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).
Esther Zahn is a Fashion and E-Textile Designer. She gained an extensive experience in the area of FashionTech over the course of past years. For instance, she developed textile sensors to integrate and control music in garments. Moreover, she created garments with interwoven LED lights and textiles which glow in the dark or change their color when exposed to light or temperature. Her work was internationally acclaimed through exhibitions with the Goethe-Institute. Due to her specialization in the area of digital transformation of textiles and fashion, she was hired by renowned companies such as Siemens. The prestigious Bauhaus Dessau cooperated with Esther to develop a performance concept based on wireless communication. In 2016 Esther was honored for her achievements in innovation by the Association of German Engineers (VDI).