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).
Video: Jos Diegel, Music: Johannes Roloff, Support: Katharina Bellinger, Linus Bade, Translation: Aylin Cornelius
Photo: Katrin Greiner
The goal of TEXAS is to develop a kit for multifunctional textile-adapted electronic systems. Thus, a so-called “interposer” was designed in cooperation with the partners: this enabled a modular design of textile circuits and gears towards the industrial production of wearables. The interposer will be integrated in an adaptable electronic patch onto the surface of an functional textile leggings that is developed with an industrial knitting machine. The leggings has motion sensors and visual and haptic feedback. The smart pants practically work as a gamecontroller in therapeutic gaming. Young people with gait problems can use the trousers and practice their exercises motivated by gamification. If the youngster is doing his or her exercises, the avatar – a space explorer – is moving forward. To upgrade the spacesuit, the youngster needs to collect different materials to upgrade his space suit and to get to the next planet.
The aim of InTex is to develop a wearable in the form of an intelligent pant that is linked to a computer game. With motion sensors integrated into the textile, the pants function as a game console. Exercises such as squats, kicks and steps that the player performs trigger the movement of an avatar in the game. Space Time serves as a motivator for children with gait disorders through positive feedback on physical activity and enables them to perform their physiotherapeutic exercises independently at home. The game’s location in space, a fantastic and supernatural world characterized by weightlessness and freedom, translates into an actual freedom that manifests itself in a new independence for users with limitations.