Design Research (M.Sc.)

The COOP Design Research MSc is a collaborative program offered by the departments of Architecture and Design at Anhalt University of Applied Sciences (HSA) and the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation, in cooperation with Humboldt University Berlin (Research Cluster Matters of Activity / Department of Cultural History and Theory). Courses and thesis supervision are jointly provided by professors and lecturers affiliated with the three institutions as well as international guests.

The Bauhaus legacy…

The Bauhaus building, its archives, museum, artefacts and legacies offer a highly suitable vantage point for a contemporary critical inquiry into concepts and notions of design and its theoretical and historical roots in modernity. The manifold and controversial historiographies written about the Bauhaus share the conviction that the Avant-garde school was the birth place of the idea of modern design, once considered a universal and timeless concept interwoven with industrialization, technological progress and mass consumerism. This paradigm of design as an important building block of industrial modernity would habitually obscure its problematic fundamental reliance on colonialism and capitalist exploitation of human and natural resources.
Situating critical research and learning at the Bauhaus in Dessau today, the program explores how to question hegemonic paradigms of design, and how alternative architectural and design historiographies emerge from diverse trans-cultural resonances and conversations. Instead of linear narratives, we ask how stories of interconnected entanglements and ecologies can be told otherwise. Modes of co-production and co-habitation come into view, that already co-existed within the dominant narratives of design in industrial modernity.

… situated in a “post-industrial” knowledge landscape

Engaging with these questions, the program not only draws on the knowledge assembled by the sites, collections and scholarship of the Bauhaus and the partner institutions HSA and HU, but also on the city and the region as special reservoirs of knowledge on industrial and “post-industrial” transformation. Different layers of the built environment, museums and landscape tell of the search to design these transformations, manifest in everyday culture, urban space and ecologies – from Enlightenment garden landscapes to abandoned or repurposed 20th century industrial plants and power stations, from open-pit mines decommissioned in a push for renewables to new logistics and technology hubs.

Questions about the knowledge(s) of designers and architects, their agency and context, their self-conception and ideas are materialized here in a cultural landscape where different temporalities of progress, innovation and ruination co-exist. This also applies to the present: In maker spaces, communal kitchens, urban gardening projects, cultural festivals, and exhibitions, designers today are searching for forms of knowledge and spaces for action that allow them to rethink their own disciplines in these contexts.

The MSc program COOP Design Research thus situates itself in a complex knowledge landscape and takes it up as a learning space in various formats.

It is not only about what is studied, but also about how it is learned: The program brings together diverse voices and perspectives, emphasizing collaborative learning and research.

Participants explore research methods in design and architecture studies, gain hands-on research experience, and nurture writing and communication skills to articulate their work and thinking in academic, professional, and cultural contexts. The program fosters reflexive research practice, transcultural exchange, and critical awareness, enabling participants to situate their work within design and architecture history, theory, and contemporary cultural debates.

The Master of Science degree in Design Research opens pathways in academic research and teaching and provides a foundation for potential doctoral studies. Equally, it charts avenues towards reflexive architectural and design practice, as well as for roles in the curatorial work and cultural production.

Alongside collaborative learning in small groups, supported by the program’s teaching staff, the curriculum includes regular lectures by guest speakers from academia and design. Intensive workshops with invited researchers from COOP partner institutions form a core component of the program, offering indepth engagement with current design research approaches from diverse contexts.

Teaching Staff 2025/2026: Regina Bittner, Elke Beyer, Vera Lauf, Michael Hohl, Imad Gebrael, Gernot Weckherlin

Guest talks and COOP module workshops were offered by, among others: Bastian Beyer, Lilli Carr, Adam Drazin, Jesko Fezer, Kim Förster, Imad Gebrael, Maria Göransdotter, Sabine Hansmann, Gilly Karjevsky, Anita Kaspar, Rebekka Ladewig, Claudia Mareis, Pedro Oliveira, Marina Otero Verzier, Iva Rešetar, Patricia Ribault, Lía Duarte Rodríguez, Friederike Schäfer, Angelika Seppi, Åsa Ståhl, Alexander Stumm, Vivien Tauchmann, Mara Trübenbach, Lilo Viehweg, Albena Yaneva.