Furniture Design / Exhibition Architecture

The Furniture Design / Exhibition Architecture specialization imparts very different qualities: students develop sensitivity to culture, history, aesthetics and psychology of things and spaces; they learn to act on their own impulses and strands of ideas, to press ahead with them with focus and commitment using experimental design methods with the aid of a very wide range of design resources and models and to bring them to a result (design ); they develop perseverance and a realistic assessment of their own design skills.

What is involved is the creation of something other. Not what the student wants or intends, not what the teacher / professor wants or intends, but something other should come into being.

The focus is on three-dimensional designing. It ranges from matchbox-sized three-dimensional sketching to the 1:1 model through to the implementation of prototypes and space fragments.

Designing is basically a discussion, in which answers or questions may be, above all, visual and three-dimensional formulations. This discussion may begin with virtually nothing. Design thinking is stimulated by three-dimensional concrete manual shaping and doing, with movement (flow) and material being important to these processes. It is a form of searching based on an inkling, or an examination of an already tangible vision. A (premature) fixation on the result stands in the way of the design process.

Inclusion, in the design process, of a wide range of design resources, such as drawing, photographic, two-dimensional, three-dimensional, sculptural, plastic, analogue or digital means, is required. Engagement with concrete materials, objects and spaces is essential. This also prevents any loss of haptic, spatial, sensual, real experiencing and discovering during periods of virtual designing. These are the very qualities that are of the utmost importance to the teaching area.

Photographing or filming the three-dimensional sketches is also important. The photographing/filming designer becomes a visual recorder of his or her own work. By distancing himself or herself in this way, the designer is able to view his or her own work from a new perspective and thereby assess it for the first time. In general, the design path can be seen as an alternating approaching and stepping back. Occurrences that intervene in an unplanned, unwanted and surprising manner, i.e. accidents, are given the necessary attention; they can be very interesting and informative, pointing the way.

It must then be possible to carry out the phase of concretization alternately in the wood, metal, plastics, ceramics and modelling workshop, in the digital workshop and in the project area. Alternating working and checking is indispensable to 3-dimensional forms: virtually constructed spaces and objects must be confronted with real worlds again and again.

People

Gebert, Jakob

Professorship for Furniture Design and Exhibition Architecture
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Müller, Florian

Research Associate | Furniture Design / Exhibition Architecture
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