People

Jan Willmann has made the future of design the focus of his research and teaching. He studied architecture in Oxford, pursued his doctorate under Bart Lootsma in Innsbruck, and then established key research endeavors as a senior assistant at ETH Zurich before being appointed Professor of Design Theory at Bauhaus-Universität Weimar in 2016. Given his international path and multiple interests, the interests of Jan Willmann lie in rethinking and expanding the roles and boundaries of design, and the creative disciplines in general. As such, a central focus is on contemporary design cultures with a particular emphasis on digital, materialist and epistemic perspectives. He has lectured worldwide and is regularly invited as an expert and design critic member, and collaborated with numerous renowned international institutions, such as, for example, the FRAC Centre Orléans, Chicago Architecture Biennial und Palais de Tokyo in Paris. Jan Willmann is the author of the first anthology on robot-based design and construction (The Robotic Touch, Zurich 2014). His articles have been published internationally in Architectural Design, GAM, 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing, The Architectural Review, T&A, IEEE, Springer Nature, Elsevier Automation & Construction, IJAC and DETAIL, among others.).

Michael Braun is a product designer and design researcher. He studied Product Design at the University of Applied Sciences Dresden (B.A. 2016) and Sustainable Product Cultures at Bauhaus University Weimar (M.A. 2018). Since 2018, he has been a research associate at the Chair of Design Theory and Design Research, Faculty of Art and Design, Bauhaus University Weimar. In his doctoral research, he developed a model-based approach to rediscovering craft processuality within digital design and fabrication, with a particular focus on robotic 3D printing with porcelain. Since autumn 2025, he has continued his research as a postdoctoral fellow, focusing on digital craft, creative robotics, and process-oriented design methods. He bridges research and teaching by integrating concepts of digital craft, processual design, and design theory into experimental courses and research projects involving industrial robotics.

For further information: michaelbraun-design.de

Dr. Shradha Chandan is working as a Scientific Associate at the Professorship of the Theory and History of Design at the Faculty of Art and Design and the International Heritage-Zentrum (IHZ) of the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. She was awarded the DAAD Postdoctoral Researchers International Mobility Experience (PRIME) 2023 Fellowship for her ongoing research on Cultural Heritage in the Context of Social Transformations and Community Participation with the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, Bologna University, and Barcelona University. She studied Architecture at the NIT Bhopal and completed her Master's in Urban Planning at the NIT Jaipur, India, with a Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering scholarship. She earned her doctorate in 2022 with her thesis on integrating community-based participatory research to preserve pilgrim cities of India. She also worked as an Assistant Professor at Lovely Professional University, India. Her research interests include cultural heritage, urban conservation and planning, socio-cultural transformations, and community development.

Niklas Hamann was born and raised near Chemnitz, Saxony. After graduating from high school, he studied product design at the University of Applied Sciences in Dresden. During his bachelor's degree, he spent time abroad in Aarhus, Denmark, as part of an internship in a dedicated furniture design office. In his Master's degree, also in Dresden, he specialized in computational design and algorithmic modeling. Also due to his successful master's thesis in the field of medical design and 3D printing, Niklas Hamann moved from Dresden to Weimar in 2017 to take up a position as an artistic assistant at Bauhaus University. Here he deepened his specialization by working on the feasibility study "Digital Orthotics". Following this, Niklas Hamann began his third-funded PhD on a corresponding research topic, which is being pursued in collaboration with Rosenkranz Scherer.