The current concept of the design process is dominated by two myths. On the one hand, the designer as a genius, who relies simply on inspiration, rather like an artist, and on the other the designer as an engineer of a communicative automatism. Both concepts are extremes because they distort our view of the actual design procedure by either romanticising it or overemphasizing its cybernetic nature while the actor or designer appears in the one case to be a black box and in the other a glass box of research – and is accordingly simply dehumanised in a contrary manner to a design medium. To counteract these common views what is needed today are methodological ideas that understand designing as an independent and specific creative shaping of items and do so against the background of a special understanding of the world that is simultaneously universal. Design is consequently embedded in an environment of designs as are already conceived or realised in the social framework disciplines of technology/ethics/politics and not least of all culture. This internal relationship between object design and world views can be methodically pursued and formulated. Consequently, a design logic is to be evolved in which the practical execution of human environmental design is part of critical imagination that drives it as a whole. This design logic is less concerned with individual ideas and items and more with the manner in which objects in the world we live in only become suitable for human use thanks to the designer.

Tutors:

• Prof. Dr. Martin Gessmann
• Prof. Dr. Klaus Klemp​
• Prof. Frank Georg Zebner