Tag Archives: TestLab Berlin

How Design touts TestLab Berlin’s life-changing impact on its participants and design itself

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A new environment can stimulate inventive thinking that leads to brilliant design work—but according to the TestLab Berlin participants, it might just stir you to change your way of life, too.

TestLab Berlin is a study abroad program offered by Art Center College of Design that is structured as a series of immersive 14-week trans-disciplinary projects under the direction of Nik Hafermaas, graphic design department chair and executive director of Berlin Programs. Students from a range of studio majors offered by the college—including illustration, photography, environmental, interaction, product and graphic design—can apply to participate. Twelve students are selected to travel from Pasadena, CA to Berlin to work for a semester at Art Center’s pop-up design studio in the recently renovated Bikini Berlin, an historic 1950s urban marketplace and recreation center located across from the city’s famed Zoological Garden.

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How Are You Spending Your Summer Vacation?

Photo by Amelia Stier

This summer, a group of Art Center students are immersing themselves in the culturally rich city of Berlin as part of Art Center’s cutting-edge take on traditional exchange programs called TestLabs.

In TestLabs, a group of students are selected representing a variety of disciplines, then placed in a metropolitan locale where they meet up with a corporate or nonprofit sponsor. The sponsor presents the students with a specific design challenge, which becomes their focus for the term. From there, the students form a pop-up studio, which becomes home base for ideation and instant visualization.

Through TestLab Berlin, Art Center students are spending the summer in the German city. The project includes a pop-up studio located at Bikini Berlin site, and is the start of a three-year partnership with GmbH.

In the current project, sponsored by Johnson & Johnson, students are exploring ways to connect with Millennials using different areas of emphasis including music, fashion, sports, body modification and health and wellness.

Amelia Stier has set up a blog documenting the experience—be sure to follow along as the term progresses!

Photo by Amelia Stier