Deichmanske Media Stations

The Deichmanske Media Stations are a collaborative project between the Academy for Art and Design in Offenbach, the Academy for Architecture and Design in Oslo, and OCEAN NORTH. Under the supervision of Professor Achim Menges und Professor Dr. Birger Sevaldson, students of the two universities designed and manufactured multimedia information stations for one of the largest libraries in Norway, the Deichmanske Library in Oslo.

The Media Stations are the product of an integrated design process. For the material system an innovative composite sandwich system originally designed for the Lounge Landscape was further developed. Consisting of a 3D spacer textile and glass fiber, it can be used to create lightweight, doubly curved surfaces that become transparent in light and combine a novel formal language and surface characteristics with a particularly high load-bearing capacity. The design methodology combined an investigation of the relationship between space, material object, human subject and the information display. The design process started from an in depth investigation of the production-related design restrictions rooted in the material system’s manufacturing and assembly logics.

In the later stages of the design process, participants created full-scale mock-ups in order to study ergonomics, light, and acoustics in numerous tests. In this way, the Media Pod was gradually adapted to the dimensions of the users in such a way as to support a wide and varied range of user activities and create a unique environment of light and sound. In its final version, the Media Pod consists of eight components bonded together to form one monocoque structure. The project participants were also responsible for producing the Media Stations. While the molds for producing the components were constructed with the help of the HfG Offenbach’s five-axle CNC milling machine, the actual production of the Media Stations took place in Kragerø, Norway, where the group received expert support from Ronny Andresen and the Ynor shipyard.

The complex interrelations of a wide variety of requirements and production-related restrictions led to the production of Media Stations distinguished by their special visual, haptic, and acoustic qualities.

Department of Form Generation and Materialisation, HfG Offenbach
Project Coordination: Prof. Achim Menges, Steffen Reichert, Nico Reinhardt
Project Team: Julia Aster, Marc Bischoff, Elena Burggraf, Nicola Burggraf, Daniel Kussmaul, Lukas Methner, Burkhardt Schempp

Institute for Industrial Design AHO Oslo
Project Coordination: Prof. Dr. Birger Sevaldson
Project Team: Olivier Butstraen, José Pinto, Rudi O. Wulff

OCEAN NORTH
Project Coordination: Michael Hensel