The Design Products Department recognises that design is an activity that fundamentally shapes our world and influences the processes of change. We aim for our students to find their own place, from where they can lead or contribute to these processes.
Although there is a focus on product and furniture design, we do not see any limitations to our field, understanding very well that most of tomorrow’s products and services do not yet exist today. As we are living in a rapidly changing world, we want to be forward-thinking and engage with new possibilities. We aim to engage with design as a cultural activity in the context of art, sociology, the environment, humanity, technology, and diverse forms and scales of production. The department has a strong culture of experimentation, innovation and debate. We see these as tools or systems to develop our thinking about design, and even more, what design can be.
Platform 2
Design practice does not exist alone, nor can it be seen as purely an exercise in creating self-contained artefacts; it has to be an intrinsic part of a wider system, acting perhaps as catalyst or as parasite, prompting thinking about why, how and where things connect. Platform 2 attempts to reconcile conceptual creativity with active contribution within design. Students are encouraged to share their ideas and gather information from the public domain to ask themselves the question: ‘How will we live in the public domain?’
Tutors: Jurgen Bey, Alexander Grünsteidl, Simon Heijdens
Guest tutor: Greetje van Helmond
William Shannon, Kieren Jones
Platform 6
Thoughtful play is an integral part of Platform 6. We are interested
in intuition and a physicality within the design process. Experimentation and a honing of practice are used as a method to
support the students in finding their own way of working.
We are interested in the fine line between following and creating the brief, and using this to find appropriate and creative ways of practising in a world of asinine over-production and bland commerce.
Tutors: Michael Marriott, Luke Pearson
Krystian Kowalski, Yuya Kurata, Seongyong Lee, Georgi Manassiev, Robert Maslin, Harry Thaler, Nicola Zocca
Platform 8
Platform 8 encourages students to find their own voice and position in design – their own motivation. This assumes knowledge of and openness to self, a thorough understanding of the potential context for their work, and good knowledge of the processes involved. It implies asking the right questions – before finding the answers in design. It also implies finding a purpose and meaning for our projects, through wide-ranging research and debate, and establishing connections in broader fields including fine art and sciences.
Tutors: Gabi Klasmer, Julia Lohmann
Guest tutors: Studio Glithero, rAndom International
Han-Hsi Chen, Valerian Gagnaire, Roland Lamb, Azusa Murakami, Pierre-Guillaume Ospina, Karen Price, Yoav Reches, Els Woldhek, Ji Young Shon
Platform 10
Design is about making future change a part of the present. Platform 10 guides its projects through a process of conceptualising change and designing products that demonstrate alternatives to existing typologies and solutions.
The design approach is characterised by a thoughtful exploration combining imagination with anticipation. With a strong social bias, curiosity for technology and an appreciation of cultural insights, the platform supports designers who are interested in extrapolating from their personal world into the universal. The key interest of the platform is in designs that challenge paradigms and offer new typologies.
Tutors: Daniel Charny, Roberto Feo
David Amar, George Fereday, Iain Howlett, Lisa Johansson, Florie Salnot, Hina Thibaud, Billur Turan
Platform 12
The ambition of Platform 12 is to examine the reintegration of design with function. Design is not only about entertainment, where obsession with the latest fad or the predominance of individual genius far exceeds commitment to the collective effort that is needed to construct a new landscape for industrial design. Platform 12 attempts to achieve a better balance – whereby design can be seen as communication, a celebration of a model for how things work, where once again we can treat function as beauty, instead of merely treating design as form and image.
Tutors: Durrell Bishop, Sam Hecht, Andre Klauser
Yiting Chen, Hye-Yeon Park, Emil Rosen, Tom Stables, Jamie Tunnard, Dirk Winkel
Platform 13
Platform 13 starts from the premise that our current global society, with its prevailing techno-political system, faces challenges of an unprecedented scale.
We are asking ourselves how design can contribute to alternative models of living and production by engaging with, commenting on and addressing issues currently beyond the usual scope of design – political, social, technological or ecological. We are exploring the potential of creating tangible objects or interventions that impact at a social or behavioural level, by engaging with new methods of production and dissemination.
Tutors: Onkar Kular, Sebastien Noel
Julian Bond, David Hood, Hwang Kim, Jorge Manes Rubio, Benjamin Newland