This landing page is a beta version. The virtual globe is a non-public archive and only accessible to participants.
Localizing Design Stories (locdstories) is a collaboratively developed teaching, learning, and research project that invites individuals interested in design to actively and critically engage with design history. It is based on an adaptable seminar format and an interactive platform, which we provide to groups of facilitators and participants.
Our goal is to offer a framework in which people can create a safer and brave space for reflection and negotiation—a space to practice telling their own alternative design stories, to refer to them, share them, situate them, make them accessible, speak, and listen. locdstories cultivates a space for collective authorship and acknowledges the care and tension involved in shared storytelling. It responds to the persistence of dominant, privileged design narratives. Arising from critical reflection on our own design education and positionalities, the project invites participants to share design stories they actively relate to—stories that are often missing from conventional, dominant historiographies.
Are you part of a group of design enthusiasts who want to actively and critically engage with design history by telling, sharing, and localizing your own design stories? Would you like to support the project financially, so we can pay contributors and improve the website? Or would you like to get involved in another way? In any case, feel free to email us: hello@localizingdesignstories.com
The initiator of the project is Bianca Kóczán. To this day, she has continuously cared for locdstories and continues to drive its development forward. She is joined by: Prof. em. Katrin Hinz and Prof. Birgit Weller, who opened thinking spaces at HTW Berlin – University of Applied Sciences, provided encouragement and suggestions for the application to the Teaching Innovation Fund (LIF); Pelin Celik, who agreed to support the application with her name and expertise as a professor of Industrial Design at HTW Berlin; Stella Marie Ockenga, who initially applied for the Teaching Innovation Fund together with Bianca as a student assistant and, during the funded project period of the LIF, worked on the project conceptually and in terms of design alongside project lead Bianca Kóczán and Clara Maj Lichius for one year as a student assistant; Ronak Jundi, who likewise contributed as a student assistant during the project period as part of her bachelor’s thesis developed the visual identity of the application, designing the Instagram account and presentation slides; Moritz Engers, who, as a student assistant, programmed the application using JavaScript and Node and initially hosted it on his private server; Prof. Rohma Khan of BNU Beaconhouse National University Lahore, who, together with Iman Sheikh and her teaching assistants Aiman Gillani and Anam Khurram, taught locdstories at BNU Lahore—thus acting as facilitators while also encouraging their students to contribute; Dr. Phil. Nargess Kodabahkshi, who co-taught locdstories for one semester with Bianca Kóczán at the University of the Arts Bremen (HfK). Students from HfK Bremen, Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle (BURG), the German International University Cairo (GIU), and BNU Lahore, who contributed to the project; Michaela Anzer, who met Bianca at the “Gestalterisches Forschen” symposium at BURG and invited her to co-teach the project in the context of design studies. She committed to further developing the project with Bianca; Steffen Schwenke from the computing center at BURG, who played a vital role in migrating locdstories from a private server to a publicly accessible domain; Prof. Klaus Michel, Prof. Dr. Veronica Biermann, and Prof. Dr. Pablo Abend, who provided financial support for the project’s exhibition at the Nordic Design Research Conference (NORDES); and last but not least Philipp Stingl, who is a constant counterpart and support.
Neuwerk – Magazin für Designwissenschaften 11: Gestalterisches Forschen, edited by Caroline Nölle, Grit Thönnissen, Daniel Tauer, Cristina Bundesmann, Halle (Saale) 2025, p.56–77.