A piece of lead is wrapped in an old book page, glued, and sharpened. The resulting pencil is a wonderful example of how a feasible upcycling product series can be produced from a student prototype, which can be made in the Caritas workshops in charitable employment projects and then put on sale.
Supported by the consortium Postprodukt – Studio Dankl, Vandasye, and bkm design working group – and after visiting the workshops, NDU students fashioned products whereby priority was given to the socio-economic context,
production conditions, and the involved persons. A small exhibition during the VIENNA DESIGN WEEK outlined this evolutionary process and showed products like aprons, kitchen utensils, bookmarks and hand-made paper, many
of which are now taken over into the magdas Design range.
In addition, the talk “Design and Social Enterprises” delved deeper into the matter of social businesses.