Kiel’s Circular Design Journey

Design plays a central role in enabling circular production and consumption. Yet, are designers themselves truly equipped to respond to today’s resource crisis? To address this gap, Anschar GmbH developed a two-part programme providing industrial designers with practical tools, methods and insights for circular innovation.

Module 1: Short Project “Goldmine” A four-day intensive project challenged industrial designers to create new products using metal sourced directly from a junkyard. This hands-on experience demonstrated how discarded materials can be transformed into high-quality, valuable designs.

Module 2: Circular Design as a Lever for Transformation This module focused on the strategic side of circularity, exploring:

• Circular design principles

• Circular business models

• Economic benefits of sustainable and cost-effective design approaches

Together, these complementary modules equipped designers with both practical experience and conceptual knowledge, enabling them to integrate circularity into their everyday work.

Key Results:

• Module 1: “Goldmine”:

  • 32 participants

  • 20+ products created, incorporating circular design approaches such as:

    • Modularity

    • Repairability

    • Use of secondary materials

    • Emotional design

    • Design for disassembly

• Module 2: “Circular Design as a Lever for Transformation”:

  • 8 participants gained a solid understanding of circular design principles.

  • Participants learned to integrate circularity into their daily design and business practices.

  • Expanded professional networks and established new industry contacts.

Organizers:

• Anschar GmbH (Creative Center, Kiel, Germany)

• Muthesius University of Fine Arts and Design (Partner for Module 1)

• Circular Design Hub Hamburg (Partner for Module 2)

The Challenge

Planned obsolescence and mounting waste are growing problems at both local and national levels in Germany. Annually, the country generates 48.9 million tonnes of municipal waste, with an average of 613 kg of waste per person, significantly above the EU average (Statistisches Bundesamt, 2023). Despite Kiel’s zero-waste strategy, residents still produce an average of 497 kg of waste per person annually (Abfallwirtschaftsbilanz, 2022), underscoring the need to curb waste generation.

A major contributor to this issue is the intentional design of products with short lifespans and limited repairability, driving ongoing consumption and waste. This cycle leads to production surpluses and persistently high waste volumes, despite policy efforts aimed at recycling and resource efficiency.

Circular design directly addresses these systemic problems. By focusing on:

• Durability

• Repairability

• Modularity

• Use of secondary materials

Circular approaches reduce waste generation and resource loss, extending product lifecycles and breaking the cycle of overproduction and disposal. They also open opportunities for sustainable business models that align ecological responsibility with economic value.

Core Problem: Industrial designers lack the knowledge to integrate circularity into their business models and often remain trapped in the path dependencies of a linear economy. The aim was thus to equip designers with the skills and mindset to transition from linear to circular design practices.

• Constraints:

  • Designers often work as solopreneurs or employees, focusing on fulfilling immediate client needs.

  • Limited awareness of alternative, circular solutions.

  • Without targeted education and practical exposure, designers struggle to propose or implement circular approaches.

By improving their knowledge of circularity, designers can present alternative options and guide clients toward sustainable solutions, enabling them to explore more responsible ways of meeting their goals.

The Solution

The solution involved teaching solid knowledge of circular design in an educational setting, structured into two complementary modules:

1. Module 1: “Goldmine”

   • Four-day short project focused on hands-on creation using junkyard materials.

   • Goal: Demonstrate the practical feasibility of circular design.

2. Module 2: “Circular Design as a Lever for Transformation”:

   • Theoretical and strategic focus on circular design principles and business models.

   • Goal: Provide designers with the conceptual framework to apply circularity in their work.

The Results

• Total reach: 40+ direct participants in the two-module programme, with a wider audience engaged via social media.

Conclusion / Key Takeaways

The tangible outcomes of the Goldmine short project vividly demonstrated how attractive, high-quality products can be designed from reused materials. This visual proof was a powerful catalyst for change.

High participation interest and strong audience involvement confirm the programme’s scalability to other organisations.

While the focus was on industrial designers, future iterations could have a broader target group and include engineers and other professionals involved in product design to foster cross-disciplinary collaboration.

Inspirational Quotes

“The connection between design and the circular economy is that design plays a crucial role in making the products that are manufactured both usable and appealing to future consumers.”, Prof. Martin Postler, Muthesius University of Fine Arts and Design

“The question is: How can we close material loops? How can we use as much reusable material as possible? And how can we coordinate all of this effectively and make it available to everyone?”, Claudius von Thaler, Cultural Professional

Call to Action

Working with product designers and want to push them toward circularity? Use the Goldmine short-project format as a practical starting point for teaching circular design through real materials, constraints and making.