Projects

Before upgrading your next smartphone, try to keep it for another year. This choice will save you money and help save the planet. Building a smartphone, specifically mining rare materials, represents approx. 80 % of the device’s total CO2 emissions. 
“Farewell Smartphone” intervenes in all phases of the smartphone life cycle: 

The first intervention in marketing & distribution helps you in the purchasing decision with an ecolabel. This label provides information about the carbon emission of the production and device durability considering repair, spare parts and battery life. 

The second intervention in service life has the purpose to use your smartphone for longer by by creating a more meaningful bond. The engagement OS gives the user information about the use and makes regular sanity checks. 

The third intervention is looking at the hibernation & reuse phase, where 60% of the unused smartphones end up in drawers. A new system allows the user to simply pass on the old device for further use, when swapping the smartphone. There the user benefits financially. 

Farewell – a good and long life for smartphones.

Mentors: Andy Polaine, Sabine Junginger, Meri Zirkelbach

A failed conversation between urban planners, landowners, and residents can lead to protests and write-offs in the millions. While participatory budgets (PB) involve the population in urban development, often they only reach an established middle class, thus reinforcing the prevailing power structures and excluding low-income groups and migrants. Taking LuzernNord as an example, this project proposes modifications to current approachess to Participatory Budgets. A set of conversation tools –including the Wunsch-O-Mat, a mix-and-match book – help planners engage with minorities they usually overlook. The tools enable local residents to formulate their needs in an accessible manner. The collected insights are translated into concrete measures with the help of planning experts. The unheard voices of residents are thereby included in the planning discussion about a city's future.
Mentors: Andy Polaine, Jan-Christoph Zoels

Addressing waste is not just an environmental issue; it concerns people’s needs, behaviors, and relationships. This project aims at leveraging the social aspects of human behavior to address complex waste management issues in an exemplary community in rural Italy.
Torremaggiore is a quiet agricultural town in southern Italy where about 60% of waste is recycled. Yet, waste is often left abandoned in and out of town, while part of the population is not engaged in recycling efforts. In fact, sustainable waste management practices are not yet acknowledged as legitimate and this generates tension.
Through a community engagement action, all community members - citizens, municipal representatives, waste management staff, environmental associations - come together to learn about waste management, share tips, questions, and engage in conversations with each other. The initiative sees each stakeholder play a different role while various social needs are uncovered and addressed.
This approach simultaneously promotes good practices and builds bridges among stakeholders, working as a model for enhancing public participation in similar communities as well as in other realms of the public sector.
Mentors: Sabine Junginger, Andy Polaine

The project models an ethical production process that nurtures and maintains fading traditional handicrafts such as embroidery, weaving, lacemaking from the Podravina area, Croatia.
It empowers and encourages slow, manual work over the fast, mechanical while proposing handicraft as a strategy to achieve re-value in fashion objects and strengthening the product user-relationship. My role as a designer is to act as a facilitator in modeling sustainable enterprises in rural artisan communities while respecting the region's natural and cultural resources. The project's enterprise vision aims to bridge the gap between tradition and modernity, old and new, youth and seniority resulting in unique, handcrafted fashion objects conveying the story of rooted time, place, community, culture, and identity.
Mentors: Axel Vogelsang, Isabel Rosa Müggler Zumstein, Klaus Marek, Marcel Uhr,  Robert Bossart

Mental illness is one of the most significant challenges of today's society - and students are also increasingly affected by it. Numerous factors, some of them individual, play a role - how students can be reached, supported and preventively trained in the best possible way.
"(in)visible mind" presents a strategy model and working tool for colleges and universities on how mental health can be addressed holistically and effectively. Ultimately, it's also about making the issue visible - because mental health affects us all.
Mentors: Isabel Rosa Müggler Zumstein, Axel Vogelsang, Klaus Marek, Robert Bossart

"Lucerne for All" is a design project that aims to improve the living conditions, social participation in urban life and access to solidarity structures of marginalized groups of people, especially refugees, including Sans-Papiers. In addition, the project promotes the activation and networking of the urban population, the organizations providing assistance, the solidarity structures and the municipal authorities. "Luzern für Alle" consists of a mobile application and offers recurring public events and participation opportunities. The analysis and research and the implementation of the project were carried out using design research methods. They focused on the participation of the target group and the project partners. The project partner is the alliance Solinetz Luzern.
Mentors: Isabel Rosa Müggler Zumstein, Robert Bossart, Axel Vogelsang, Klaus Marek

TIPPUP offers teachers an uncomplicated and fast way to share best teaching practices and get inspired. It facilitates knowledge exchange and supports a cultural change towards collaborative teaching. Its approach is flexible and straightforward, which brings real value to teachers. Being a low-threshold solution, the service encourages teachers to consume and engage actively in creating content. TIPPUP focuses on practice-oriented ideas for everyday teaching. The knowledge exchanged is based upon a quick and visual approach. TIPPUP aims to give teachers a voice and connect them all over the country.

In a world that is becoming more and more accessible and therefore more complex, there is a growing longing for tranquility, seclusion and simplicity - all needs that can be satisfied in the Alps. But where can I find the most beautiful places far from stress and crowds? While we are constantly bombarded by images of beautiful spots, access to them is often lacking. "okaybye" wants to change that: With an app that inspires new trips lets you plan them and share them with friends. And with a magazine that offers insight into one alpine trip per issue. Plan your next trip with these two tools, and soon all you'll hear is "okaybye."

Fixfox repairs or services your bike or e-bike directly at your place - whether at home or work. The repair can be booked quickly online or on the hotline. On the agreed date, the mobile workshop drives up and repairs the bike or e-bike on the spot, even without your presence.
Experienced bicycle mechanics work for fixfox in the franchising system. Here, fixfox supports the franchising partners in their daily work with central services. A sophisticated service process, efficient support systems and well-designed packages of measures ensure smooth day-to-day work.

“By Maria” is a footwear brand based in Bogota, Colombia and Zurich, Switzerland. “By Maria” offers designers a parametric software to develop their ideas, with the possibility to access a large variety of materials and components. “By Maria” grows the potential of shoemakers in Colombia to establish their own workshops by giving them access to micro-loans and supporting their sustainable development. Customers can access online various shoe designs and selection services to avoid wrong buys.
Mentors: Andy Polaine, Martin Vogelsang, Sabine Junginger (SNF Bridge Grant)