Industrial Design

Dirty Hands is a public lecture series hosted by the Master’s Programme in Industrial Design at ZHdK.

We live in a world shaped by relentless economic development—driven by the promise of progress yet bound to unsustainable systems. Design, long a tool for shaping industries, streamlining consumption, and catering to human needs, must confront its own contradictions. Industrial design, celebrated as a driver of innovation, now faces the limits of its own solutions. Simple answers no longer suffice. A purely solutionist approach falls short, just as critique alone does not drive change.

Dirty Hands is an invitation to explore new ways of working—ways that are hands-on and reflective, experimental and critical, proactive and self-aware, deeply rooted in practice. It embraces contradiction, the tension between creation and consequence, and the need for design to evolve.

This lecture series explores the entangled relationships between design, ecology, technology, and society. It highlights the urgent need for approaches that bridge the gap between planetary limitations and human action.

We invite thinkers and makers to navigate these uncertainties with us—to get their hands dirty, share their practice, and rethink what design can and can't do.

The programme is continuously updated through the semester.

BAS VAN DE POEL - Modem
Friday, March 28 | 10:00 a.m. | Online Lecture - Kaskadenfoyer 5.K04, Toni Areal

SEBASTIAN VARGAS - Kairos Studio & Profiler
Tuesday April 08 | 17:00 p.m. | 2.A05 Viaduktraum , Toni Areal