In 2014 The Product Design course of the School of Arts & Design at the University of Kassel started to work with annual Project Professors and invited me to be the first Guest Professor in the row. Yael Mer from Raw Edges took over after me.

I adopted the year 2014/2015 to research current issues in design. With the students I explored two topics: Furniture for the Future and Unplugged, investigating future scenarios for (furniture) design and consequently designing products for it. During the year I made some excursions with my classes and we had fortnightly discussions on topics that influence design nowadays. For these so called 'Kurzeinfuhrungen' (Future Topics) each of us introduced a discussion with a topic of his/her interest. Somehow all of this for me became the prelude to start the research salons in London in 2015.

The Product Design course in Kassel decided to publish the projects of the Guest Professors and to give these annual Professorsship the maximum exposure the digital catalogues will be online after each Guest Professor's year. I coordinated the set up of the row of digital catalogues that were designed and conceptualized by graphic designers Lambl/Homburger from Berlin. At a later date, all digital material will come together and be available as one printed catalogue on the Projekt Professors.
The first digital catalogue: INEKE HANS Guest Professor 2014/2015 (ISBN-978-3-945824-06-1) is online now and I think it is an interesting document that adds to the content of the salons. Read pdf.

Ineke Hans, January 2016