winter semester 2007-2008

Let’s be honest: Design - like marketing – still is about driving mass consumption and ultimately contributes to pollution and global warming. We designers are systemic players in an economic model which depends on multiplying products into thousands and millions. This is certainly also a result of our own promotion as professionally respected contributors to economic success - but by itself this is not an achievement to be proud of. We need to change the economic business model towards “smarter with less” and we need to advance our profession towards the strategic early stage of the process – where ecological strategy needs to be defined to be effective - and we must innovate the way companies interact and collaborate with their customers and visa versa.

For winter term 2008 our assignment is to develop such strategies. Subcategories are to either replace energy-wasting products, processes and usages, re-think outsourcing and pro-sourcing or to develop a design for survival.