil for power transfer. So far the Emergency Apparel works with a custom Android application that allows the user to pick a favorite contact from their address book on the phone and to manage the bluetooth connection.