Design

We champion the next generation of change agents who passionately reimagine material culture.

People-product relations and material flows are central to our design interventions that address today’s complex challenges.
We foster a process-oriented perspective that reflects meaning and values. Symbols, signs, objects, and materials are our playing field. Through collaborative and practice-based design approaches, we harness the power of change through design.

We ask questions, engage stakeholders, experiment, and prototype solutions.
How might we…

• develop visions for a bright and liveable future?
• understand materials as matters of activity?
• shift from sustainability to regeneration?
• foster creative entrepreneurship?
• achieve excellence in our field?

Digital Ideation

We drive innovation at the intersection of technology and society, creating sustainable impact through interdisciplinary collaboration.

This unique program empowers you to transform emerging technologies into sustainable, everyday realities through interdisciplinary collaboration, focusing on projects that promote local impact and align with our core values.
Engage with assignments from external partners or your ideas, all discussed in dynamic plenary sessions. Benefit from insights provided by expert coaches and utilize cutting-edge methods and tools.
Gain hands-on experience in the following areas: User Experience and Interaction Design, Augmented / Virtual Reality, Web Applications, Data Visualization, Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning.
Our research-oriented approach ensures that you develop competencies that endure beyond your master’s program.

We ask questions, engage stakeholders, experiment, and prototype solutions.
How might we…

• foster curiosity and experimentation?
• invite, engage, and enable people?
• design for complex adaptive systems?
• make use of emerging technologies?
• evaluate impacts and facilitate transitions?

Eco-Social Design

We design for the well-being of current and future communities, redefining the role of designers to advance eco-social transformation.

We are committed to creating sustainable, equitable, and resilient futures. Our interventions address systemic challenges by focusing on the individual, the commons, and the planet. We tackle social, environmental, and economic issues through collaborative, practice-based approaches.
Eco-social designers engage with the complex, “wicked” problems of living within the planet’s ecological limits, navigating intricate systems and working with both human and non-human actors to design interventions at multiple scales — from experimental prototyping and community activism to policymaking and organizational redesign.

We ask critical questions, engage stakeholders, experiment, and prototype solutions.
How might we:

• use design to initiate change within complex, adaptive environments?
• understand and respond to challenges systemically?
• embed regeneration into design, systems, and organizational practice?
• prototype infrastructures for resilient communities?
• foster planetary thinking and transformation literacy?

Service Design

We design services from insight to implementation, ensuring coherence across digital and physical touchpoints and the organization’s ability to deliver them.

Services are central to the human experience in everyday life. They facilitate trust and interaction between individuals, governments, businesses, and society as a whole. While some accompany us over the long term, others are accessed periodically. They all operate across multiple touchpoints, from digital to physical, people to places.
We aim to design services that enable people and organizations to achieve their objectives. Service Design goes beyond enhancing customer experience; it also acts as a catalyst for meaningful change within organizations. This transformation allows for the delivery of services across multiple channels through new values, policies and processes, technologies, and innovative organizational methods.

We ask questions, engage stakeholders, experiment, and prototype solutions.
How might we…

• foster curiosity and experimentation?
• envision future services and organizations?
• apply concepts of inclusivity, caring, ethics, trust, and sustainability?
• shape a culture of participation?
• address crises, take risks, and deliver impact?

You will develop theoretical and practical competencies in the learning modules through interdisciplinary and systemic approaches. By engaging with various frameworks, you will inform, guide, and reflect on practical design projects. Our graduate program enables you to explore, adapt, and apply core literacies to address future challenges.

Core Modules
Core modules focus on MA-specific subject matter, methods, and collaboration competencies. 

Focus Modules
Theme based learning 
These modules include 20 short, 2-day classes and workshops covering diverse topics such as research, design, futures, services, interactions, and sustainability. Full-time students select 6 modules per semester; part-time students choose 3 modules. 

Project Module
Project based learning
This module supports the development of projects related to your individual or collaborative thesis. It includes the initial introductory project week and weekly coaching sessions to help you prepare for your MA thesis. Individual mentoring is key to student-tailored learning experiences. 

Prototyping Module
Workshop mentoring 
Prototyping modules provide introductions to workshops and focus on several key areas during the first year, including:

• material and process sampling
• process and solution-oriented prototyping 
• 3D sketching and mock-ups
• digital experimentation, physical computing, and prototyping
• explore narratives via visual media

The advanced prototyping module 3 encourages you to explore and experiment, refine your ideas, and evaluate your thesis concepts.

Design Perspectives
Ideas, insights, methods
In discussing the state of design, we probe the scope of what is understood as designable. We examine frameworks, methodologies, case studies, and insights gained from professionals and educators.

Research Perspectives
Ideas, insights, methods
Students explore advanced research methodologies in the design field and enhance their academic writing skills. Faculty members, researchers, and experts will lead sessions that include lectures, workshops, group projects, peer feedback, and writing clinics.

