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»superficial ... myth of the facades «

The design project at the Faculty of Design deals with facades, described by the term "superficial". The intention was to design personal facades, which are the information carriers of their contents. The body connects to the space via the facade, the surface functions as an interface between the "inside" and the "outside". The project series is called "body coverings". Our body covers are to be understood as the designed space around us, which presents itself in our clothing, in the objects around us and in the architectures we enter. Our body surfaces serve as medium for visual communication.

The title "superficial" refers to the surface with which we communicate when we design coverings for and around our bodies. At the same time, this term also refers to the flat material which, by forming the surface, becomes physical, i.e. is transferred into the spatial.
When we design surfaces, we want to make the objects or people in them sensuously experienceable.

The beginning of the question about cognition is represented by a change in the perception of the surface. Adam and Eve recognize that they are naked after having fed the fruit of the tree of knowledge. They begin to judge by what is visible and they have to leave paradise.

The provocatively used term "superficial" has a negative connotation, because the inner values are apparently ignored. And yet the superficial represents the transition from inside to outside. The surface, the façade represents the content.

In our design project in this winter semester 2014/15 we dealt with this architectural dimension of clothing, which can be called that way. How clothing functions and communicates as a facade, and how we are perceived through our facades. How do we design or even manipulate this external perception? Are there openings, windows and insights to the inside on our surface?

This led to the first photographic research: "Everyday Facades" Where are our surfaces and what do they look like? This was followed by a further photographic research on the topic "The skin as a message", how we communicate via our outer skin, our next body shell. An exploration of the psychology of our layered covers.

This was followed by an experimental exercise in dealing with the material textile. Spatial textile devices were created in space, covering bodies with drapes. These enveloping structures were directly documented photographically. This resulted in several photo series.
The resulting interest in the material textile gave reason for a more intensive study of different types of textiles, materials of surfaces.

This was followed by a technical discussion: how can textile spaces be produced. The clothing cut, or unwinding, creates the transition from the two-dimensional material, e.g. fabric, into the three-dimensional. In order to teach the basics of the pattern technique, my mother, Renée Hepp, a pattern designer for clothing by profession, came to visit.

When considering the surface as the interface of an exchange from the inside to the outside, it is possible to think about the "from the outside to the inside" and about "what we take in". An excursion into the design field of "Eating Design" gave reason to organize a dinner. The theme of the "superficial" was translated into food, the interaction of cooking and eating together was seen as a design task. Christian Bauer gave a gastrosophical lecture at the round table. The joint action of the dinner was the key event for the teamwork now beginning, the joint performance to present the project as a whole.

The aim of the semester project was to produce designs on a real scale 1:1. Each participant designed a lifesize model on the topic of facades. The projects moved away from the convent

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