We conceived the designlab in the fall of 2001. The idea was to make a free space, a laboratory, available to young people from around the world, where they could develop scenarios for the future of mobile communications independently of commercial restraints.
The decisive point was that the students should not elaborate concepts for Tomorrow's markets. Rather, we want to support rebels, who can develop new ideas on the basis of personal experience with the support of tutors and present concepts that are radically different from those known today.
With this aim in mind, twice a year we invited ten students in rotation from international universities to designafairs in Munich. The topics were defined then acted as models for the students to grapple with the communication and behavioral forms of the future.
The topic of the first semester was "Coding and Decoding Reality," in the second semester was "Face to Interface Relationships."
In the past five months, we elaborated the inter-working of future communication technology and new architectural forms. Design and architecture students from China, the USA, Israel, the Netherlands and Germany had an opportunity to realize their personal utopias on the subject of "Communication and Architecture."
An ambitious project like the designlab can only be successful with strong partners. Therefore, we would like to express our profound gratitude at this point to the chairman of Siemens mobile. Rude Lamprecht was thrilled by our idea and supported the designlab very generously. Xella Baustoffe GmbH was also very committed to the Project . This company, a leading pan-European supplier of construction materials, generously supported the work of the designlab and contributed greatly to the fact that we were able to implement this year's project.
The students actively seized on the visions of the two companies of intelligent communication and an intelligent "wall of the future." In the current lab report, we would like to present you the very inspiring results.
