Daniel Rese, a designer and research assistant at the Offenbach Institute for Mobility Design at the HfG Offenbach, is the citizen representative on the jury for the German Mobility Award 2024. He supports and supervises courses in integrative design and works on research projects on sustainable mobility at the institute. In 2022, he founded “radraum”, a project to promote bicycle mobility.
With his expertise in design and mobility, Rese will ensure that the awarded projects are innovative, user-friendly and relevant. As a designer, he brings an important perspective to the jury and will be able to assess the design quality of the entries. His previous experience as a Eurobike Award jury member underlines his qualifications. In this interview, Rese shares his motivation and explains why design has a key role to play in the future of mobility.
What does mobility mean to you – both professionally and personally?
As the bicycle played a central role in my childhood, I also worked on design projects for sustainable mobility during my studies in product design. After a few years of freelance work in various agencies, design and architecture offices, where I developed projects ranging from sharing bikes, pushchairs and sharing stations, I joined the Offenbach Institute for Mobility Design (OIMD) in 2020 as a teaching and research assistant. I never lost my passion for cycling. In 2022, I founded “radraum” as a social project to promote bicycle mobility, and at the beginning of the year, I spun it off as an association and a company.
In your opinion, what are the most important criteria that a digital mobility project should meet in order to be considered forward-looking?
Mobility projects today and in the future must offer application-oriented, creative and technologically intelligent solutions that are and will remain systemically relevant for society in the face of today’s multiple crises, global warming, wars, right-wing populism, transformation pressures and AI developments. They must also motivate people to change their current mobility behavior and communicate and create openness for a new, environmentally friendly future.
Why did you apply to be on the jury for the German Mobility Award?
Design plays a key role in the development of sustainable mobility concepts on many different levels. Design promotes acceptance, can increase user-friendliness and improve the mobility experience. At our institute, we have been proving for years with a large number of research projects that design plays a central role in the sustainability of new, sustainable mobility. I am delighted that this is also one of the decision criteria for this year’s German Mobility Award and I would like to contribute my expertise.
What perspective do you bring to the jury and its decision on the projects?
From my perspective as a designer, I can primarily assess the design quality of the entries. Given that design plays an important role in all phases of development through to communication, it is important that this perspective is also represented on the jury. After all, design isn’t just about making things pretty; it’s about creating intelligent systems, connecting them, and creating quality and identity for the user.
What are the most important aspects for you when judging the projects?
For me, projects that are forward-looking, intelligent and environmentally friendly in the long term are particularly important. The stringent communication of the project idea through a coherent design is particularly important to me.
