*Course description is only available in English*
What if the city became your classroom? What if design can really empower people to shape more inclusive, resilient and meaningful places?
This interdisciplinary course introduces participants to Design Thinking as a tool for social innovation and community empowerment. Moving beyond traditional product and business innovation, the course explores how human-centred design can address complex urban challenges such as inclusion, accessibility, belonging, sustainability and civic participation.
Working in international and interdisciplinary teams, participants will investigate public spaces in Weimar through observation, community mapping, interviews and participatory placemaking methods. Together, they will analyse how different people experience the city, identify opportunities for improvement, and co-create innovative interventions that respond to real community needs.
Following the Design Thinking process: Understand, Empathise, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test, participants will develop creative concepts ranging from placemaking interventions and social enterprises to services, community programmes and digital solutions. Rather than focusing solely on economic value, the course introduces the concept of Inclusive Innovation, where successful ideas create social, environmental and community impact.
The course combines short lectures, interactive workshops, fieldwork, rapid prototyping and collaborative reflection. Participants will gain practical experience with tools such as community mapping, placemaking analysis, stakeholder engagement, storytelling and low-fidelity prototyping while strengthening their intercultural collaboration and creative problem-solving skills.
Online Component: Before arriving in Weimar, participants will join an online introductory session where they will be introduced to the 6 Bauhaus Spring School Design Thinking framework, receive reading materials, and complete a short reflection exercise analysing an everyday public space in their own city. They will share observations through a collaborative digital platform, creating an international collection of case studies that will serve as the starting point for discussion during the on-site workshop.
In-Class Component: During the Spring School, participants will apply these methods directly in Weimar. Through fieldwork, design sprints and collaborative prototyping, they will work on real urban challenges, develop and test ideas, and present their concepts to peers, practitioners and local stakeholders. The course concludes with a collective reflection on how Design Thinking can become a methodology for empowering communities and shaping more inclusive urban futures.
