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Munich, February 22, 2024

  • May 11 to 19, 2024 | 13th edition of munich creative business week
  • Top-caliber speakers at mcbw design summit on May 13, 2024
  • Augmented reality | Arabidopsis Symphony by Fillip Studios
  • Documentary VR experiences | DOK.fest x mcbw
  • May 7, 2024 | Save the

The 13th edition of munich creative business week (mcbw) will take place from May 11 to 19, 2024. mcbw is the largest annual design event in Germany and is organized by bayern design. Following the motto How to co-create with nature, mcbw 2024 will provide an arena where interested members of the public can come together with experts, designers, representatives of the corporate world, and students of design, architecture, business, and other disciplines to make design tangible in a comprehensive manner.

Nadine Vicentini, Managing Director of bayern design, explains this year’s motto: “The age in which we live, referred to by scientists as the Anthropocene, is characterized by humankind’s inexorable will to create; however, we must (re-) learn to collaborate with nature, to accept it as a co-designer, to live and grow alongside it rather than attempt to regulate it – in short, to collaborate, not dominate. To give this concept a clear orientation we have formulated the motto for mcbw 2024 – How to co-create with nature.”

Boris Kochan, President of Deutscher Designtag, Vice President of Deutscher Kulturrat, and member of the mcbw Advisory Council, adds: “Good design requires visibility. mcbw has developed into a platform for more than 150 (design) companies, organizations, and academic institutions and today is the most important stage in the country for design relevant to society and the economy.”

Top-caliber speakers at mcbw design summit
Internationally renowned speakers in the fields of design and architecture, including representatives of research institutions, design centers, start-ups, and companies, will base their discussions about innovative nature-centered approaches to design on the mcbw motto – How to co-create with nature. The speakers will strive to find answers to questions such as: How can findings in the fields of biology and/or ecology be applied in design? How can circularity contribute to biodiversity? How can we partner with nature to design products and processes? What is nature’s place in our digitalized living environment and how can technology help us better understand and experience nature? mcbw design summit will take place on May 13 at Munich Urban Colab. Tickets are available now at mcbw.de for €112.50 (early-bird discount) and for €125 starting in mid-March.

This year’s mcbw creative explorer, Stefano Boeri, will present his vision of future cities connecting with nature through roof and community gardens, municipal agriculture, parks, and forests.

Prof. Dr. Angelika Nollert, Director of Die Neue Sammlung – The Design Museum and member of the mcbw Advisory Council, says: “In a time of noticeable climate change, the motto How to co-create with nature is highly relevant and promises valuable debate. Stefano Boeri is an interdisciplinary professional, an artist, and an architect engaged in socioeconomics and climate change. He will make an excellent creative explorer.”

A number of other keynote speakers already have signed up
Maurizio Montalti (Sqim, Officina Corpuscoli), Daniela Bohlinger (BMW Group), Laura Kiesewetter (Institute for Computational Design and Construction), and Tom Kortbeek (Fillip Studios).
Designer, researcher, and entrepreneur Maurizio Montalti pioneered the research and development of mycelium-based technologies and products. He is the founder and Creative Director of Officina Corpuscoli in Amsterdam and the co-founder and Chief Mycelium Officer of SQIM. As a Senior Expert in Innovation Management at BMW Group, Daniela Bohlinger is working intensively on the topic of sustainability strategy. Laura Kiesewetter conducts research at the Institute for Computer-Based Design and Construction (ICD) at the University of Stuttgart on innovative material systems and their integration into the built environment. She is particularly interested in the material programming of lightweight structures that form themselves. Tom Kortbeek is the co-founder of Fillip Studios in the Netherlands, an agency engaged in designing textiles that make music when touched and in bringing plants to life using augmented reality.

A panel of experts from three design centers in Europe will discuss the continent’s most pressing ecological challenges.
Thorsten Buch, Director of mcbw, emphasizes: “We are pleased that the global relevance of this year’s mcbw motto will be reflected at mcbw design summit – not only through the keynote speakers, but also through the expertise of three member organizations of the Bureau of European Design Associations (BEDA) which for the first time will be represented at mcbw with a dedicated panel discussion.”
 

