Within the module „Sustainable Production“ the students’ were offered the possibility to participate in a Design Thinking workshop, led by Vanessa Heinrich (Chair of Circular Economy). In general, Design Thinking can be considered a non-linear, iterative process that teams use to solve problems in a practical and creative way by prioritizing and focusing on the consumer’s needs.
After receiving a short introduction on the main Design Thinking principles and on the process itself, it was their task to apply it to a self-chosen challenge. In two subsequent sessions and by collaborating in teams to join forces, they were able to explore the multi-stage Design Thinking approach by defining action tracks in the field of sustainability and ideate on potential solutions. The chosen fields ranged thereby from energy, health & well-being to overpopulation and overconsumption. To solve the resulting design challenge, the students came up with a great variety of creative and innovative ideas that were discussed in the groups and prioritized accordingly. To test, validate and improve the ideas, each group’s No.1 idea was prototyped in a simplified way with craft materials resulting in creative mini-scale models that were presented to the plenum. Based on the received feedback the students were able to further refine and reflect on their prototypes and ideas.
 |  |