Ruedi Baur
Designer (born 1956), apprenticeship with Michael Baviera. Diploma in Graphic Design at the School for Art and Design Zurich in 1979. Since 1989 in Paris and 2002 in Zurich his ateliers «intégral ruedi baur et associés» and «integral ruedi baur zürich» develop two- and threedimensional projects in different fields of visual communication. He has been teaching on a regular basis since 1987. From 1989 until 1994 he headed the design department of the École des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, between 1993 and 1996 the graduate programme «espace civiques et design». 1995 he is appointed professor for corporate design at the Leipzig School for Art and Design, where he also takes on the rectorate from 1997 until 2000. 1999 he founds the institute for interdisciplinary design «2id». Since 2004 Ruedi Baur has been heading the research institute «Design2context» at the School of Art and Design Zurich.
www.integral.ruedi-baur.com | www.design2context.ch —Back | Top
Nigel Cross
Professor Nigel Cross is a leading international figure in the world of design research. He is a frequent keynote speaker at conferences organised by bodies such as ICSID, IEEE, ACM, NSF and IASDR.
With academic and professional backgrounds in architecture and industrial design, he has conducted research in design since the nineteen-sixties, ranging across computer-aided design, design methodology, design epistemology and design cognition. A long-term focus of his research has been to build recognition for, and better understanding of designerly ways of knowing and thinking. His main current research is in creative cognition in design, based on studies of expert and exceptional designers. This work has been published in many journal articles, and in his books Analysing Design Activity (co-edited with Christiaans and Dorst; Wiley, 1996) and Designerly Ways of Knowing (Springer, 2006; paperback edition by Birkhäuser, 2007).
Professor Cross is a long-time member of the academic staff of the UK’s pioneering, multi-media Open University, where he has been responsible for, or instrumental in, a wide range of distance-education courses in design and technology. His successful textbook on Engineering Design Methods: Strategies for Product Design (Wiley, 2000) is currently in preparation of its fourth edition.
Professor Cross is Editor-in-Chief of Design Studies, the international journal of design research in engineering, architecture, products and systems. In 2005 he was honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Design Research Society, and he is an Honorary Fellow of the Design Research Society and the Design Society. He is President of the Design Research Society, and of the International Association of Societies of Design Research.
Frédéric Dedelley
The design concepts of Frédéric Dedelley circle in the realm of asceticism and sensuousness. In his work he combines functionality with a suggestion of irony and attention for the detail. He was born in 1964 in Fribourg, Switzerland and studied industrial design at the ECAL in Lausanne und at the Art Center College of Design (Europe) in La Tour-de-Peilz. Since 1995 he runs his own studio for product and interior design in Zurich. Since 2001 he is professor at the Institute for Interior Design and Scenography, Academy of Art and Design, UAS Northwestern Switzerland (HGK FHNW).
Frédéric Dedelley designs furniture and objects for firms like Burri AG Public Elements, Classicon, Dornbracht, Driade, Lehni, merlo-t, Porzellan Langenthal, wogg AG, develops exhibitions, designs shops, galleries and church interiors. In the year 2000, he was the first designer to receive the award for acknowledgement of the Max Bill-Georges Vantongerloo foundation. In 2004 he received the Federal Swiss Design Award.
Image Copyright: Marvin Zilm, Zürich
Michael Erlhoff
Born 1946 in Hildesheim (Germany), lives in Cologne (Germany). Ph.D. in German Literature and Sociology
Professor of Design Theory and Design History at KISD (Cologne International School of Design) where he was Founding Dean of the newly established Design Department from 1991–1996. Curator of numerous art and design exhibitions (e.g. Millennium Exhibition on design «4:3 – 50 years of Italian and German Design», «This is Tomorrow – on the Future of Experience and Construction», both at the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bonn). Former President of the Raymond Loewy Foundation. Author of many books, international guest lecturer (e.g. Hangzhou, Helsinki, Los Angeles, Milan, Providence, Sydney, Taipei, Tokyo, Zurich) and conference speaker, member of the editorial board of several publishing houses and international magazines.