Initial overview of the mcbw 2024 program

Augmented Reality | Arabidopsis Symphony by Fillip Studios in front of mcbw hub
Arabidopsis Symphony, a project conducted by Fillip Studios, will be on exhibit during mcbw in front of mcbw hub at Ruffinihaus at Rindermarkt Square. Visitors can scan the QR code on their smartphones and watch virtual plants emerge from the soil. The closer the visitor gets to a plant, the louder the sound the plant will emit. Melodies will vary from plant to plant and will depend on the time of day and the weather because like a real-life plant, the AR installation responds to external factors.

Documentary VR experiences | DOK.fest x mcbw
Before Ruffinihaus becomes the central hub for mcbw on May 13, in cooperation with XR HUB Bavaria and mcbw, DOK.fest München and VR POP-UP-KINO will broadcast contemporary documentary VR experiences in line with the mcbw motto, How to co-create with nature. April 26 to May 12. Ruffinihaus. Free entry.

mcbw pop up container
In one of the two mcbw pop up containers, iconic porcelain manufacturer Rosenthal will present a sophisticated showcase of its portfolio; a sushi conveyor belt will transport fine creations made of colored porcelain through the glass room. Reminiscent of a catwalk, six striking vases will be presented. Rosenthal partnered with highly talented designers including Sebastian Herkner, Studio Dror, Claus Josef Riedel, Cédric Ragot, and BIG to create these exciting objects, each of which tells a unique story. Location tbd.
Set up in the other mcbw pop up container, the installation by Drees & Sommer Brand Experience and EPEA titled Feierabendziegel (After-Work Bricks) will challenge the disposal of the construction materials remaining after buildings have been demolished. To this end, beavertail tiles have been dismantled to trigger public debate and provide answers to the question of whether used objects are rubbish after their original use phase or whether they have potential for a second life. Location tbd.

A number of program partners already have defined their events for mcbw 2024:
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft
At its Fraunhofer-mcbw-nature-lab, this leading global organization for applicationoriented research will hold workshops highlighting innovative concepts, prototypes, and visions from programs conducted by Fraunhofer’s Science, Arts, and Design network. Visitors will have the opportunity to build their own hydroponic bottles, experiment with fungus mycelium, or create objects with apple leather.

Parsons Healthy Materials Lab
The Lab originates from and is headquartered at Parsons School of Design in New York City and is a partner of the New European Bauhaus operating its European office in Germany. As an international design and research institution focusing all its design-related decisions on the health of the planet and its people, the Lab challenges architects and designers to switch from fossil resources-based construction materials to healthier natural ones. The Lab team is working to exchange knowledge between the EU and the U.S.A. to accelerate the transformation to healthy buildings.

Hochschule München University of Applied Sciences
Under the heading Next Nature Design, students of the design faculty have worked with the planet-centered design approach and all of its facets. During mcbw, these students will showcase new concepts for shaping collaboration between people and nature.

KISKA
Global brand and design agency KISKA will stage Co-creating with YOUR nature and will bring dopamine to mcbw 2024 in the form of dopamine-generating food, interactions, and discussions. Creative processes thrive on dopamine, a feel-good chemical responsible for learning, motivation, concentration and – first and foremost! – the desire to create. Un-limit your brain – co-create with human nature.

BMW Group Design | Die Neue Sammlung – The Design Museum
BMW Group Design and Die Neue Sammlung - The Design Museum are continuing their collaboration with the talk format "New Modes". For MCBW 2024, they are once again inviting guests to an evening at the X-D-E-P-O-T in the Pinakothek der Moderne to explore the unifying quality of design together with exciting guests."

