What exactly is your problem?
“Design Thinking” stands for new paths to potential innovation. At Furtwangen University, this can sometimes look unconventional − you can draw on windows, stick post-its over yourself while lying on the floor, play “tipp kick” table soccer and darts or lounge on the sofa listening to music... However, the rooms are not a chill out zone, but a laboratory for scientific work.
Design thinking is an approach to solving complex problems in a structured and planned way. It is important to understand how a new product can improve the world and to know the customer's needs. This creates completely new solutions.
Get right on that lab couch!
Flexible, collaborative and creative work
The Design Thinking Lab offers flexible working opportunities to develop and test ideas. The process follows six phases: Understanding, observing, defining point of view, finding ideas, building a prototype and testing. The focus is on understanding the problem, the actual ideas come afterwards.
Advantages for students and companies
All students in the Faculty of Business Administration and Engineering should know and be able to apply design thinking. It is a plus for companies if graduates have experience with this method. Innovation remains not only crucial for German industry, but a question of fate! Design thinking provides many small approaches that can lead to big solutions. And if such developments arise through creative thinking − then off to the lab couch you go!
Purpose of lab
- Applying and learning the “Design Thinking” method
- Solving a specific problem and generating new ideas
- Understanding - observing - defining perspectives - finding ideas - developing prototypes - testing
- General use as a creative space - flexible, “spacey”, creative and simply different
- Enables implementation of the design thinking method outside the lab using a design thinking to-go rolling case
Lab equipment
- Hexagonal high table and 8 stools
- Alexa incl. instruction function for laboratory, gong, time timer
- Sheldon Cooper figure
- Playmobil, Lego set and various other materials for prototyping
- Light system
- Tipp kick table soccer
- Explanatory cards on easel
- Large whiteboard
- Business model canvas as a whiteboard in A1
- Several smaller whiteboards
- 4 smaller pinboards, mounted on wall
- 1 sofa and 7 seating cubes
- 2 mobile pedestals as storage space
- Seating ball
- Spaceman” picture
- Design-Thinking-To-Go rolling case
- Alternative: Digital whiteboard
- Feedback letterbox
Head of Lab
Interested in "out of the box" thinking? I'm happy to provide information on Design Thinking!
