If you are interested in innovation through design, you contact me.

TOPIA: IN THE BEGINNING

In the spring of 2017, Thomas Kurz, Thomas Grundnigg and Dominik Walcher asked me to co-found a curious pedagogic experiment using futuristic scenarios to drive innovation. I love science fiction and I love speculating about the future, so I jumped at the opportunity. Using what is known as the speculative design process, we collected a team of students of Design, IT and Multimedia Art to speculate on future scenarios but using real projects. TOPIA was born.

Multidisciplinary

Thomas K. comes from the IT sector and works in LOOP, Salzburg´s largest design-driven marketing consultancy, Thomas G. is a philosopher working as a senior lecturer in the department of Multi-media Art at the University of Applied Sciences in Salzburg and Dominik Walcher, architect and marketer working at the department of Design and Product Management at the University of Applies Sciences in Salzburg. And i am an anthropologist.

Speculative: Innovation Through Design

Speculative Everything, Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby served as the theoretical backbone for our project. Here, design is a means of wondering about how things could be—imagining possible futures. Refreshingly, this book is not about the usual marketing-driven predictions of trends and fashions. In TOPIA we wanted to ask the big “what if” questions about the kind of future people want, and definitely do not want. 

Rapid Prototyping

After a phase of speculation and ieation, we used the different teams went through the design-thinking phases of prototyping to quickly come up with mock-ups, which were tried , presented and improved . And thus we went through several loops iterations for a final prototype to be shown at our public event. We had true innovation through design.

Put on the Lens of Anthropology!

 

Write me  a short message describing your ideas and I am sure we can collaborate!

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