MAK DESIGN LAB

Design is much more than just the designing of “things”: design is an attitude, a way of instigating change, of making new approaches tangible and complex systems understandable. Design has taken on new roles to help expand our possibilities of agency and decision. It contributes to the formation of our world and the way we live together as society with a new collective responsibility for our shared planet. 

Over the past decades, the quantification of data, things, and living beings has turned humans into ideal consumers. Now we are witnessing a radical crisis that demands a new orientation towards quality and an increased awareness for resources, production, distribution, and sustainability of goods, labor, and information. 

Spanning approximately 2,000 square meters, the MAK DESIGN LAB demonstrates the many ways design can contribute to such positive change. Contemporary projects by designers, artists, architects, programmers, activists, and idealists who react to the challenges of the 21st century and visualize problems, suggest alternatives, or offer solutions are put into context with historical objects from the MAK Collection in complex ways.

The MAK DESIGN LAB focuses on design as the main creative element to shape our everyday life as well as human society: it is instrumental in how we will live together in the future and face the great challenges of our world, such as digitalization and climate change.

With imagination, creativity, playful experimentation, and a holistic viewpoint, the MAK DESIGN LAB directs our attention to the consequences of our current lifestyle but also shows what innovative ideas and technologies can change for all of us. 

The MAK DESIGN LAB wants to inspire and motivate us to shape our world together as a valuable and resonant habitat for all species.

Curated by mischer’traxler studio (Katharina Mischer, Thomas Traxler),
Janina Falkner, New Concepts for Learning, MAK,
and Marlies Wirth, Curator, Digital Culture and MAK Design Collection

Exhibition design by mischer’traxler studio 
Graphic design and animation by LWZ 
 

The MAK LAB APP complements the parcours of the MAK DESIGN LAB and can be accessed on all smartphones at lab.mak.at. Attractively designed with a playful approach to the subject, it mediates crucial issues for shaping the future in this era of Digital Modernity and climate change. 
 

The MAK DESIGN LAB and the MAK LAB APP are projects of the MAK in cooperation with the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research.

The reinstallation of the MAK DESIGN LAB is part of the EU-INTERREG V-A project DESIGN & INNOVATION. Cross-Border Cooperation between Design Institutions Transitioning to the Digital Age with the partnering institutions SDC – Slovak Design Center, MAK – Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna, Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Bratislava, University of Applied Arts Vienna, and is financially supported by the EU program INTERREG V-A Slovakia–Austria.