Connect Projects
Project based learning 
Connect projects are two-week agile design sprints typically scheduled in the middle of the semester. During these sprints, students work in groups to respond to a briefing from external partners in business, research, society, or politics. The first week focuses on ideation, while the second is dedicated to prototyping.

Innovator Module
Project based learning 
The Innovators module connects students with local industry partners, start-ups, researchers, or service providers through guest lectures, work observations, and site visits. Students explore and evaluate their thesis hypotheses and concepts alongside external practice partners.

Independent Studies
Project based learning 
Deep dive into a specific aspect of your thesis with a faculty member. Propose a research focus, identify a mentor, and develop targeted design research insights with research partners across HSLU.

+network, +research
Ecologies of interventions
These modules offer interdisciplinary collaboration between art, film, and design as well as networking with practice partners. Study trips, lectures, workshops, and excursions to exhibitions deepen theoretical knowledge and develop practical skills. Projects, discussions, and guest lectures promote the exchange of ideas and experiences.

ISA Modules (LINK)
Interdisciplinary courses
Together with the University of Lucerne and the Lucerne University of Teacher Education, the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts offers inter- and transdisciplinary modules open to students from all fields of study. By attending interdisciplinary courses, students acquire additional skills and valuable knowledge that will enable them to collaborate with other disciplines in their future practice.

Research Thesis
Facts, findings, insights
Self-selected research topic situated within a context of relevant contemporary issues and questions. It should include a comprehensive examination of the research thesis along with a detailed overview of the design project. The final chapter includes reflections on the overall process, outlook, and impact of the work.

Thesis Colloquium
Reflective practices, mutual support 
Seminars foster reflection and discussion within a cohesive student cohort. You will explore and refine your work methodologies and thesis topic through peer feedback, supplementary readings, and relevant exercises.

Design Thesis
Insights to innovation
Building on the findings, insights, and outcomes of your research thesis, you will address relevant contemporary issues through design. You will plan and deliver the thesis independently or as a collaborative project between two or more students and present and exhibit your prototypical interventions or design solutions.

You will design your thesis throughout your entire master’s program. This approach includes different pathways tailored to accommodate full and part-time students.

You will be asked to propose a thesis space, research question, or hypothesis for the first semester. We will challenge you to define a wicked problem – an intervention space without predefined/designed solutions. You are strongly encouraged to propose a joint research topic with others.

In the second semester, you develop an expose, concepts, and prototypes leading to your thesis proposal. Coaching sessions help you to present, discuss, and iterate your design thesis.  Building on the ‘shoulder of giants’ – existing research, innovations, or design opportunities – you will be asked to develop your own or collaborative approach to innovation.

During the third semester, you will research and write the research thesis, discuss your work in the thesis colloquium, iteratively prototype your designs in the prototyping module, and explore the impact in the Innovators Module. Meetings and presentations with your thesis advisors, select faculty, and your advisee cohort will help you showcase your work and receive feedback on the following:

• How do your research insights support your thesis intervention or concepts?
• How do the prototypes bring concepts to life and express intended design qualities?
• How do you evaluate and test the impact of your prototypical design interventions?

Each feedback round should inform your thesis iterations.

or the final semester, you will conclude your design intervention and prototypes, evaluate their impact, and document and reflect on the outcomes. Mentoring sessions and the thesis colloquia will support you throughout this process. During your final thesis presentation, you will position your research insights, showcase your prototypes, and model their potential impact before a jury of external evaluators and faculty members. Additionally, you will exhibit your thesis outcomes to a broader audience at the degree exhibition, known as Werkschau.

The final thesis presentation allows you to present yourself and your work.
Tell your story in an engaging way. The key questions to address are:

Why? Purpose, problem, context
What? Concept/design intervention
How? How does it work? Experienced through a prototype.
For whom? What are the value propositions, and for whom?
Impact on planet, society, communities, and clients.

Schedule
Studies start mid-September.
4 Semesters @120ECTS are Full-Time Studies.
6 Semesters via Part-Time is our alternative model to be individually established.

Our typical daily schedule: 9.30 – 10.45
Break 11.00 – 12.30
Lunch 13.30 – 15.00
Break 15.15 – 17.00
Evening classes 17.30 – 19.30

Workload and attendance
1 ECTS is equivalent to 30 hrs of work.
30 ECTS per semester are equivalent to a workload of 900 hrs (Full-Time).
4 days of attendance in person per week (Full-Time).
2.5 days of attendance in person per week (Part-Time).
Wednesday is our coaching day.
We expect some self-study time on the weekends.

Each course or module must be attended with a minimum of 80% to pass.
Besides attendance, all courses include exercises, presentations, or project work.
All modules provide class instruction from week 1 to 14 of each semester.
The rest of the time (in between semesters) is dedicated to self-studies.

Language
All our MA programs in Design, Digital Ideation, Eco-Social Design, and Service Design are taught 100% in English.
You can write/present your research thesis in English or German.
Please be considerate and help non-native speakers.