Prof. Dr. Katja Thoring
Head of the Chair
Curriculum Vitae
Katja Thoring holds the chair for "Integrated Product Design" at the TUM School of Engineering and Design. In her research, she explores the intersection of design, architecture, and engineering with a special focus on "creative space". Here, she investigates the influence of the physical workspace on creativity, productivity, and wellbeing, with the aim of improving working and learning environments accordingly. Her research methodology is based on design science, user-centered approaches, and new technologies and addresses topics such as design innovation, design methods, and speculative design for future scenarios. Katja studied Industrial Design at the University of the Arts in Berlin and at the California College of Arts in San Francisco. She completed her PhD at TU Delft in the Netherlands, where she also holds a visiting professorship since 2019. Other stations in her academic and professional career included a position as a research associate at the University of the Arts Berlin, a visiting professorship at the HPI School of Design Thinking in Potsdam, a brief employment at German design studio frogdesign, and the management of her own design studio "Thoring Design" based in Berlin. Before her appointment at TUM, she was a Professor of Integrated Design at the Anhalt University of Applied Sciences in the Bauhaus city of Dessau for 13 years.
Research Focus
• Smart Products & Spaces
• Creativity-Enhancing Workspace Design
• Design for Future Contexts
• Design and Innovation Methods
Research projects
• Hybrid Workspaces for the German Mittelstand
• The Biophilic Workspace
• A Landscape of Theory-Use in the Design Discipline
• Design and Innovation Methods
Teaching
• IPD Foundations – Entrepreneurial Product Design
• IPD Project – The Biophilic Workspace
• IPD Research Seminar
Publications
Thoring, K., Mueller, R. M., Desmet, P., & Badke-Schaub, P. (2022). Toward a unified model of design knowledge. Design Issues, 38(2), 17-32. Link
Thoring, K., Gonçalves, M., Mueller, R. M., Desmet, P., & Badke-Schaub, P. (2021). The architecture of creativity: Toward a causal theory of creative workspace design. International Journal of Design, 15(2), 17-36.
Thoring, K., Desmet, P., & Badke-Schaub, P. (2018). Creative environments for design education and practice: A typology of creative spaces. Design Studies, 56, 54-83. Link
Thoring, K., Huettemann, S., & Mueller, R. M. (2023). The Augmented Designer: A Research Agenda for Generative Ai-Enabled Design. Proceedings of the Design Society, 3, 3345-3354. Link
Thoring, K., Mueller, R. M., & Klöckner, H. W. (2023). Mind the Future Gap: Introducing the FOD Framework for Future-Oriented Design. Proceedings of the 56th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. HICSS, Maui, HI.
Thoring, K., Mueller, R. M., & Badke-Schaub, P. (2020). Workshops as a Research Method: Guidelines for Designing and Evaluating Artifacts Through Workshops. Proceedings of the 53rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. HICSS, Maui, HI. Link