The Berlin Open Lab opened on Tuesday, 28 May 2019: The lab is a new place for digital research at the interfaces between experimental design, architecture and engineering. It adds another level to the close cooperation between the Berlin University of the Arts and the Technische Universität Berlin. With a laboratory for computational fabrication and wearable computing on the one hand and a studio for augmented and virtual reality on the other, the doors open for future research. Prof. Martin Rennert, President of the UdK Berlin, welcomed the invited guests together with Prof. Dr. Thomsen, President of the TU Berlin, the State Secretary for Science and Research, Steffen Krach, and Prof. Dr. Gesche Joost, Speaker of the Berlin Open Lab and Boradmember of Einstein Center Digital Future, in the newly renovated Shedhallen on the Charlottenburg campus.

The Lab is a new location for digital research at the interfaces between experimental design, architecture and engineering and complements the close cooperation between UdK Berlin and TU Berlin with a further level. With a laboratory for computational fabrication and wearable computing on the one hand and a studio for augmented and virtual reality on the other, the doors open for future research.

With immediate effect, the Berlin Open Lab provides premises in which actors from the fields of art, design, science and society can work together both locally and virtually in a network – a rare opportunity for researchers throughout Germany in the digital age. Together with the Weizenbaum Institute for Networked Society and the Einstein Center Digital Future (ECDF), solutions for the challenges of a digital society are being developed. With this investment, the UdK Berlin is sending a clear signal for interdisciplinary research on digital change.

The ECDF ´ junior professorships at the UdK Berlin will also carry out their experimental research at Berlin Open Lab. Prof. Dr. Berit Greinke works on "Performative Materials" and combines intelligent textiles with 3D printing. The networked education of the future plays a role for Prof. Dr. Daniel Hromada, which he implements in an interactive digital primer. Prof. Dr. Max von Grafenstein is dedicated to questions of digital self-determination and researches topics related to security on the Internet. New icons, which are intended to bring data protection and the use of data by services closer to the user, are being developed to make conventional data protection declarations intuitively understandable for consumers.