The Design Society Seminar Series: Ilmenau – one of the Birthplaces of Design Science

Wednesday 14th April 2021 at 15:00 (UK time / BST)

Online

Günter Höhne, Christian Weber and Stephan Husung present on Ilmenau known as one of the birthplaces of Design Science. 

In the early 1950s, researchers in Ilmenau – Werner Bischoff, Friedrich Hansen and Arthur Bock – made significant contributions to Design Science that led to the still today most widely spread approach to Design Theory and Methodology. The ideas had their origins in industry, at Carl Zeiss Jena, initially for the qualification of inexperienced designers in precision engineering.

After the promoters had been appointed to academia in Ilmenau (at that time Special University for Electrical Engineering, today Technische Universität Ilmenau), they and their successors went into various further research activities in the field of product description and modelling, guidelines for embodiment design, design review, adjustment, automation of design activities and the use of computational means. The internationally known research profile ("Ilmenauer Schule der Konstruktionstechnik", Ilmenau School of Engineering Design) is maintained to this day, meanwhile extended into the areas of Integrated Virtual Product Development and Model-Based Systems Engineering. 

This contribution is prepared and presented by three (out of four in total) generations of professors in Engineering Design in Ilmenau. It gives a historical overview of the development of the “Ilmenau School” over roughly 70 years – from the start in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) via the German reunification until today.

Prepared and presented by:    

• Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Günter Höhne
• Prof. Dr.-Ing. Christian Weber
• Prof. Dr.-Ing. Stephan Husung