1st. semester
Fundamentals of design

Die Aufgabe: eine selbst gewählte oder vorgegebene Idee oder ein Funktionsprinzip von überschaubarer Komplexität. Dann werden formbestimmende Parameter erkannt, Lösungsalternativen entwickelt, überprüft und begründet. Im Rahmen eines Kolloquiums werden die Arbeiten vorgestellt und diskutiert.

Die Studie ist als “kleiner Entwurf” konzipiert, der während des gesamten Studiums Gelegenheit gibt, eigene Ideen zu entwickeln oder Inhalte theoretischer Seminare praktisch umzusetzen. An die Studie werden geringere Anforderungen gestellt als an einen Entwurf. Sie umfasst mit Formkonzeption und Entwurfsausarbeitung nur dessen letzte Phasen. Die Komplexität der bearbeiteten Studien sollte im Verlauf des Studiums wachsen. Die Themenvergabe erfolgt nach individueller Absprache.

Ziele der Studie sind

• Bewerten und Umsetzen eigener Ideen
• Erkennen von formbestimmenden Entwurfsparametern
• Entwickeln und Prüfen von Lösungsalternativen
• Objektives Begründen von Entscheidungen
• Aufbauen von Entwurfskompetenz
• Training des manuellen Modellbaus

Modulbeauftragte
Prof. Gisela Kleinlein

The module introduces students to the syntax of artistic form and systematically explores various elements through the medium of practi-cal exercises. Point, line, surface, body, space, time, light and color provide examples elucidating the laws governing the interrelation between perception and form. Exercises in the realization of this material include transformational drawing, symmetry operations, and modular processes combining basic operations.

Every act of design incorporates an individual choice – often between virtually infinite possibilities. Systems of ordering can help solve specific problems, but hard-and-fast schemes may hinder the development of individual expression and design capabilities.

Self-confidence, openness, willingness to take risks, pleasure and fulfillment in working, experiment, invention and discovery are more important in this early phase than theories and programs, plans and definitions. In other words, the work put into design solutions is more important than the actual results.

The goal of the module is to stimulate critical and creative working and the development of design ideas within a context of wider deter-minants.

Courses

• Fundamentals of artistic form
• Drawing and perspective

Module Director
n.n.

All creative activity is based on an understanding of forms and their origin and development, a process that begins with conscious percep-tion and awareness. The module focuses on the experimental and playful development of plastic forms in their material, formal and spatial relationships. The constant exploration of forms and their processes of generation encourages the gradual development of an individual vocabulary that will serve as the foundation for both free and applied design activities.

The module comprises

• exercises in perception
• development of individual strategies for design projects with plastic forms
• basic modeling techniques
• practical exercises in use of tools and machines
• safety in working with hazardous materials and machinery

The module conveys fundamental technologies and applications connected with specific materials. Its goals are the safe use of model-building tools and machines, and the completion of a simple individual project covering all stages from formulation to spatial realization. A further component is the awareness and appreciation of phenomena of perception.

Courses

• Fundamentals of plastic form
• Fundamentals of modeling

Module Director
Prof. Gisela Kleinlein

The industrial designer is necessarily concerned with the engineering aspects of the task, and the goal of the technical modules is to instill the competencies that will enable effective communication to take place between designers and engineers. This requires knowledge of the fundamentals of materials science, production and manufacturing engineering, and technical mechanics, so that engineering aspects of the project are taken into account from its preliminary stages.

Thus equipped, designers will work together with engineers on the interface between the product and its user at all levels of perception.

This is the multidimensional field of ergonomics, which is concerned with the functionality of systems and products for the user and its impact on design. Ergonomics looks, too, at the needs of the human user and the qualities that underlie them: physicality, sensory percep-tion, skills and abilities, and the inner qualities of motivation, character and expectations.

Technical mechanics is concerned with the workings of various forces. The statics module covers the forces that operate on components and structures, maintaining them in equilibrium but at the same time distorting them. The impact of these forces on components and their materials creates stresses which, without limits, would culminate in failure. Stress theory focuses on the behavior of materials under stress and on related questions of safety, materials selection, and materials failure.

Courses

• Fundamentals of ergonomics for product design 1
• Technical mechanics for designers – statics

Module Director
Prof. Andreas Kalweit

History of design:Design history is concerned with the content, programs and design solutions current in particular contexts of art and design, with the description and evaluation of various design disciplines, and with the competencies required to communicate this material.

Fundamentals of academic method: The aim of the module is to provide a knowledge base in design theory and design history that enables the classification of the student's own and of others' work in a historical and philosophical context..
A reflective understanding of contemporary design is only possible against the background of thinkers and designers of the past. Knowledge of the basic theoretical, philosophical and historical strands of development is essential if students are to be able to place their own work in context and communicate it to others outside the design world.

Courses

• Fundamentals of art and design history
• Fundamentals of academic method

Module Director
n.n.