Transdisciplinary and interfaculty teaching laboratory for digital design and production with irregular materials
The »IrreguLab«, which is funded by the »Stiftung Innovation in der Hochschullehre« with approx. 365,000€ from 2024 to 2026, is an interfaculty and transdisciplinary teaching and learning laboratory that aims to respond to one of the great challenges of our time: the scarcity of important resources. The aim is to develop innovative approaches that tap into previously unused material resources. As an example, the project focuses on a raw material that is virtually abundant in Thuringia, the federal state with the largest timber harvest: irregularly grown residual wood. Students in the fields of architecture, product design and beyond are developing concepts, strategies and methods for processing and using these woods. Digital tools and processes, such as 3D scanning, digital data processing as well as CNC-controlled and augmented reality-assisted fabrication, will be used for this purpose. In this way, the otherwise unused raw material can be processed precisely and efficiently and original, material-appropriate and, above all, resource-saving design and manufacturing approaches are created. The project offers new teaching and learning formats, such as augmented reality design-build workshops and installations, and develops specific transfer and exchange formats. These offer students the opportunity to network with local and regional actors from the forestry, timber and handicraft sectors and to share their visions developed here with a broader public.
The IrreguLab is a collaboration with M.Sc. Lukas Kirschnick (Konstruktives Entwerfen und Tragwerkslehre) und Prof. Dr. Jan Willmann (Theory and History of Design).
Image Credits: Berke Inöntepe and Julius Zwach, SoSe 23, Project »Misfits«