Material Culture Design – Master's Degree Course

The advancing development of cutting-edge technology significantly affects our living and working environment. It defines the framework for designing a material culture which is constantly required to actively and sustainably meet the social and ecological challenges on a new level.

Digital technologies, which together with modern manufacturing processes, fundamentally change the nature of physical products, are at the centre of this development. Thus, new materials and control systems create an operational framework, in which context it is advisable to differentially review many successful positions, such as the role of traditional craftsmanship as well as the expectations for successful products. Designers, specialised generalists, who feel competent to perceive the challenges posed by global circumstances and to meet the resulting issues with their own future-oriented concepts, play a significant role in this task.

The curriculum of the master’s degree course Material Culture Design accounts for these aspects in many respects and focusses on a spectrum of specific topics that help students to get acquainted with the realities of designing, and prepare them for the complex connections of technological, ecological, but also strategic, and communicative aspects of their future profession. Numerous modules are on offer which, thanks to the background of engineering, design theory, and artistic-creative competencies,

provide students with a broad range of compulsory elective, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary projects, which enable individual study profiles. 

The collaboration with the adjacent teaching fields of Hochschule Wismar’s Faculty of Architecture and Design, provides the concept and structure of a study model, which understands the holistic working process of the project topics as a basis of innovative product design. The combination of the technological-oriented product design and the artistic-oriented jewellery design constitutes a unique feature; its topics define the opportunity to merge different design philosophies as a focal point of integrative and interdisciplinary work.

However, this aspect is not the only one that enables a broad range of fascinating topics. Projects which are directed at creating original and plausible approaches to designing innovative product solutions in the areas of tension between high tech and traditional craftsmanship by reflecting on technological and cultural paradigm shifts are paramount; e.g. objects which render the experience of object-mediated actions, the sensual perception of objects, and the enjoyment of everyday life are a subject of student research and design.