DESIGN REPURPOSED FOR RADICAL RECONNECTION
DesignDisco works towards two foundational goals: to change how design is taught and to teach how design has changed. As we face an uncertain geologic future, DD Lab 2.0 fosters radical reconnection with our Earthly roots. With a pro-social and -planet-friendly outlook, the primary concern of the upcoming workshop is to cultivate a generative pedagogic space for design practices, discovering new ways of learning and unlearning in unison. How can we work towards more regenerative outcomes?
WHEN
6–9 February 2025
WHERE
Berlin, Germany
WHO
Design, education, and creative industry professionals and post-graduate students.
Cross-Collaborative Experimentation
Encompassing an open-source mindset, participants will engage in coactive projects and interactive discussions, encouraging interdisciplinary cross-pollination of ideas.
Redefining Design Education
DD Lab will explore design education's challenges and opportunities, prompting participants to envision new pedagogical approaches, methodologies, and curricula.
Innovative Design Experiences
DD Lab aims to develop engaging strategies and frameworks that can be recontextualized as meaningful design experiences for teens at our Summer Studio 2025.
Networking and Knowledge Exchange
Attendees will have the chance to connect with like-minded professionals, discover a global network beyond DesignDisco, and establish new collaborative methods.
We invite designers, educators, researchers, creative thinkers, and practitioners from around the globe to take part in our program consisting of Design Sprints, Ecology Workshops, Field Trips and additional custom-devised experiences, acting in the context of our immediate environment.
From subverting notions of authoritative knowledge to critical (self)reflection and sharing work in progress, our educational program advances an innovative, intuitive, and interactive approach to design education. DD Lab 2.0 platforms a hands-on approach where participants exchange ideas, challenge conventions, and collectively prototype new forms of design education.
Join us for this cooperative DD Lab 2.0 in Berlin as we embody the attitude of progressive design models: Changing Design, Designing Change.
CRITICAL FRIENDS
A critical friend is a supportive individual who uses critical thinking to ask thought-provoking questions and evaluate situations. Our invited guests are not just speakers; they actively participate in the Lab as insightful and resourceful guides.
Tabitha Swanson (she/her)
Tabitha Swanson is a Berlin-based multi-disciplinary designer, creative technologist, artist, and founder of a technology and purpose-driven production studio and podcast, SEEK/FIND. She has worked with Vogue Germany, Nike, Highsnobiety, Reebok, Origins, and others to create beautiful work in the creative tech and design sphere. Artistically, her work is used as a form of therapy, often composing questions rather than answers, and trying to faintly touch the unseen edges of human existence. Much of her practice revolves around exploring thresholds, diametrically opposed elements, spirituality, playful mirth, realms of discovery, while researching hauntology, recursion, echos, and theology. She has exhibited at Miami Art Basel, Fotografiska, and Transmediale, and presented her debut short film, My Right, at the Venice Film Festival.
Philipp Sack (he/him)
Philipp Sack is a research associate at the Academy department of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation. He manages the Bauhaus Lab programme in Global Modernism Studies and is co-lead of the multi-year research project Schools of Departure, an online atlas mapping the globally entangled histories of design and art education beyond the Bauhaus. Philipp studied art history, medieval and modern history, and museum studies in Heidelberg, Lyon, and Paris, and has been working as an independent art educator for institutions such as ZKM | Centre for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Tate Liverpool, and Goethe Institut Novosibirsk, before joining the Bauhaus. He is particularly interested in implementing and/or studying educational formats emerging in the interplay between cultural and educational institutions, as well as in the history and theory of visual cultures.
Nick Stübe (he/him)
Nick Stübe is a designer in the field of interaction design and futurology. With a keen interest in systems, processes, and alternatives, he deals with complex issues, emphasizing not only aesthetics but also sustainable and social benefits. As founder of Berlin Design e.V., Nick demonstrates his commitment to uniting the fragmented design sector, fostering collaboration, and driving positive change within the communities.
