OIMD at the InnoTrans 2024 fair

The international trade fair for transport technology InnoTrans started on September 24 and will continue until September 27, 2024. The OIMD is of course also taking part – our colleague Annika Storch is showing a simulation of a future train station at the exhibition stand of the Eisenbahn-Bundesamt (Federal Railway Authority). Annika was already able […]

Jury member for the German Mobility Award 2024

Our colleague Daniel Rese is a member of the jury for the German Mobility Award this year! As a research associate at the OIMD, the product designer has been working for four years on research and design projects as well as in student courses on concepts for sustainable and accessible mobility for everyone. He is […]

Recap: Diversity as key to inclusive transportation

A few days ago, we hosted the exciting Women in Mobility panel discussion on the topic of “Diversity as a success factor for sustainable mobility”. We discussed why diversity is much more than just a trend – it is the key to future-proof mobility. Key learnings:– Focusing on similarities, being open to one another and […]

HOLM Innovationsmarktplatz on September 3, 2024

For the ninth time, innovative minds from the logistics and mobility industry met toprovide exciting insights into current projects and research results. Seven funded projects of the 2023/2024 funding period presented their groundbreaking ideas as part of HOLM’s innovation funding. The OIMD presented the VisKom project, which deals with the visualization and communication ofinnovative vehicle […]

Barriers and access – the semester project “moving_society”

Under the direction of Peter Eckart and Daniel Rese, students develop design solutions for objects and spaces that support every form of mobility: giving people a sense of security and freedom, enabling them to move seamlessly and without obstacles through public spaces – inclusively and universally.The design of access and barriers is a fundamental task […]

InterMoDe project at the “Conference City of the Future”

On March 13 and 14, experts from urban and mobility research, regional associations and municipalities, business, civil society and politics met in Berlin at the “Conference City of the Future 2024”. The Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the DLR Project Management Agency had invited participants to discuss results and experiences from the various […]

Station of the future: virtual reality test of two station types

From February 26 to March 7, we tested two types of train station in virtual reality (VR) together with the Institute for Social-Ecological Research (ISOE): a rural and a regional feeder station. 80 test persons were able to look around the simulated train and bus platforms and the virtual station building in our VR lab […]

POP_CYCLE: Prototype of a bollard system

On February 20, the universal bollard system POP_CYCLE was presented in Offenbach’s stadtraum. On behalf of VeloLAB, an innovation platform for bicycle mobility, the prototype of a universally usable bollard system was developed at the OIMD: Design students Edith Strecker and Johannes Bietz, under the supervision of Dipl.-Des. Daniel Rese, have designed protective and guiding […]

Federal Ministry approves phase 3 of our “InterMoDe” project!

Our project “InterMoDe – Designing the municipal mobility system” will be extended until August 2026 – the Federal Ministry of Education and Research has approved funding for phase 3. This means we can now continue our successful cooperation with the city of Offenbach. In the previous phases I and II, we investigated, among other things, […]

A ticket to the Mediterranean, please! Guest article in “Urban Shorts”

In a guest article in the magazine »Urban Shorts«, Peter Eckart shows what it means to understand mobility systemically: as a whole, independent of the mode of transport, based on the needs of the user. With an information design that makes it possible to perceive and understand all mobility options equally. In this way, every […]

A sports and cultural park under the highway bridge

Under the project name VAIRplay, the non-profit association VAIR e.V. wants to develop a public space that will enable more community spirit. An inclusive sports park is to be created under the Kaiserlei Bridge, below the A661 highway: The first public sports and cultural park in Offenbach! Sports parks are not only places for physical […]

First anniversary of radraum: Comeback of the “Sattelfest”

The radraum opened its doors over a year ago and has since made the hearts of Offenbach’s cycling enthusiasts beat faster. To mark the anniversary of this special meeting place for bike lovers, Daniel Rese has revived a long-lost tradition: the legendary Offenbach »Sattelfest«. On October 21, 2023, visitors strolled between the bicycle dealers’ stands […]

VAIRplay and HIGH¯LINE at Hessischer Rundfunk

Two OIMD projects on Hessischer Rundfunk: hessenschau.de reports on the designs of design students for a skate park under the highway bridge at Offenbach-Kaiserlei, which were created in the course “VAIRplay” by Kai Vöckler and Annika Storch: “Sport, play and skating under the highway bridge – Offenbach dreams of a sports park“. And in the […]

Offenbach understands the station! Surveys and VR tests launched

As part of our project “Designing the municipal mobility system 2”, we are launching a campaign together with the city of Offenbach to communicate our research to the urban public. This includes surveys, workshops and virtual reality tests with which we want to find out how Offenbach residents move around in their everyday lives: They […]

Visualization and communication of innovative vehicle concepts

Communicating visionary ideas requires not only the vision itself, but also effective design methods and communication strategies that address relevant target groups and communicate a vision of future mobility. Our recently launched research project “VisKom” is therefore looking at the potential of “images of the future” to promote technical innovations: how can innovative vehicle and […]

Mobility Design – Good means invisible

“Hessen schafft Wissen” spoke to Annika Storch and Julian Schwarze, research associates at the OIMD, about the role of design in the development of sustainable and attractive public mobility. The first part of the report was published today!

