where climate action meets the future of design

Month: September 2026

Next Gen Design: Designers-in-Residence Programme Brings Young European Talent to Vienna

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From 24 to 27 September, designaustria hosted the designers-in-residence programme as part of its Next Gen Design project. Over four days, a group of emerging designers from across Europe took part in a packed schedule of talks, workshops, studio visits, guided tours, an assignment, an exhibition and an award ceremony.

Festival highlights

A highlight of the programme was a guided tour led by the designers in person during Vienna Design Week’ 20th  anniversary, giving the residents insight into current developments in the Austrian and international design scene. The festival also featured the Next Gen Design Edu Talks series, in which experts from different design fields shared their knowledge and experience with the participants.

Speakers included:

Juan Umbert Rosselló, Barcelona, about gastronomy innovations for global and regional brands with high market demand.

Barbara Gollackner (Studio Barbara Gollackner, Salzburg) who presented Rest in Beauty, a sustainability design project that reuses material leftovers from various handicraft sectors in Austria.

Reanne Leuning of the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber (WKO), who spoke about internationalisation opportunities for creative professionals.

Lotte Kristoferitsch, who introduced her social design research and her projects for EOOS next.

Traveling Exhibition “Futures Worth Living”

To bring the project’s vision to a broad audience, the Traveling Exhibition “Futures Worth Living” is on view at designforum Wien in MuseumsQuartier Wien until 24 October 2026. It presents the bold concepts of the 50 winners of the Next Gen Design Open Call 2026. The installation invites passersby to engage with these creative ideas and also serves as a tribute to the award-winning designers and their work.

Featured designers

Residents and exhibitors from all over Europe are showing their award-winning works at designforum Wien:

Abril Poblet Baringo, Giulia De Franco, Jana Valdé, Milja Brstina, Ougezihan Xieraili, Kelly Azevedo, Sara Bologna, Emily Klein, Natalia Valverde Garrido and Davide Onestini.

Christoph Pauschitz

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Christoph Pauschitz is Managing Director of GP designpartners, an industrial design studio based in Vienna working with clients worldwide.
For Christoph, innovation is inseparable from value. He believes products need genuine added value — that function, usability, and experience are what matter most.

He sees the potential for innovation in every market offering, always aiming for something better, simpler, and more convincing. He recognizes what’s missing, because without something new, there is no interest — and without interest, no value.

Lotte Kristoferitsch

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Lotte Kristoferitsch is co-founder of EOOS NEXT, an industrial design studio and social enterprise that responds to the world’s major challenges, such as the climate crisis and social injustice, through industrial design strategies. She sees design as a tool for social change, aiming to create alternatives for future, sustainable ways of living.

At EOOS NEXT, Lotte and her team strive for positive change by designing transformative technologies in fields such as mobility, health, water, self-sufficient sanitation, and electricity, driving forward social and sustainable design projects. To achieve this, they collaborate globally with universities and research institutes, social enterprises, and NGOs to improve the situation of people in need, working with Open Design and applying the principles of Circular Design across all their projects.

Barbara Gollackner

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Gollackner’s concepts show how design must dare to look beneath an attractive surface — she has developed a particular passion for conceptual work at the intersection of disciplines, driven by a curiosity for new methods, materials, networking and sharing.

With Wasteware, an experimental tableware project, Barbara created a series of pieces made entirely from food waste, using techniques ranging from moulding and pressing to 3D printing — turning something ordinarily discarded into objects of everyday use. Her collection Rest in Beauty follows a similar philosophy, giving new life to leftover, surplus, and overlooked materials. Working across wood, metal, and stone, from rare finds to everyday remnants, she creates simple, functional objects that balance minimalism with warmth, transforming what was once leftover into subtle, enduring design that quietly celebrates the uniqueness of what remains.

Alongside running her studio, Barbara serves on the board of designaustria and teaches at the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences.

Juan Umbert Rosselló

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Juan’s approach is rooted in systems thinking, circularity and interdisciplinary collaboration, with the aim of designing food experiences and tools that are not only desirable, but also meaningful, efficient and aligned with future environmental and social challenges.

Juan Umbert is CEO and Co-Founder of Makeat, a food design and innovation studio focused on rethinking how food systems are conceived, produced and experienced. His work operates at the intersection of gastronomy, design, technology and science, developing tools, products and experiences that connect creativity with operational reality across hospitality, food industry and brand ecosystems.

Beyond Makeat, he co-created Plesh, a new concept on the chocolate snack brand exploring new models of responsible indulgence taking out the sugar from the equation keeping the same pleshure, and co-founded liQeat, an R&D platform researching the future of liquid gastronomy through technology, process innovation and sensory design.

Barbara Weingartshofer

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Barbara Weingartshofer is a Vienna-based graphic and information designer with a deep passion for pictograms, typography, and the power of visual communication.

CEO of Nau Design since 2005, she specializes in creating compelling infographics using her design expertise to support international-driven social causes and advocate for gender equality.

In 2023, Barbara initiated and published Frauen zählen (Women Count), a collection of data focusing on the representation and experiences of women in professional design fields in Austria. This publication has been praised for shedding light on gender disparities and opened up an international conversation on women’s contributions and challenges in the design industry. Barbara was key note speaker at Next Gen Design: Women Creating the Future of Design at designforum Wien in September 2024. An active member of the International Institute of Information Design, Barbara is also a keynote speaker and advisor on the visualization of statistics.