DDX
Another exciting mcbw program partner is designdrives and its DDX Innovation & UX Conference where professionals will meet with top-caliber experts from Google, Meta, Microsoft, and many other companies as well as with representatives of dynamic start-ups and consulting firms. Visitors will be able to network with more than 300 innovators, leaders, and designers to explore career paths and potential projects. Engaging presentations, workshops, and networking sessions will offer insight into connections that will shape the future of digital innovation and user experience.

Save the date: Kick-off press conference on Tuesday, May 7, 2024, 11:00 a.m., at Steelcase

About mcbw
mcbw is organized by bayern design GmbH and sponsored by the Bavarian State Ministry for Economic Affairs, Regional Development and Energy, and the City of Munich. As partners, BMW Group, Steelcase, Ströer, and Gmund provide substantial support to the event. Images are available in the Press Section . The event also can be found on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

Munich, Dezember 14, 2023

  • May 11–19, 2024 | 13th edition of munich creative business week
  • New motto: How to co-create with nature
  • Festival headquarters: mcbw hub at the Ruffini Store at Ruffinihaus
  • Designwalk and first partners to sign up
  • Save the date: press conference on May 7, 2024

mcbw
Organized by bayern design, munich creative business week (mcbw) is the largest design event in Germany and provides a platform for new ideas, trends, and creativity. mcbw fosters interdisciplinary dialog and brings together the public, experts, designers, company representatives, and students from design, architecture, the economy, and other disciplines to deliver comprehensive design experiences over the course of nine days. With new festival headquarters, a new key visual, and a new highly topical, society-relevant motto, mcbw will take place in Munich for the 13th time from May 11 to 19, 2024.

mcbw creative explorer Stefano Boeri
Stefano Boeri is the new creative explorer for mcbw 2024. mcbw creative explorers actively represent the respective mottos and initiate important impulses for thought. With his work, renowned Italian-born architect and professor of architecture Stefano Boeri is exemplary of the new mcbw motto, How to cocreate with nature. Boeri is president of the Foundation for the Future of Cities, cochair of the World Forum on Urban Forests scientific committee, and is deemed to be one of the key players in the debate on climate change in the field of international architecture. He is known for his research on regeneration and development plans for metropoles and large cities. Boeri focuses his work on the geopolitical and environmental impact of urban phenomena, for example, the Bosco Verticale project in Milan he initiated in 2014. Bosco Verticale is the first prototype of a residential building hosting more than 700 trees and 20,000 plants to integrate living nature and was ranked the world’s best building by CTBUH (Chicago). Among other things, Boeri’s draft perspective is reflected in Trudo Vertical Forest, the first vertical forest for social housing inaugurated in 2021 in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. Author and publisher of Green Obsession. Trees towards Cities. Humans towards Forests (2021), Boeri will be the keynote speaker at the mcbw design summit scheduled for May 13, 2024 at Munich Urban Colab.

“We have to collaborate with nature and integrate it wherever possible – squares, courtyards, promenades, rooftops, and façades. On the occasion of mcbw 2024, I want to share my design approach to reducing damage caused by climate change – which I introduced in Green Obsession and in other publications – with everybody who looks into the future of our cities and our species on our planet with courage and optimism.”
- Stefano Boeri

Motto
The mcbw 2024 key visual and motto pick up on one of society’s most important topics. How to co-create with nature sets the contextual direction and relates to the discourse on the best ways to treat nature and create something new at the same time. mcbw offers a platform for program partners to collaborate to determine how design can contribute to creating a livable future by working with nature and not against it. The four focal themes developed as part of the motto of mcbw 2024 will be guiding program partners and visitors alike:

(1) Re-Learn! // approaches to design modeled after nature
(2) Re-Generate! // approaches to design to the benefit of nature (and people)
(3) Co-Work! // approaches to design in collaboration with nature
(4) Un-Limit! // approaches to design that connect nature and technology

The focal themes are based on the concept that nature must be seen in a variety of roles: as teacher, beneficiary, co-designer, and even as a result of a design process.

