Henrik Lebender
Where at the ZHdK can you be found?
Somewhere between studio, workshop and the Industrial Design Lab. In the mornings, you can also sometimes find me near the coffee bar with a peanut coconut cookie.
Which topics are you focussing on at the moment?
My thoughts revolve around 3D printers at the moment. I spend a lot of time at home now and only rarely get to the workshops at the Toni-Areal site, so I want to install a small model-making workshop in my own home. But it’s still missing a suitable 3D printer. When I’m not thinking about 3D printers with cool features, I focus on «Persuasive Design» in the digital context and how algorithms influence us and our dealings with one another. Urban mobility and new methods of growing vegetables are further topics of interest.
What motivates you?
What fascinates me apart from solving relevant problems are the design processes themselves. As a student in the subject area of Industrial Design I research, analyse, discuss and sketch things a lot, I build prototypes, compare ideas and preferably work in an interdisciplinary way, together with interesting people. I am motivated by being part of a discipline which addresses the many challenges currently faced by society and design, not just by debating them on a theoretical level, but by tackling them in a practical way.
With whom would you like to switch roles for half a year?
With nobody in particular – but swapping roles with a politician for half a year would be tempting. Then I’d be able to solve problems not just with a product, in the typical Industrial Design manner, but from an altogether different perspective and with possibilities that are very untypical from a design point of view.
