Every spring, BERLIN DESIGN WEEK presents the latest design trends and approaches that allow us to shape and prepare for the future. Over the course of 11 days, exhibitions, talks, presentations, participatory projects and networking events are held across the city. At these events, national and international designers, cultural institutions, companies, and research institutions have the opportunity to present their work.

THE FOCUS OF BERLIN DESIGN WEEK

We believe that design will play a key role in allowing us to master the enormous challenges of our time. Our aim is to show how designers from around the world are driving societal change and promoting economic innovation through their work.

Social Impact

Design has a major influence on all of us and what our future will look like. Design shapes social value and the social impacts of products and services. Transformative cities, circular society, innovative living spaces – design can improve our quality of life over the long term. At BERLIN DESIGN WEEK, we connect social design with social entrepreneurship.

Sustainability

Intelligent solutions can pave the way forward for future generations through interdisciplinary exchange. Business, research and high-level decision-makers need the creative force of design, its fresh ideas for new strategies and concepts for a changing society – and vice versa.

Green Impact

The global challenges we face can only be managed by changing our behaviour and introducing new technologies. We need interdisciplinary strategies for true sustainability so that innovative ideas can realise their full potential. Design is the intermediary and a source of inspiration for decision-makers.

THE HOME OF BERLIN DESIGN WEEK

In Berlin, a wide variety of creative disciplines collide with interdisciplinary sciences and exceptional research and educational institutions. Berlin is an environment where, in addition to the latest trends, revolutionary ideas, movements and innovations can emerge and flourish.

Digitization

Compared to other cities around the world, Berlin is swiftly becoming a digital metropolis. Digital pioneers from the dynamic, rapidly growing start-up scene, the digital economy, and research and the sciences are closely connected and are creating a new vision for the future.

Urban Space

In Berlin, urban space is inhabited and designed in an open, forward-looking manner. The city as a hypercomplex habitat will provide the most important solutions to the key issues of our age: social justice, climate change, new living, mobility.

Mobility

There is still a lot of room to shape the long-term shift in mobility, both in urban and rural settings. In Berlin, mobility trends are researched and developed. A growing number of international players and mobility start-ups are settling in the Berlin-Brandenburg region.

BERLIN DESIGN WEEK PROGRAMME

Even though the BERLIN DESIGN WEEK programme covers all possible disciplines and aspects of design, we are particularly focussed on experimental projects and concepts that combine research, industry and economy with various aspects of and approaches to design.

Formats

Exhibitions, awards, talks, panels, discussions, presentations, tours, showrooms, workshops, networking events, virtual reality, elevator pitches, round tables, screenings, business speed dating, open studio nights, parties

Disciplines

Our main focus is connecting the up-and-coming designers of tomorrow with established players, suppliers, producers and commercial enterprises. However, acting as an intermediary between various design disciplines is also a special area of focus for BERLIN DESIGN WEEK.

Participants

Berliners, national and international designers, artists, design studios, agencies, collectives, labs, cultural institutions, universities, research groups, scientists, research institutions, start-ups, companies