Festival headquarters, Designwalk, first partners to sign up
The mcbw hub will be its new headquarters specially developed for mcbw 2024 in a central location, at the heart of Munich city center. It will be a point for contact and information as well as a venue for dialog and encounters. The address is Ruffini Store im Ruffinihaus, Rindermarkt 10, 80331 Munich. During mcbw 2023, the Designwalk curated tour attracted a lot of visitors and it will be continued in 2024 in the trendy neighborhood of Haidhausen. Visitors will have the opportunity to discover cafés, concept stores, studios, galleries, and other featured design locations. The first strong mcbw partners to have signed up include BMW Group, Steelcase, Ströer, Gmund, the Faculty of Design at Hochschule München University of Applied Sciences, MUCBOOK, Kunstareal München, Architecture Matters, TU München, Goethe Institut, and the Fraunhofer Network on Science, Arts and Design. Plans for the varied partner program of exhibitions, interactive talks, panel discussions and many other events are well underway; a press release about the program will be published in 2024.

Save the date

Inaugural press conference
Tuesday, May 7, 2024, 11 a.m., at Steelcase

mcbw design summit
Monday, May 13, 2024, at Munich Urban Colab

 

NINE DAYS OF DESIGN AT ITS BEST

München, May 31, 2023

  • May 6 to 14, 2023 | 12th edition of munich creative business week
  • 170 events
  • 160 program partners
  • 333 speakers
  • highlights for experts and design enthusiasts

Nine days of design at its best
Why disruption unleashes creativity was the motto of the 12th edition of munich creative business week (mcbw), the largest design event in Germany. Organized by bayern design, mcbw 2023 offered a premium, multi-faceted program that addressed design professionals and enthusiasts from May 6 to 14. Fascinating exhibitions, installations, and discussions provided sources of inspiration, contributed to the interdisciplinary exchange of concepts and ideas, and turned Munich’s city center into a vibrant design festival.

Why disruption unleashes creativity — Creative Explorer
Throughout history, large transformations have unleashed creativity and have helped new concepts come into existence. Leyla Acaroglu, internationally acclaimed expert in the field of disruptive design methods, was the first headliner ever to actively represent the mcbw motto. As Creative Explorer, she provided important input to stimulate ideas at the mcbw talk&connect industry congress. Disruption-related exhibitions, workshops, and interactive installations, including in public spaces, provided design aficionados with opportunities to marvel and experiment. With its eleven stations at start-up and established shops, studios, and cafés located between the Old Town and the Glockenbachviertel district, mcbw designwalk was an inspiring design adventure “in passing.”

mcbw 2023 in numbers:
333 speakers
160 program partners
170 events: mcbw-own formats as well as contributions by program partners including BMW Group, Steelcase, USM, HAY, HENN, Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, CreativeNL, IUD Institut für Universal Design, Die Neue Sammlung – The Design Museum, Goethe-Institut, Munich Urban Colab, KISKA, Munich Technical University (TUM), Moonpunks, Münchner Stoff Frühling, and Czech Center Munich.

Design (research) and the corporate world – an inseparable pairing
Because design competence plays a major role in the success of companies, bayern design also has been promoting research and scientific discourse about design for many years in cooperation with the Bavarian State Ministry for Economic Affairs, Regional Development and Energy. One example is a study on the economic relevance of design commissioned by bayern design and conducted by Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. The results of the study were presented at USM during mcbw 2023. The need for design research also was highlighted by an exhibition titled Design Research in Bavaria – Present and Future that was staged jointly by the five academic design departments in Bavaria at the Department of Design of Hochschule München University of Applied Sciences. It was complemented by a symposium that addressed the question Design Research – Disruption in Research Operations? In addition, the exhibition hosted by Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, the world’s leading organization in application-oriented research, shed light on the meaning of design research as a driver of innovation and development.

Selected program highlights
mcbw 2023 encompassed a variety of outstanding events held throughout the city. In particular, the locations at Kunstareal and Munich Urban Colab (MUC) offered a bandwidth of highlights.

