#campustour 2018: Semester & Diploma Exhibitions, FH Aachen, Germany

We’ve spent so much time walking alongside canals on this #campustour we’ve started to feel less like dashing thoroughbreds and more like plodding, monotonous, if honest, loyal and sedulous barge ponies.

There are, as far as we are aware, no canals in Aachen, yet, and much like those city’s who owe their existence to canals, Aachen owes its existence, and name, to its waters: the thermal springs arising in the city meaning that since Roman times the peoples of the region, and from further afield, have visited to take the aquae, the waters, from which over High Middle German one arrives at Aachen.

We arrived at Aachen with a train from Cologne. But would the works on show at the FH Aachen summer exhibitions soothe our tired, aching sensibilities much as thermal springs soothe tired, aching muscles? And would it put that much missed spring back in our step………

#campustour Interview: Professor Helmut Jakobs

As with all creative professions, design is something into which one grows, where over time your position to it develops and evolves until such time as you reach a place where you are comfortable with what you are doing and why. Sure one starts of under the impression you understand design, the wise quickly realise they don’t, step back, reconsider, listen, observe, reconsider, experiment, listen, observe, reconsider, experiment and slowly but surely form their own position to and understanding of design, ultimately arriving at Bob Dylan’s realisation that “I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.”

An important, though not necessarily essential, step on that process is design school, a place for experimentation, observation, discourse and statics, and a place to come into contact experienced designers of various hues: consequently, when out and about on our #campustour we not only explore the student projects and consider underlying themes and priorities, but also speak to those responsible for design education, including Helmut Jakobs, who for neigh on three decades guided design students at the FH Aachen.

#campustour 2017: Diploma @ FH Aachen, Germany

Much like the aardvark, or Alvar Aalto, Aachen is always likely to find itself at the top of any alphabetical list.

But aside from such orthographic deceit, would the FH Aachen be at the top of our #campustour list…….?