Masterstudio

Studying at the Masterstudio Design

The Masterstudio Design at the Institute Contemporary Design Practices (ICDP) is composed of three studios: Masterstudio Industrial Design, Masterstudio Scenography, Masterstudio Fashion Design. Each studio has a disciplinary focus. In addition, the research discourse of the ICDP focuses on Digital Integration, Design Cultures and Circular Design and are reflected and communicated multidimensionally.

The basis of our applied research and project work is the design term "Advanced Design". Instead of the current economic practice of maximisation, we adopt the role of the extrapreneur in teaching and design, which stands for collaboration and systemic action: Current issues on global crises, climate change and social inequality are discussed and further developed. Sustainability and ecology, inclusion and technology, interaction and materiality are the fields in which the role of design is questioned and new visions for human coexistence and economic activity are defined.

The Masterstudio Design offers in-depth training in professional, future-oriented design practice and applied research. Relevant research questions are identified and defined, appropriate and complex design processes are conceived, projects are developed and implemented.

Communication, project management, cross-disciplinary and research-oriented teamwork are components of the training.

Studio Industrial Design

Masterstudio Industrial Design provides a high-level, individualised, professional and research-oriented qualification based on “advanced design”. The programme enables the students to methodically and creatively hone their own individual forward-looking approach to design. Product design and project work are embedded in our international network, taking place in close cooperation with selected experts affiliated with the ICDP.

The Masterstudio Industrial Design programme focuses on three main contemporary research areas: Digital Integration, Design Cultures and Circular Design. The discourses surrounding global crises such as climate change or social inequality provide the basis for concrete research questions on and design solutions for sustainability and ecology, future planning and technology, interaction and materiality. We are not afraid to take a stand, define values and resituate design. The comprehensive and interdisciplinary modules of the Masterstudio programmes add to and deepen the design perspectives gained previously by the students.

Studio Fashion Design

The advanced degree programme founds on the holistic concept of “Doing Fashion”. Here fashion is understood as a cultural design practice that critically reflects on social change and drives it in a responsible and sustainable manner. “Doing Fashion” means engaging with this practice – in a radically different way, and based on viable vision of design and a conceptual footing in the contemporary fashion scene.

How does the way we dress communicate messages about our identity?

Clothing as a cultural and social identity which is understood to be a part of symbol that can explain a person's gender and identity. The ways which gender is experienced in everyday life emerge from different historical, social and culture structure. Culture informs gender relations, which act as a central organizing principle of society, shaping the way in which key aspects of life are lived and the clothes we wear today.

Studio Scenography

In the Masterstudio Scenography, complex, social, political and ecological contents are translated into accessible spatial images and staged spaces with narrative qualities and social relevance are created. The Masterstudio Scenography sees itself as a discursive community and physical infrastructure of collective research for the experimental spatial communication of relevant contents.

Practices of scenographic design in the context of public, semi-public and private spaces are explored in the Masterstudio Scenography and new narrative formats are developed that are positioned between installation, exhibition, performance, stage design, augmented reality and virtual reality, etc.

The pandemic has taught us that exhibitions do not have to be thought of in a museum context and performative formats do not have to refer only to a stage space. The places of social exchange, coexistence, and reflection on social change that need to be shaped are not bound to institutional framings. In this sense, we experiment in the field of Urban, Social and Hybrid Scenography and work in an interdisciplinary way.