KISD professors Laura Popplow and Lasse Scherffig have won one of this year’s teaching awards for the ‘Design’ category at TH Köln for a teaching project that involves people with disabilities in the design process.
Nationwide, the TH Köln is recognized as a pioneer within the development and design of innovative university didactic concepts. Each year, the best concepts are honoured with three teaching prizes and from this year on also with a study prize. Each of the four awards is endowed with 5,000 euros.
Access to culture for all
In their inclusive teaching project, the KISD winners of the ‘Design’ prize, Prof. Dr Laura Popplow and Prof. Dr Lasse Scherffig, colaborated with Un-Label e.V., a non-profit organisation that campaigns for inclusive and barrier-free access to cultural events and establishes contact with those affected.
As an introduction to the project phase, various experts familiarized the students with different types of disability and the associated challenges. The student groups then focussed on aspects of accessibility such as hearing, sight and plain language, as well as the question of how cultural events can be designed to be more participatory in this regard.
Treating drinking water
The teaching prize in the category “Idea” was win by a team led by Prof. Dr Miriam Sartor from the :metabolon Teaching and Research Centre (LFZ). Under the title ‘Learning environmental engineering from nature’, engineering students were to gain a deeper understanding of the processes in nature in order to develop sustainable environmental engineering processes on this basis. The case study of drinking water treatment was submitted.
Bridge over the Rhine
With their topic of hybrid spatial research, Prof Dr Nadine Zinser-Junghanns and her team from the Faculty of Architecture won the teaching award in the ‘Validated Development’ category. The concept combines several modules of the Master’s degree programme in Architecture over two semesters. Students experience a holistic learning process from theoretical foundation to practical application and search for sustainable solutions for space and objects using the latest technologies. The design of a pedestrian bridge over the Rhine connection Ubierring with Deutz Hafen served as a practical example.
Students redesign their internships
The winners of the study award are Simon Boes, Anton Güthenke and Laura-Marie Richardt, who study at the Gummersbach campus. There, they discovered that there are numerous laboratory practicals in the foundation course that do not allow for creative research. To remedy this, Richardt wrote her bachelor’s thesis on optimizing the optics laboratory practical and, together with Güthenke, developed an approach that gradually introduces students to open experimentation. Güthenke also created a module for mechanics, in which groups build bridges in a competition to deepen and apply the content. Boes adapted the practical course in electrical engineering and introduced a self-learning lab in which students can fill gaps in the course content independently. In future, there will be a ‘Light up the Room’ contest in which participants design, build and test a lighting concept for a small room.
Congratulations to all the winners!
Picture © Thilo Schmülgen / TH Köln.