Coop Design Research

11/06/2026

Weaving Scales:
Exploring ecologies and material relationships through mapping.

Next week, we return to mapping with Iva Resetar and Bastian Beyer (both members of the HU Matters of Activity Cluster), but the story began much earlier.

From a workshop to the Bauhaus Study Rooms in 2025

In our very first workshop of the Winter 2025 batch, ‘Weaving Scales’, we were invited to rethink what weaving could mean through questions such as: Can bacteria weave? Can architecture become soft? By being introduced to ‘bacterial cellulose’, we explored scales, ecologies, and material relationships beyond conventional understandings of making. 

Our research took us to Bitterfeld-Wolfen Film Museum, where we traced the histories of cellulose production, its by-products, and the industries it enabled, including an entire film industry that emerged from these material developments. At the same time, we encountered the environmental legacies of this history, learning how sites such as Silbersee and the Grube Greppin pit still contain residues from dye production.

The mapping workshop that followed became a catalyst for individual research inquiries, later presented at Learning Environments in the Bauhaus Study Rooms 2025.

📸 Doreen Ritzau

11/06/2026

Entering a fancy Asian restaurant, it was a surprise to find a decorative signage panel pointing us to the exhibition Algae | Debris | CO₂. Only later did we learn that the panel was made from elements of the facade of the former Zeeck department store in the center of Dessau—the very building that now hosts the exhibition. Unfolding through the building’s history and material layers, the show presents real time examples of how building elements can be upcycled and reused. Other exhibits showcase research on alternative building materials such as sheep wool, mycelium, and hemp-clay boards – with fascinating insights how many of these “new” sustainable materials actually bring us back to older ways of building and working with natural resources. The exhibition ends with another surprise: we find a tree placed indoors with its roots tied in a bundle, while we see its branches and leaves growing outside the window. Part of a larger research project, it fuels and tests imaginaries how trees could be grown as networks and become living facade systems. A visit that made us look differently at the materials we pass by every day and the possibilities they hold for creating other futures.

📸:

Exhibition curated by Barbara Steiner and Juliane Aleithe
https://bauhaus-dessau.de/en/exhibitions/algae-debris-co2/

02/06/2026

Some impressions from the Bauhaus Study Rooms Irregular Circularities in Zeitz.
Many thanks to all who organised and participated!

29/05/2026

Heading to the Bauhaus Study Rooms 2026 - Irregular Circularities.
Taking place across Dessau and Zeitz, in the study rooms, we explore the entanglements of industrial landscapes, living environments, and Bauhaus legacies through hands-on sessions around Energy, Soil, Air, and Dreams.

Poster design:

10/05/2026

The Application deadline for the 2026 Session of COOP Design Research is on 15 May 2026. Please reach out to us if you have any questions:
[email protected]

Apply Now:

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06/05/2026

COOP Design Research Spent the day at HfG Ulm and left with a lot to think about.

There’s something strange about standing in a space where the architecture itself is the lesson. The rule of three running through everything, rooms that guide you without telling you where to go. You notice it slowly, then all at once.

The Ulm stool and the tableware didn’t impress in a flashy way, but reverberated the knowledge a designer holds: how a cup is held, where it rests on a table, whether its form survives drying of a dishwasher. The object as a conclusion to a much longer conversation.

The same systematic thinking showed up in the first-year exercises too. 2D planes creating spatial depth, colour spectrum and scheme, line weight. Methods that quietly made their way into design schools across the world and never really left.

The archive was the last stop, and somehow the most generous. What usually stays invisible was just there, open. Nothing hidden.

📸:

06/05/2026

On a field trip exploring interconnections between design history and practice.

COOP Design Research students travelled from the Bauhaus in Dessau to HfG-Archiv Ulm, visiting the building, archive and exhibitions of the Ulm School of Design founded in 1953. Key Bauhaus ideas were revisited and reactivated for education and design practice here until its closure in 1968.

The experience of engaging with the trajectories, history and modes of knowledge production left us both in awe and with a more grounded, critical perspective.

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09/04/2026

See our Call for Applications - COOP Design Research - Dezeen

School: Anhalt University of Applied Sciences (Hochschule Anhalt)
Course: COOP Design Research Master of Science
Type: Postgraduate
Location: Dessau-Rosslau, Germany
Course dates: 1 June to 10 July 2026
Application deadline: 15 May 2026

The COOP Design Research course at Anhalt University of Applied Sciences provides students with a combination of design and research training.

26/03/2026

Coop Design Research invites applications for the COOP Design Research MSc programme.

Application deadline for Fall 2026: May 15, 2026

Call for applications 2026: COOP Design Research MSc at Anhalt University of Applied Sciences and Bauhaus Foundation Dessau.

11/02/2026

International conference: To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus in Dessau, the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation and Anhalt University of Applied Sciences hosted a conference last week entitled "Discourse, Cracks, Narrative. Bauhaus Matters: Materials of Modernism".

Experts from around the world discussed new perspectives on the Bauhaus legacy, its role in modern architecture, and contemporary approaches to building.

Campus Dessau is home to the Departments of Design as well as Architecture, Facility Management and Geoinformation, which are located in close proximity to the historic Bauhaus sites. During the anniversary period in 2025/26, will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus in Dessau alongside regional, national and international partners.

An overview of the planned events can be found at hs-anhalt.de:
➡️ www.hs-anhalt.de/bauhaus100

Internationale Konferenz: Im Rahmen des 100-jährigen Bauhaus-Jubiläums in Dessau haben die Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau und die Hochschule Anhalt in der vergangenen Woche zur Konferenz "Diskurs, Risse, Narrativ. Bauhaus Matters: Materialien der Moderne" eingeladen.

Internationale Expertinnen und Experten diskutierten neue Perspektiven auf das Bauhauserbe, dessen Rolle in der Architekturmoderne und neue Ansätze für das Bauen der Gegenwart.

Am Campus Dessau befinden sich die Fachbereiche Design sowie Architektur, Facility Management und Geoinformation in unmittelbare Nähe zu den historischen Bauhausstätten. Im Jubiläumszeitraum 2025/26 feiert die daher gemeinsam mit regionalen, nationalen und internationalen Partnern das 100-jährige Bestehen des Bauhauses in Dessau.

Eine Übersicht der geplanten Veranstaltungen ist auf hs-anhalt.de zu finden:
️➡️ www.hs-anhalt.de/bauhaus100