Muscat Daily

In co­op­er­a­tion with the Uni­ver­si­ty of Kas­sel's De­part­ment of Vi­su­al Arts and Ar­chi­tec­ture, GUtech held a sym­po­si­um ti­tled 'Build­ing/ Art/ In­ven­tion' at the uni­ver­si­ty’s premis­es in Hal­ban re­cent­ly.

The one-day sym­po­si­um launched at the same time a joint re­search pro­ject on lo­cal re­sources and new ma­te­rials, fund­ed by the Ger­man Aca­dem­ic Exchange Ser­vice.

“S­ci­en­tists, en­gi­neers and ar­chi­tects need to be cre­a­tive in or­der to re­alise their ideas. This sym­po­si­um is a plat­form for cre­a­tive ideas. To find in­no­va­tive so­lu­tions in dif­fer­ent fields, GUtech en­cour­ages in­ter­dis­ci­pli­nary re­search,” said Pro­fes­sor Dr Michael Modi­gell, rec­tor of GUtech.

In the re­search plat­form, 'Build­ing/ Arts/ In­ven­tion' of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Kas­sel, a team of artists, de­sign­ers and ar­chi­tects, are try­ing to find in­no­va­tive so­lu­tions.

“We bring to­gether ex­perts in the fields of vi­su­al arts, ar­chi­tec­ture, in­ter­ac­tion de­sign, in­dus­trial de­sign, ex­per­i­men­tal physics and ma­te­rial re­search,” said Pro­fes­sor Heike Kluss­mann of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Kas­sel.

For ex­am­ple one re­search pro­ject fo­cus­es on gen­er­at­ing en­er­gy by us­ing the tech­ni­cal prin­ci­pals of a so­lar cell.

The team cre­ates and man­u­fac­tures their own de­sign tools.

“We de­sign our own tools in the de­sign stu­dio of the uni­ver­si­ty. When you de­vel­op and pro­duce your own tools, you are not limit­ed and you can de­vel­op the tools ac­cord­ing to your own needs,” said Heike, who re­cent­ly re­ceived an award for her in­no­va­tive teach­ing meth­ods.

“From the first year on­wards, we en­cour­age stu­dents to teach and to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ties,” she said Heike.

Three stu­dents of the de­part­ment, Ni­co Kudiel­ka, An­dre May and Les­sano Ne­gus­si pre­sent­ed their joint mas­ter th­e­sis, called Ms Im-port/Ex-port pro­ject, a in­ter­dis­ci­pli­nary plat­form for arts, sci­ences and ed­u­ca­tion on the riv­er Ful­da, which flows through the ci­ty of Kas­sel.

Daniela Ott­mann, as­sis­tant pro­fes­sor at the de­part­ment of Ur­ban Plan­n­ing and Ar­chi­tec­tu­ral De­sign of GUtech, pre­sent­ed the joint-re­search pro­ject on lo­cal re­sources and new ma­te­rials.

“Our mis­sion is to ex­plore lo­cal ma­te­rials by ex­per­i­ment­ing and us­ing knowl­edge that was used in the past through in­vent­ing ‘new’ ma­te­rials for a fu­ture build­ing ma­te­rial in­dus­try and mar­ket in the sul­ta­nate,” said Daniela.

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Re­search pro­ject
on lo­cal re­sources
launched at GUtech

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