In July 2022, there’s no sign of a summer slump at the Design Center Baden-Württemberg despite the warm temperatures! This month too, we’ve got plenty of fascinating content for you – and as usual, it all centres on design excellence. The jury of the Baden-Württemberg International Design Award Focus Open 2022 has convened, there’s a new and fascinating interview waiting for you on the RETHINK:DESIGN Climate Relevance section of our website, and we’ve got an event suggestion and book tips from our Design Library for you as well.

Happy reading!

The Design Center Baden-Württemberg team
 

»We need the transformation of processes!«
 

As the Design Center Baden-Württemberg continues its information drive on sustainability in design, we paid a visit to Andrea Herold and Prof Tina Kammer, the “sustainability ambassadors" of the InteriorPark. agency, for the latest instalment in our RETHINK:DESIGN Climate Relevance series.

Their work focuses on issues relating to better use of resources and the circular economy. Andrea Herold advises companies on the development of sustainability strategies and produces sustainability reports in accordance with the GRI standard. Tina Kammer has been a professor of architecture with a focus on sustainable construction at the IU International University since 2022. Both have been sought-after partners for tackling sustainability-related issues for many years.

As our video interview about new mindsets, tomorrow’s design processes and the necessary skills and expertise shows, sustainably positioned companies are already making headway.

RETHINK:DESIGN shows what impact design has on resource use, emissions, the circular economy and climate protection.

Let’s think the future!

Click here for the interview (in German).
 

 

For the duration of the Elegantly Meaningful show marking the 500th anniversary of the death of Johannes Reuchlin (1455–1522), all of Pforzheim Jewellery Museum’s exhibition rooms are themed around jewellery, writing and language. The exhibits cover the entire gamut from richly illuminated manuscripts and exquisite prints created by Reuchlin’s contemporaries to 20th-century calligraphy from the collection of the Academy of Arts in Berlin.

Dates: 25.05.2022 - 06.11.2022
Venue: Pforzheim Jewellery Museum
Admission: €10; concessions: €8.50; combined ticket for permanent exhibition/special show: €18

Find out more here.
 

 

Provocative Plastics 
Their Value in Design and Material Culture
Susan Lambert
Cham, Palgrave Macmillan 2020

Plastics have now been our most-used materials for over 50 years. This book adopts a new approach, exploring plastics’ contribution from two perspectives: as a medium for making and their value in societal use. The first approach examines the multivalent nature of plastics’ materiality and their impact on creativity through the work of artists, designers and manufacturers. The second perspective explores attitudes to plastics and the different value systems applied to them through current research undertaken by design, materials and socio-cultural historians. The book addresses the environmental impact of plastics and elucidates the ways in which they can and must be part of the solution. The individual viewpoints are provocative and controversial but together they present a balanced and scholarly unpicking of the debate that surrounds this ubiquitous group of materials. The book is essential reading for a wide academic readership interested in the Arts and Humanities, especially Design and Design History; Anthropology; and Cultural, Material and Social Histories.



Wir konnten auch anders
Eine kurze Geschichte der Nachhaltigkeit
(in German)
Annette Kehnel
Munich, Blessing 2021

As historian Annette Kehnel illustrates with vividly told examples, a look at the premodern history of humanity provides ideas and inspiration for a future beyond the pursuit of profit and self-interest: Renaissance architects who recycled building materials, crowdfunding for the Pont d’Avignon, sustainable fishing at Lake Constance, second-hand markets in Paris and repair-based professions in Frankfurt in times when a circular economy was the most natural thing in the world.

Sharing, exchanging and acting sustainably: a journey into our past that triggers a desire for change.




Plastik. Die Welt neu denken
(in German)
Mateo Kries et al.
Weil am Rhein, Vitra Design Museum 2022

Few materials have shaped our everyday lives as much as plastic. For a long time, plastic was a symbol of carefree consumerism, progress and revolutionary innovations. Today, it has lost that utopian appeal. Plastic surrounds us wherever we look, but is most conspicuous as waste and as a major factor in the global environmental crisis. This book examines the success story of plastic in the 20th century. At the same time, it provides a platform for the discourse about how we deal with plastics today, the waste generated as a result, and new solutions that take the entire life cycle of products and materials into account.