ID Workshop 2025: «An Ode to the Sun» by Marjan van Aubel and Nadja Schlenker
This year’s Industrial Design workshop at ZHdK, «An Ode to the Sun» was led by Marjan van Aubel and Nadja Schlenker. The workshop encouraged students to rethink the sun not merely as a technical energy source, but as a fundamental cultural, emotional, and material presence in everyday life.
Drawing on historical relationships between humans and the sun, students examined how earlier civilizations structured time, architecture, and rituals around sunlight. In contrast to today’s often disconnected urban environments, the workshop introduced solar design as designing with the sun—taking into account circadian rhythms, human behavior, cultural practices, and place-specific energy systems.
Over four days, students explored ancient sun gods as a way to connect past knowledge with contemporary contexts. They designed solar monuments that made our relationship with the sun more visible and tangible, treating energy as something personal rather than purely technocratic. Solar energy was approached as an integral design material—active, responsive, and embedded in construction—opening up new ways of interacting with sunlight and reflecting on the future of solar energy.