For the first time, MUC was the host of mcbw talk&connect with several topcaliber speakers. Leyla Acaroglu (Creative Explorer), Sep Verboom (designer and social entrepreneur), and Prof. Dr. Sacha Friesike (UdK Berlin) joined moderator Prof. Annette Diefenthaler (TUM) and the mcbw advisory committee to discuss the impact of disruption on creativity and society.

The theme of Creative City, a discussion among Dr. Andrea Lissoni (Haus der Kunst), Sabine Hansky (MUC), and Prof. Alexander Gutzmer hosted by MUC, included the special way in which creatives contribute to the city and the strength of Munich’s cultural and tech scenes.

The international DDX Conference brought together the who’s who of global design expertise at the UX & Innovations Conference to highlight the meaning of digital design in the creation of human-machine interfaces and the adoption of innovations by the market.

Die Neue Sammlung – The Design Museum was host to X-D-E-P-O-T at Kunstareal. It was the perfect venue for the kick-off press conference and enhanced mcbw with the Phoenix – Reborn Beauty installation, a thrilling reuse project designed by Hella Jongerius for Porzellan Manufaktur Nymphenburg in cooperation with Die Neue Sammlung – The Design Museum. Ebenso in Kooperation mit Die Neue Sammlung – The Design Museum veranstaltete BMW Group Design im X-D-E-P-O-T die Panel Diskussion „New Modes II / New Collaborations“. David Zilber (food scientist), Kai Langer (BMW i Design) und die Designerin Hella Jongerius erkundeten gemeinsam mit Quentin Walesch (The Futures Collaborative) die verbindende Qualität von Design.

Also cooperating with Die Neue Sammlung – The Design Museum, BMW Group Design organized a panel discussion at X-D-E-P-O-T titled New Modes II / New Collaborations. David Zilber (food scientist), Kai Langer (BMW i Design), Hella Jongerius (designer), and Quentin Walesch (The Futures Collaborative) explored the connecting qualities of design. Jointly with Steelcase, BMW Group Design hosted fans of design at a talk about
locations of creativity. Elena de Kan (Steelcase), Steffi Zimmermann (BMW Group Design), and Stephanie Thatenhorst (thatenhorst interior) spoke with design expert Eva Steidl about approaches to planning creativity and how our places of work influence our creative thinking.

The question of Why disruption unleashes creativity also was addressed by topcaliber participants in a design talk hosted by HAY and rpc. Jointly with moderator Valerie Präkelt, Stefan Diez (designer), Katja Thoring (TUM), Samir Ayoub (Designfunktion), and Vladimir Moldovanu (rpc) provided fascinating insight into current challenges and opportunities facing design professionals. The highlight of this event was the exclusive presentation of the new BOA Table for HAY by Stefan Diez.

mcbw – a strong presence in the public realm
Pop-up containers, interactive installations, mcbw designwalk, and a powerful key visual shaped Munich’s city center for nine days.

A major attraction for visitors of all ages was Naiv Studios’ interactive installation Disruptive Dunes. Until June 5, a walkable design object made of mesh and light can be experienced in a playful manner on the lawn between Alte Pinakothek and Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film. Visitors are invited to climb or lie or sit on the installation and become disruptors themselves.

Other audience magnets included two mcbw pop-up containers at Gasteig HP8 and Königsplatz. The glass container designed by Office Heinzelmann Ayadi (OHA) and the Gustav van Treek historic mosaic and glass painting studio that was installed in front of the propylaea at Königsplatz in the form of an oversized kaleidoscope had passersby in awe.

Save the date for mcbw 2024
The 13th edition of mcbw will take place from May 11 to 19, 2024. A new motto, a new key visual, and many exciting new formats will be announced by the end of this year.
 

 

About mcbw
mcbw is organized by bayern design GmbH and sponsored by the Bavarian State Ministry for Economic Affairs, Regional Development and Energy, and the City of Munich. As partners, BMW Group, Steelcase, Ströer, and Gmund provide substantial support to the event. Images are available in the Press Section. The event also can be found on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook.