The Cologne Design Award, which is endowed with a total of 38,000 Euros, honours graduates from five Cologne universities every year. This year, the first three prizes and one special prize went to KISD students. They were honoured for their work on dealing with wastewater from cow husbandry, discrimination in medicine and changes in the media landscape.

‘The submissions for the Cologne Design Award showed the entire spectrum of design education in this city. With great commitment, creativity and professional expertise, the graduates have explored the spectrum of what constitutes design today. In addition to the depth of content and comprehensive penetration, the social relevance of the topic was particularly important to the jury in its assessment,’ says jury chairman Stephan Ott.

KISD graduates take first places

First place and 12,000 Euros went to KISD graduate Theresa Tropschuh and her work ‘Kühe machen Mühe (Cows make trouble)’. Using an interdisciplinary approach of design and engineering, she developed a way to sustainably treat wastewater from agricultural cow husbandry such as cow urine . The result is a model of a photobioreactor that converts nutrients into biomass with the help of microalgae and bacteria. The reactor also converts CO2 into oxygen. Such an application could reduce emissions from agriculture.

‘Schmerzen im System (Pain within the system)’ is the title of Serin Gatzweiler’s final thesis at KISD, in which she addresses the problem that cis women and trans and non-binary people still receive less attention in medical research than men. Biological and social differences rarely play a role, which means that important data is missing. Gatzweiler’s concept: three large-format leaflets draw attention to the need for gender-sensitive medicine. Like other package inserts, they are not easy to fold up and encourage readers to view them as posters and visualise the shortcomings in the system. Gatzweiler received second prize and 9,000 Euros for his work.

Modern technologies such as remote sensing, geographic imaging and ChatGPT-supported analyses are changing media reporting. In his work ‘Memories from Above’, which was awarded one of two third places and 6,000 Euros, Jannik Bussmann from KISD investigates how open source research, geolocalisation and forensic techniques influence the representation and perception of global events. The result is a series of 60 visual memory landscapes. These ‘memoryscapes’ document the spatial dimension of global news reporting.

Further prizes

A further third place, worth 6,000 euros, went to Alex Klug and Kristina Lenz from the Academy of Media Arts Cologne with ‘The Hands Problem’ on the difficulty of AI image generators to depict hands anatomically correctly. Maxime Ridzewski from KISD received two special mentions and 2,500 euros each for ‘Inspiring Libraries’ and Anke Kirchhoff from the ecosign Academy of Design for ‘Univercity’. Rike Hoppse from the Academy of Media Arts Cologne was honoured with the special prize from KölnBusiness and 6,000 euros for her work ‘Künstler*innenkabine (MoKk)’.

All 43 nominated works can be seen at the Museum of Applied Arts Cologne (MAKK) from 22 November to 1 December 2024. The museum is open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10 am to 6 pm. Admission is free.
About the award

The Cologne Design Prize is awarded by the Prof. Dr.-Ing. R. G. Winkler Foundation. It honours outstanding final theses from design degree courses at Cologne’s universities and is an important contribution to promoting young designers and raising Cologne’s profile as a design location.

This year’s jury members were freelance creative director Tatjana Godlewsky, product designer Dustin Jessen, Stephan Ott, Director of the Institute for Design Research and Appliance, Prof Katja Becker from Westfälische Hochschule and Karen Hartwig, Editor-in-Chief of AW Architektur & Wohnen.

Caption

Image 1: The Award winners, @Shucen Liu

Image 2: In the interdisciplinary work ‘Kühe machen Mühe (Cows make trouble)’ from design and engineering sciences, waste water from cow husbandry was sustainably reused. (© Theresa Tropschuh)

Image 3: Microalgae and bacteria convert nutrients into biomass. (© Theresa Tropschuh)

Image 4: KISD graduate Theresa Tropschuh was awarded first place and 12,000 Euros for her work. (© Theresa Tropschuh)

Image 5: ‘Schmerzen im System (Pain within the system)’ deals with the fact that cis women and trans and non-binary people receive too little attention in medical research. (© Swarnabh Sharma / Patrick Schwarz)

Image 6: Three large-format leaflets draw attention to the need for gender-sensitive medicine. (© Swarnabh Sharma / Patrick Schwarz)

Image 7: Serin Gatzweiler was awarded second prize and 9,000 Euros (© Swarnabh Sharma / Patrick Schwarz)

Image 8: The work ‘Memories from Above’ examines how open source research, geolocalisation and forensic techniques influence the representation and perception of global events. (© 2024 Google, Maxar Technologies, Airbus CNES / Airbus, TerraMetrics, Landsat / Copernicus, GeoBasis-DE/BKG (© 2009), COWI, Data SIO, NOAA, U.S. Navy, NGA, GEBCO) (© Diverse)

Image 9: A series of 60 visual memory landscapes were created. (© 2024 Google, Maxar Technologies, Airbus CNES / Airbus, TerraMetrics, Landsat / Copernicus, GeoBasis-DE/BKG (© 2009), COWI, Data SIO, NOAA, U.S. Navy, NGA, GEBCO) (© Various)

Image 10: Jannik Bussmann received one of two third places and 6,000 Euros. (© Patrick Schwarz)