Bookshelfs, Clever Knives and “Steeled” Kids Sketches at IdeasPark
It’s day 5 of the Nomadic Academy today, and the atmosphere is busy. Ten innovative products for office or house work, made of stainless steel are to be created, developed, produced, presented to the public and marketed to potential customers within 9 days only. The group of 12 design students from the Netherlands, Finland and Germany are working hard on their projects, as Ed Annink and Ronald Lewerissa have established a tough time schedule: The scenario with the “client” ThyssenKrupp” is a real world setting and they expect high end products to be presented during the last day of the IdeasPark, on Sunday afternoon.
The Nomadic Academy is a live-experiment: The public of the IdeasPark can learn, how new ideas are born and elaborated into new products, in brief, how creativity leads to innovation. But the so called “Stainless Steel Workshop”, realized as a collaborative project by Zollverein School, Initiativkreis Ruhrgebiet and ThyssenKrupp together, is far more than a mere “product creation” workshop. The participants are asked to approach their specific projects in a quite comprehensive way. The process of establishing a link to the particular industry as well as to the competitive setting of the product and the careful integration of prospective customers, is an essential part of Ed Annink’s workshop concept. Accordingly the four creative teams do not only have to deal with the transformation of a good idea into a stainless steel product. Far more they are also asked to establish a marketing concept - including websites and other means of corporate communication - and to prepare a presentation of the whole project for ThyssenKrupp as well as for Zollverein School.
And best of all: The experiment is working! Visitors of the IdeasPark drop in, discuss with the participants, make suggestions - “you need a cheese knife as well” - and in particular children are keen joining the designers. Spotting out a piece of paper, a pen and someone helping them sketching the kids immediately start their own little drawings.
Furthermore the IdeasPark attracts enormous attention: Almost every school class in and near Hanover seems to visit the event. Young kids, teenagers, teachers, the ThyssenKrupp staff, and other interested people - it is a great opportunity for the participants and the Zollverein School to present their combination of design, business and consumer thinking to a broad audience.
Just in case you stick around until Sunday, 28 May, we invite you cordially to visit our workshop during its last days in Hanover. After brainstorming, forming the creative teams, developing the ideas, sketching with the kids and building the first paper model, everybody is eager to see the first models in stainless steel. Prototypes have been fabricated today and on Sunday, all products will be presented within an exhibition. Come and meet us there!
June 2nd, 2006 at 17:51 pm
[…] As you might have recognized two posting have been published recently by Zollverein School members Annekatrin Sonn and Nicolas Beucker. While Annekatrin’s posting provides a good overview about the overall atmosphere at the Hanover trade fair area and the workshop space Nicolas is monitoring “student’s lessons learned” more closely. […]
June 3rd, 2006 at 18:57 pm
[…] Time flies and while Zollverein School’s project at IdeasPark has just closed last weekend some new events at Zollverein School are already knocking at the door. […]