Old Ideas, Thought Anew

01Summary

What happens in an idea workshop?

You get an everyday object and a simple task: make it better, make it smarter, or give it a new use. Then you spend three days asking unusual questions about it until a useful idea appears. At the end you build a model and present it to everyone.

This workshop was part of the Werkwoche, the international design week of the Faculty of Design at Technische Hochschule Augsburg (THA). Its name, “DenkMal neu”, is a play on words. Denk mal neu means “think again”, and Denkmal means monument. The workshop took place inside one: the old Augsburg gasworks.

The 2024 edition had one extra theme: how artificial intelligence changes the way we see everyday products.

Participants were put into teams at random. Our team chose a plain drinking bottle. We questioned it from every angle, found one real problem behind it (most people drink too little water) and built a model from modelling clay and LEGO. We called it TEKBOO. It won the vote with 14 votes.

Day 1 · Mon 11 NovArrive and exploreWelcome, methods, random teams, choosing an object, tour of the gasworks. Day 2 · Tue 12 NovAsk and inventTen groups of questions, a wall of sticky notes, one clear concept. Day 3 · Wed 13 NovBuild and presentSketches, a clay and LEGO model, a pitch and a vote.

02Context

Who ran it, and where

Host event

Werkwoche 2024

The international design week of THA’s Faculty of Design, 11–15 November 2024, with workshops and talks on design, art, media and artificial intelligence.

Organiser

THA_Funkenwerk

THA’s Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. It helps students and researchers turn ideas into projects or companies, and offers to keep supporting ideas from the workshop afterwards.

Facilitation

RAUM208

An Augsburg agency for communication and design, working in brand development, strategy, graphic design, web and photography. Two of its co-founders led the workshop. The agency has run this format at several editions of the Werkwoche.

Workshop room in the Ofenhaus with a large translucent sculpture hanging from the ceiling — The Ofenhaus, our workroom for three days.

A former factory as a workroom

The workshop took place on the grounds of the old Augsburg gasworks, a listed industrial monument that no longer produces gas.

Today the site is the Gaswerk Kreativquartier, a creative quarter with studios, coworking space and event rooms. Our workroom was the Ofenhaus, the former furnace house.

The place fit the task. A building that once had one job and now has a new one is a good place to practise giving objects a second life.

The workshop ran in German. Drinks and snacks were provided, and everyone was asked to bring a creative tool of their own, such as a laptop, tablet or sketchbook.

03Starting point

What was on the table

A long table of ordinary things: an iron, an apple, a hammer, a bike helmet. Each team took one object. Ours was the dark drinking bottle with the black cap.

Objects on the table: mirror, iron, hammer, tape measure, towel, T-shirt

Objects on the table: the dark drinking bottle, compass set, pliers, scissors

Objects on the table: hole punch, apple, computer mouse, power strip, plant, tools

Objects on the table: bike helmet, spray can, plant, paintbrush

Stills from a short video of the object table, taken on day 1. Tap a number to see what it is.

Day 1Mon 11 Nov · 13:00–17:00

Arrive and explore

Meet strangers, learn the methods, choose an object, and walk through a factory that got a second life.

Welcome

The workshop started in the Ofenhaus with a short welcome. The facilitators explained the plan for the three days and the theme of the year: artificial intelligence and how it changes the way we see products.

Teams by chance

Nobody chose their own team. Participants were mixed at random, so most of us worked with people we had never met.

Each team then took one object from the table. The task was the same for everyone: keep the object, but make it better, make it smarter, or give it a new use. We took the bottle.

The methods

Before any ideas, the facilitators wrote the methods for the coming days on a flipchart. Each one is a way to stop thinking in habits:

Brainstorming

Say every idea out loud. No judging yet.

Mindmapping

Mind mapping

Start with one word and branch out to related ideas.

Storyboarding

Draw how a person uses the product, scene by scene.

Mood Boards

Mood boards

Collect images and colours to define a look and feeling.

Akteursmaps

Stakeholder maps

List everyone who deals with the product and how they connect.

Perspektivwechsel

Change of perspective

Look at the object as a child, a critic, an animal or an alien.

Was wäre wenn…?

“What if…?”

Change one rule of reality and see what follows.

Reizwort-Analyse

Trigger words

Combine the object with a random word to force new links.

Tour of the gasworks

Later that day we left the room for a guided tour of the old gasworks: the machine hall, the old engines, iron railings and tall arched windows.

The tour set the tone. These halls were built for one purpose and are now used for something completely different. That was exactly our task for the bottle.

Every day had time for a break: coffee, snacks and conversations with people from the other teams.

Participants standing in a round historic hall of the gasworks — The tour, inside one of the historic halls.

Day 2Tue 12 Nov · 12:00–17:00

Ask and invent

Ten groups of questions, one wall of sticky notes, and slowly one idea that kept coming back.

Part 1: invent something new

Each team got a sheet called Teil 1 (Part 1) with ten groups of questions. Every group looks at the object from a different angle. Some questions are practical. Many are strange on purpose, for example: Which Harry Potter house would your object belong to? or What would it be like in 500 years? Strange questions push you past the first, obvious answers.

