Silvia Kn¨¹ppel has been Professor of Product and Perspective in the Product Design programme at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam since April 2021. She studied product design at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design and the Design Academy Eindhoven. Silvia Kn¨¹ppel has worked in Paris and Dakar, among other places, for the Senegalese fashion and costume designer "Oumou Sy". In 2008, she founded her own studio specialising in experimental and conceptual design. Her work is shown in galleries and museums (Design Museum Gent, Design Museum Holon, Museum f¨¹r Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg). She has taught at the Hochschule f¨¹r Bildende K¨¹nste Hamburg, the Kunsthochschule Kassel, the Akademie f¨¹r Mode und Design Hamburg and for many years at the Hochschule Hannover. She has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the Raymond Loewy Foundation since 2020.

Experimental design

Experimentation is an indispensable tool in the laboratory kitchen of contemporary design education. It opens up new spaces and creates new expressive possibilities to see or do things in a way they have never been seen or done before. Experimental design methods offer the opportunity to develop new forms, perspectives and their combinations, to place the forgotten and the traditional in a new context and to overcome familiar boundaries in order to explore new fields.

Textile & Design

Contact with textiles is an integral part of our everyday lives. A product design degree programme must include an examination of and knowledge about textiles. Textile products have always been an important area of product design as well as an important economic factor with great potential and many forward-looking dimensions.

Healthy materials & circular economy

As designers, we have a special influence on the manufacturing processes and thus also on the so-called "sustainability" of products. Cradle to cradle is a design concept in which products are always returned to the cycle, thereby saving CO2 and minimising waste. Healthy materials are the prerequisite for a functioning circular economy. Material compositions and manufacturing processes of our everyday consumer goods must be made more transparent to enable responsible purchasing decisions.