HIGH¯LINE: The cable car as a sustainable means of transportation

The cable car project by Peter Eckart and Daniel Rese was presented twice in Frankfurt: at the 2nd Cable Car Day of the Regional Association and at “S.O.U.P – The Urban Future Festival” at Palais Frankfurt. In collaboration with Prof. Dr. Jürgen Follmann from Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences and his colleagues, students from HfG […]

Reopening of the radraum

After a short break, the radraum is open again! What began as a semester project is now a meeting place for citizens, designers and local and national players in the bicycle industry. The radraum is dedicated to the bicycle as an ideal and sustainable means of transportation for urban areas. It offers a DIY repair […]

It’s moving day!

The time has come for our institute to move into the “Kubus” on Berliner Straße, in the immediate vicinity of HfG Offenbach. The professorships for Integrative Design (Peter Eckart) and Urban Design (Kai Vöckler), which form the OIMD, now have shared premises – teaching and research into mobility design have been brought together on one […]

Product Design Award for Peter Eckart

Peter Eckart’s studio unit-design has won two awards for its mobility design at this year’s German Design Awards! The mobility stations developed by unit-design together with netzwerkarchitekten for the Regiomove project, with which the mobility offers in the Karlsruhe area are linked and made visible, received a gold award for excellent product design. Another winner […]

Mobility Design Vol. 2 now available!

“Mobility Design Volume 2: Research” from our new series published by Jovis-Verlag is now available in bookshops, in German and English! While focussing on practice in Volume 1, Volume 2 now brings together research methods and results from the fields of design, architecture, urban planning, geography, social science, transport planning, psychology and communication technology. The […]

Recap: Mobility Design at Architektur Galerie Berlin

On December 8th 2022, Peter Eckart, Kai Vöckler and Andrea Krajewski presented the two volumes of “Mobility Design – Shaping Future Mobility” and the digital Mobility Design Guide at Architektur Galerie Berlin. Nice place, great audience, good discussion! Many thanks to everyone who was there – and especially to our host Ulrich Müller!

The bicycle market from a design point of view

A temporary space for the world of bicycles: In an external project room, the radraum, the teaching area “Integrative Design” at the HfG Offenbach (Prof. Peter Eckart, Dipl.-Des. Daniel Rese) dedicates one semester to the bicycle in all its facets: the object itself, its fundamental positioning (sport, everyday life, lifestyle), construction, materiality, drive, safety and […]

Winter program “Industrial Culture Route”

The digital winter program 2022/23 of the ” Industrial Culture Route”, organized by the KulturRegion FrankfurtRheinMain, focuses on future projects in the fields of mobility, working environments and urban development. Mobility design is also a topic: On Thursday, January 19, 2023 at 5:30 pm, Peter Eckart will provide exciting insights into the research and practice […]

Mobility Design at the Architektur Galerie Berlin

Mobility Design – Shaping the future of mobility Book launch and talk at the Architektur Galerie BerlinDecember 8, 2022, 7 p.m. WelcomeUlrich Müller, Architektur Gallerie Berlin Presentation byPeter Eckart, Integrative Design, HfG Offenbach University of Art and DesignKai Vöckler, Urban Design, HfG Offenbach University of Art and DesignAndreas Krajewski, Interactive Media Design, Darmstadt University of […]

Train station of the future

In our new project led by the Institute for Social-Ecological Research (ISOE), we have recently started working on the “Train Station of the Future”. The aim of the project is to draw up a catalog of measures with recommendations for the further development of the railroad station as the core of multimodal mobility platforms in […]

Superblock Offenbach-Nordend

The city of Offenbach has set itself climate targets. The 2021-2026 coalition agreement of the ruling traffic light coalition provides for the “establishment of open superblocks (sustainable, traffic-calmed urban quarter) to be tested on the basis of pilot projects”. A citizens’ initiative has taken this as an opportunity to draw up a study on Offenbach’s […]

