The task
WDR wants to be more than a broadcaster: a digital home for people in the west of Germany. The project ran over several semesters. Building on surveys and research by the master's programme the year before, our class designed a workshop open to everyone at WDR. It took place in the newly reopened Filmhaus. WDR wanted to see how students would use a space it had never had before, and what fresh perspectives we would bring.
Idea & approach
Our starting point was the research question: what does home look like, and how do people imagine it? The workshop turned that into hands-on work: around 40 to 50 people from WDR, in five groups, building their ideas with prototyping materials. We designed everything they touched: table maps showing how the day would unfold, two card sets with questions and statements to spark conversation, signage, boards, stacked prism displays and a mailbox where everyone could write a postcard to their own home. The letters are now being documented.
Process
Our first meeting with WDR came late. Until then, we had no measurements and no concrete brief. So everything had to run in parallel, from designing the workshop to delivering print files, and halfway through we even had to switch print shops. Each of us owned individual parts of the design, which I built in InDesign and Illustrator. On the day, I photographed the event together with Jannik Harzenetter, who was also behind the camera on FOMO.
Result & learning
Despite the tight timeline, the workshop was very well received. My biggest takeaway: in a setting like this, flexibility is everything, and if you stay flexible, you can pull it off.
