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).
Introduction to the practical use of design and design research methods. Master Studio Design, FHNW – Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz, Basel. Under the direction of Stefan Göllner and Tom Bieling – in cooperation with Ralf Michel (FHNW, May 2013).
The course dealt with the concept of nutrition supply on the new campus of the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland in Basel (“Dreispitz Areal”). In their design concepts, the students posed the question of how “food” should be organised on the future campus and how various aspects of eating culture could be taken into account. Methods of participatory design formed the starting point for the discussion.
In addition to an introduction to the basics of design research, the focus was on questions of the practical handling of design methods. Based on the results of our own on-site explorations, we developed designs that were evaluated using participatory methods and developed to the point where they were ready for presentation.