If AI can design and robots mass produce anything, what roles emerge for designers? The Designing_AI Lab at UdK Berlin is running its first design studio in the summer semester of 2026. „on the other hand“ is about working with a robot arm, hands on and together.
The Universal Robot 5 has seven axes that mimic a human arm and can hold different tools. It was initially built for factory floors. In the „on the other hand“ studio we want to find out what happens when you actually work alongside it. What can it do that you can’t? What can you do that it can’t? What can you make together that neither of you could make alone?
Integrating AI into the design process is part of the studio too, and we want to get past the chatbots and image generators into how these systems actually work.
The point is to develop creative techniques with a real understanding of the technology, and to figure out where it genuinely supports creative work and where the human part matters most.
There will be inputs from industry and research throughout the semester, and the Designing_AI Lab hosts a parallel talk+workshop series with design studios from different fields.