Alain Findeli
is honorary professor at the School of Industrial Design, Faculté de l’Aménagement, University of Montreal. Trained as an engineer in physics and materials science, he reoriented his career toward the human and social aspects related to engineering and technology, i.e. to design. He concluded his inquiry into the history and philosophy of design education in his Doctorate in Aesthetics and Art Theory (University of Paris VIII) and his book Le Bauhaus de Chicago: l’œuvre pédagogique de Làszlò Moholy-Nagy (1995). His current research interests and recent publications address general issues in the theory and practice of design (logics, aesthetics, ethics), and more specifically pedagogical aspects of design research education (Ph. D). He is also the founder of the research master’s program in «Design & Complexity» (U. of Montreal, 2001) of which he has been scientific and pedagogical advisor until 2006. He is currently visiting professor at the University of Nîmes where he acts as a consultant for the development of design research and where he co-founded Les Ateliers de la recherche en design, a French and Francophone design research community.
Christian Gänshirt
Dr.-Ing., is a Berlin-based architect and author. He studied architecture at the University of Karlsruhe and the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. He worked with José Paulo dos Santos in Oporto and was a project architect in the office of Álvaro Siza in Oporto. He works in the fields of competition, design, and site management in Berlin, where he set up his own architecture practice in 1996. He taught at the Technical University in Cottbus from 1998 to 2004, and finished his dissertation on design theory in 2006. He is co-editor of the Internet architectural theory magazine [www.cloud-cuckoo.net] and published numerous studies on contemporary architecture and the theory of architectural design. Birkhäuser recently published his book Tools for Ideas.
Simon Grand
Dr., born 1968. Since 2007: senior researcher, Institute for Research in Art and Design, Academy of Art and Design, UAS Northwestern Switzerland in Basel (www.idk.ch), research focus: «design strategy and strategy design». Since 2001: founder and academic director, RISE management research (www.rise.ch), Institute of Management, University of St. Gallen HSG, research focus: «strategic entrepreneurship and management», in the context of technological innovation and strategic change, in the areas of computer science / software engineering, life sciences / pharma, cognitive sciences / artificial intelligence. 2000–2005: partner and chairman of the board, NOSE Applied Intelligence AG, with a focus on brand strategy and concept design. Since 1998: research associate and senior lecturer at the Institute of Management, University of St. Gallen HSG, with a focus on management theory, technological innovation, strategic management and entrepreneurship, epistemology of management research. Guest lectures at various national and international universities. 1987–1992: studies in economics, sociology and philosophy at the University of Zurich. 1990–1993: research associate in the area of financial markets at the Swiss National Bank. 1993–1997: doctoral student and research associate at the Institute for Management Research at the University of Zurich, research focus: organization studies. 1996–1997: Research fellow in philosophy and epistemology at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris, as a fellow of the Schweizerische Studienstiftung.
www.rise.ch | www.idk.ch —Back | Top
Wolfgang Jonas
Born 1953, study of naval architecture 1971–76 at the Technical University of Berlin, research on the computer-aided optimisation of streamlined shapes, PhD in 1983. 1984–87 consulting engineer for companies of the automobile industry and the German standardisation institute. Since 1988 teaching (CAD, industrial design) and research (system theory and design theory) at the University of Arts Berlin and at the University of Wuppertal. 1994 lecturing qualification (Habilitation) in design theory. 1994–2001 professor for «process design» at the University of Art and Design Halle / Burg Giebichenstein. 2001–2005 professor for «design theory» at the University of the Arts Bremen. Since 2005 professor for «system design» at the School of Art and Design, University of Kassel.
Focus of interest: design theory as meta theory, design methods in a systemic perspective, scenario planning. Numerous publications on theoretical and practical aspects of designing, for example «Design – System – Theorie: Überlegungen zu einem systemtheoretischen Modell von Designtheorie» (1994) and «Mind the gap! – on knowing and not-knowing in Design» (2004), also publications on the history of naval architecture in Nordfriesland (1990) and on the aesthetics of modern ships (1991).
