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).
Katharina studied Product Design focusing on Interaction Design at Weißensee Art College in Berlin. She joined the Design Research Lab in 2012 and was involved in several projects with a health context. She was developing and designing interfaces for people with dementia by integrating them in the design process. Currently, she is working in the innovation cluster „BeMobil“ to improve and develop the HCI in rehabilitation technologies. She is also enrolled in the project “Identity” in cooperation with Bundesdruckerei GmbH.