Parking Day

On Parking Day, September 16, 2022, design students presented their designs for a superblock for Offenbach’s Nordend district. The designs developed in the teaching area of Urban Design (supervised by Prof. Dr. Kai Vöckler and Dipl.-Des. Annika Storch in the summer semester) were shown in virtual reality and thus made accessible to interested parties. In […]

Mobility Design at the HOLM Innovation Fair

At this year’s Innovation Fair at the House of Logistics and Mobility (HOLM), Andreas Grzesiek and Ken Rodenwaldt presented the results of our two HOLM projects. The “EmotDes” project focused on emotions while waiting in an S-Bahn station and the question of what influence design has on this. The “AI Trust” project dealt with the […]

Guest at the BDA Hessen

On June 14, 2022, Kai Vöckler and Peter Eckart presented the illustrated book “Mobility Design – Shaping Future Mobility, Vol. 1: Practice” at an evening event at the Association of German Architects (BDA) Hesse. The international best practice examples collected here demonstrate that there are already concepts and realized infrastructure projects today that make the […]

How do users perceive cycle streets?

In order to make cycling safer and more attractive, cycle streets have been established in many cities around the world, where cyclists have priority over motorized traffic. So far, however, there are no generally applicable guidelines for the design of cycle streets. And little is known about how different road designs are perceived individually. Yet […]

Book presentation, website launch and discussion on June 14

Masterplan Hauptbahnhof Amsterdam Benthem Crouwel Architects, Merk X und TAK Architecten

The illustrated book “Mobility Design – Shaping Future Mobility” (Jovis) brings together concepts and already realized projects from design, architecture and urban planning that make the future of sustainable and networked mobility tangible in an exemplary manner. The digital “Mobility Design Guide”, an interactive guide, offers models and research principles to support the planning and […]

Panel discussion “Rethinking mobility”

On March 22, 2022, RheinMain University of Applied Sciences and the German Architecture Museum are hosting a panel discussion on sustainable mobility: “Transformation: Rethinking Mobility” in the “Dialogue in the Museum” series. Also taking part: Kai Vöckler, Professor of Urban Design at the HfG Offenbach, Anne Klein-Hitpaß, Head of the Mobility Research Unit at the […]

Mobility Design in the DDC podcast

Kai Vöckler and Peter Eckart were guests on DDCast, the podcast of the German Designer Club, on February 27. Under the title “What is good?”, the DDC presents weekly interviews on questions of how to deal creatively with the problems of the present and their necessary transformations. In episode 79, the two spoke with Georg […]

Peter Eckart and Kai Vöckler at JOVIS positions

On the occasion of the recently published first volume “Mobility Design: Shaping Future Mobility”, Jovis Verlag asked Peter Eckart and Kai Vöckler four questions each in its JOVIS positions series about the traffic turnaround, the mobility experience, the potential and responsibility of design and mobility design and the effects on urban space.

VDID discussion event

On February 3, 2022 at 6:30 pm, the online event “Mobility – Shaping solutions together” will take place as part of the “future affairs” lecture series of the Association of German Industrial Designers (VDID). Perspectives from research and design will be discussed by four experts from the fields of mobility, design and social research. Together […]

“The Future of the City” at the Hypermotion

In autumn 2021, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Petra Schäfer from the Frankfurt University of Applied Science and Prof. Dr. Kai Vöckler from the HfG Offenbach took part in a panel discussion at the Hypermotion trade fair. Together with Dr. Denis Petri, Dr. Stefan Carsten and Prof. Dr. Andreas Knie, they discussed the future of the city. Those […]

Mobility Design Vol. 1 is out!

It’s here! Peter Eckart, Kai Vöckler and Heike Andersen unpack the first volume of the “Mobility Design – Shaping future mobility” series published by Jovis Verlag! There are already concepts and realized infrastructure projects that make the future of sustainable and networked mobility tangible in an exemplary way. Peter Eckart and Kai Vöckler present more […]

A look inside the “Emotion Design” lab

Hannah Weirich and Annika Storch setting up the virtual reality scenario for “Emotion Design” with seating and an animated suburban train. As part of this research project, designers from HfG Offenbach and cognitive psychologists from Goethe University Frankfurt are measuring the influence of various design parameters (material, color, light) on emotions during waiting situations on […]

Lambdaläufer – Walking bike

For his diploma (2021) at the HfG Offenbach, designer Andreas Grzesiek has created the “Lambdaläufer”: After sports injuries, in case of chronic joint pain or when riding a bike no longer feels safe due to age… The “Lambdaläufer” is a walking bike for adults that can be used for everyday trips even with physical limitations, […]