PDR Help to Shape the Future of Design in Berlin

2025 marks twenty years since Berlin was designated a UNESCO City of Design, a milestone that presents an opportunity to celebrate achievements and reflect on how the city’s design ecosystem can evolve to meet future challenges.

PDR were commissioned by Berlin’s Senate Department for Economy, Energy and Public Enterprises to assess the city’s design ecosystem and develop strategic recommendations for its future.
As part of this collaboration, in December 2024, we facilitated a design policy workshop, bringing together a diverse group of stakeholders to explore Berlin’s strengths, challenges, and opportunities for growth.

The workshop revealed that many of the city’s strengths also present challenges. Berlin’s diverse design community, for instance, fosters innovation across disciplines but also results in fragmentation, making it difficult to align efforts. The city is a leading hub for design research in Germany, yet there are also limited structures to connect research with industry and policy.

In the workshop’s visionary exercise, participants embarked on an inspiring journey, collectively envisioning the future of the Berlin’s Design Ecosystem through collaborative imagination and discussions. This exercise encouraged them to visualise the ideal state of the ecosystem and foresee the outcomes of their collective efforts.

As a result of the workshop, several short-term actions were identified to drive immediate impact. These include:

Setting up a UNESCO City of Design Office to coordinate design initiatives and elevate Berlin’s global visibility.
Hosting workshops to define Berlin’s unique design identity and align stakeholders around shared goals.
Exploring the viability of a Chief Design Officer to provide leadership and embed design in public decision-making.
Conducting an in-depth study on design’s impact on Berlin’s economy, society, and environment.
Mapping global design policies to identify best practices that could be implemented in Berlin.
Launching design-for-policy demonstrators to test and showcase design-led governance solutions.
Collaborating with tourism and business development organisations to promote Berlin as a design-driven city.

PDR are committed to supporting cities and governments in developing evidence-based design strategies. If you’re interested in learning more about our approach to design ecosystems and policy development, get in touch!

More Information: pdr-consultancy.com/news/shapi[…]rkshop-insights

Last updated: 01/04/25