Klaus Krippendorff
Grad. Designer (HfG Ulm); Ph.D. (U. of Illinois); Gregory Bateson Professor for Cybernetics, Language, and Culture at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication.
He is a Past President of the International Communication Association (ICA), elected Fellow of AAAS and ICA, recipient of the Norbert Wiener Medal for contributions to cybernetics, and member of the editorial boards of numerous academic journals. He contributed over a hundred articles and book chapters on design, human communication theory, methodology in the social sciences and cybernetics, edited Design in the Age of Information, and authored Content Analysis; Information Theory, in 2006, The semantic Turn, A New Foundation for Design. He brings his scholarly interest in human communication to design and applies his design experiences to the field of communication and culture, exploring how reality is socially constructed through language.
www.asc.upenn.edu/usr/krippendorff | www.asc.upenn.edu —Back | Top
Rolf Pfeifer
M.Sc. in physics and mathematics and Ph.D. in computer science ETH, Zürich. Post-doctoral fellow at Carnegie-Mellon and Yale University. Since 1987, prof. of computer science and director of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Univ. of Zurich. Visiting prof. and research fellow at the Free Univ. of Brussels, the Beijing Open Laboratory for Cognitive Science, the MIT Artificial Int. Laboratory, the Neurosciences Inst., San Diego, Sony Computer Science Laboratory, Paris, University of Tokyo. Research interests: embodiment, biorobotics, artificial evolution, morphogenesis, self-assembly and educational technology. Recent publications: Pfeifer, Bongard, «How the body shapes the way we think – a new view of intelligence», 2007, MIT Press. Pfeifer, Lungarella, Iida, 2007, «Self-organization, embodiment, and biologically inspired robotics,» Science, 318, 1088-1093.
Jan-Lewe Torpus
Born 1967. Interior Designer (1989–1993, at the Massana Art and Design College, Barcelona) and Audiovisual Designer, Interaction Designer (1996–1999, at the Institute Art and New Media and the Hyperstudio of the Academy of Art and Design, HGK Basel).
Between 1994 and 1996 Exhibition und Lighting Design at the studio of Daniel Freixes, Barcelona. Since 2000 own art projects in the realm of New Media (www.torpus.com). Teacher for 3D-Design und Video at the Polytechnic in Brugg-Windisch (1998–2000, FHA) and since 2000 for New Media at the HGK (FHBB) FHNW. Since 2003 development, management und co-management of the research projects living-room, living-room2 (projekte.idk.ch/livingroom) and lifeClipper2 (www.lifeclipper.net) at the Institute for Research in Art and Design IDK, Academy of Art and Design, UAS Northwestern Switzerland. Since 2004 collaboration at the IDK.
Michel Zai
Michel Zai aka etoy.ZAI is a co-owner and founder of etoy.CORPORATION and serves as CEO since 1996. He was involved in the planning and execution of the legendary «digital hijack» (1,5 million search engine users kidnapped in 1996), he coordinated «TOYWAR» (etoy.com domain name battle in 1999 and 2000), designed six etoy.TANKS (container based etoy.STUDIOS since 1998), developed the concept for etoy.SHARE and currently invests his resources in MISSION ETERNITY – a digital cult of the dead. With etoy, Zai won international awards such as Prix Ars Electronica, Namics Media Art Award, Telefonica Foundation’s Vida Award for Artificial Life and several grants. His work with etoy has been published by die Gestalten Verlag, MIT Press, Dumont, Tate Publishing and is shown in museums like Palais de Tokyo in Paris, Secession Vienna, Kunsthaus St. Gallen, Manifesta 7 in Bolzano, ICC Tokyo or the National Art Museum of China. Zai holds a master’s degree in visual communication from the University of Applied Arts, Vienna. Previously he worked as anchorman for Swiss National Television, and in 1992 founded HIRN-lein, a telephone entertainment company. Beyond his commitment for etoy, Zai is professor at the media & interaction design unit of ECAL (University for Art and Design in Lausanne) and works as jury member, instructor and consultant for NGOs, universities and private clients.