Project: ecobiente - More successful design of sustainable goods

Project manager: Konrad Götz Project Team: Konrad Götz Bente Zahl (till end of 2003) Bärbel Birzle-Harder Research Partners: econcept, Ursula Tischner, agency for ecology and design advisory services, Cologne Klaus Novy Institute, Cologne Cooperation Partners: Baufritz, Erkheim in the region of Allgeau Energiebau Köln (Cologne) Newcraft, Köln combinaat, Aachen Funding: Federal Ministry for Education and Research Duration: 09/02 - 06/05 Field of research Research Area: Mobility and Lifestyle Analyses about the Institute

The project "ecobiente" is all about the design of environmental friendly products and services in the range of construction and living – more specifically houses, domestic technique and furniture. The research institutes will accompany the project partners in developing new products, which are attractively designed, which account for the relevant consumer needs and which fulfill ecological demands as well. The participating project partners are: Baufritz from Erkheim in the region of Allgaeu, a company specialised in the high-quality ecological construction of houses (www.baufritz.de) energie bau  GmbH, located in Cologne, offers solar domestic technique and renovation of house fronts for low energy consumption Newcraft, a carpenters' network in Lemgo, in the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, furniture design and local production using CNC software, thus avoiding logistic expenses. the furniture producer combinaat designs multifunctional and vanguard furniture. A guideline for the companies was compiled during the first phase of the project, in order to acquaint them with a working general knowledge about product language and target group models. Check lists and workshops further helped them understand and describe their target groups, in order to find out how to address their target groups in the future. In the next project phase all partners had the task to design prototypes for new products. As early as the beginning of 2004, Baufritz had already managed to develop plans for new houses targeted at new target groups. These model houses were presented at the Cologne "Moebelmesse" (furniture fair) in January 2004 – and ISOE conducted qualitative interviews with fair visitors concerning the attractiveness of the houses. A group of people currently planning the construction of a home and potentially interested in ecologically built wooden houses were interviewed during the following, empirical project phase. The final project phase was used for empirically tests of all of the project partners' product designs (houses, furniture). The internet appearance and the entire corporate design were also tested for attractiveness and consumer acceptance among the target group and the results were presented to the project partners. Baufritz for instance directly implemented the recommendations concerning their internet appearance: www.baufritz.de On the basis of the qualitative research results the Institute for Social-Ecological Research developed a target group model for design in the range of ecological construction and living. (Presentation in German ) The final project conference took place in the Design-Center in Stuttgart, Baden-Wuerttemberg, on June 17th, 2005. Download preliminary report in German: 2.4 MB