How it worked

One person reads a question out loud.
Everyone writes their own answers on sticky notes, one idea per note.
All notes go on the wall under the question number.
The team discusses the notes and looks for links.

The ten question groups · tap one to see the questions and our answers

Questions translated from the original German sheet. Answers copied from our sticky notes. The photos of our wall show groups 1 to 7.

Wall with sticky notes grouped under numbers 1, 2 and 3 — Our wall, groups 1 to 3. Each number marks a question group.

Sticky notes for question group 2 — Group 2

Sticky notes for question group 4 — Group 4

What the wall told us

The photos of our wall show more than 70 ideas on sticky notes, spread over seven of the ten question groups. Some were practical, like a UV filter or a reminder to descale. Many were playful, like a bottle that is a mermaid or a bottle that floats in the air.

When we read all the notes together, one theme came up again and again: the bottle as a character. It was motivating, pushy, comforting, sour when you drink too little. Under the fantasy sat a simple, real problem: many people forget to drink enough water. We chose this direction and made the bottle’s personality the solution.

From wall to product: where each feature came from

No feature was invented at the end. Each one goes back to notes on the wall, often from the strangest questions. Tap a row to follow one idea.

Part 2: from idea to a product that could exist

A second sheet, Teil 2, asked us to be realistic. Describe the product in detail. Name its strengths and its weak points. Define who would buy it and who would refuse it. Check if it could be sustainable. The sheet suggested imagining that we had to defend the product in front of an investor, a buyer and a critic.

We wrote our answers by hand. This is a clean version of them:

Hand writing notes on paper next to a plate of croissants — Writing up Part 2.

TEKBOO · concept

From our handwritten Part 2 notes

The problem

People drink too little water.

Linked topics we noted: health, motivation and loneliness.

The solution

Give the bottle a personality.

A bottle with a face that reacts and motivates you, so drinking becomes a small relationship instead of a task.

What it does

Tracks how much you drink with a sensor and analyses the contents
Connects to an app and a smartwatch via Bluetooth
Encourages you to drink with a living face
Rechargeable; keeps drinks hot or cold
Optional filter as an accessory
Small feet (it can’t walk); game elements with sound

Why it is better

Interactive motivation helps with the emotional hurdle of “I’ll drink later”
Several functions in one, so it replaces other bottles
Gives you an evaluation of your drinking
Clear limits, inspired by Asimov’s robot laws: it must respect personal boundaries

Who would love it

Adults from their mid-20s to mid-50s, all genders, in cities
Higher education and income, for example in finance or media
People who value progress, prestige and self-care
Fitness and lifestyle fans, business people, people with health conditions, people who sit at a computer all day

Who would refuse it, and the weak points

Older people and people with an alternative lifestyle
More expensive; a lifestyle product
Dependency, distraction, transparency
Charging the battery, cleaning, more weight, the display

Sustainability check

Less waste
Fair production, recyclable materials
Replaceable components
Works with or without a battery

Feelings it should create

Joy, enthusiasm and an emotional bond.

Day 3Wed 13 Nov · 10:00–17:00

Build and present

Paper, clay and LEGO. By the afternoon the bottle had a face, a name and an audience to convince.

Part 3: prototyping and presentation

The last sheet, Teil 3, turned the concept into something you can hold. It listed seven steps:

Sketch the product and try different shapes.
Build a prototype with LEGO, modelling clay or paper. Rough is fine.
Find a name. Collect ideas on sticky notes.
Choose colours: light or dark, friendly or threatening?
Write a slogan: one exaggerated advertising line.
Plan production and sales: factory, handmade or open source? Online or in shops?
Present the idea, its use and its users to all teams.

Work table with bottle sketches, LEGO bricks and modelling clay — Our table on day 3.

Giving it a face

The face became the heart of the design. We sketched the bottle with eyes and drew four moods: sad, happy, neutral and angry. Drink regularly and the bottle is happy. Forget it and it gets grumpy. The idea came straight from the wall, where one note read “sour (drank too little) >:(”.

Other sketches showed a 360° display, a fill-level display, a filter, a speaker and a charging point. We chose the name TEKBOO.

From bottle to TEKBOO

Then we built it. We covered the real bottle from the object table with teal and blue modelling clay, added a handle and small feet, and put little LEGO plants and flowers on top. Each team member took one part of the build. Drag the slider to compare.

3D illustration of the plain dark drinking bottle with a black cap

3D illustration of TEKBOO: the bottle covered in teal clay with a handle, feet and LEGO flowers

BeforeAfter

Before

A plain, dark, see-through drinking bottle with a black flip-top cap. One object among many on the table.

After

The same bottle as TEKBOO, the clay and LEGO prototype. Clay covers the body and the cap: a teal top with a handle, a marbled blue middle and small feet. LEGO plants and flowers sit on top.

3D illustrations based on our photos of the real bottle and the clay model. Both are shown at the same scale, from the same angle.

Hands shaping teal modelling clay around the bottle, LEGO bricks on the table — Building, layer by layer.

Two bowls of food and drinks on a table — Lunch together before the final round.

04Result

Four pitches, one vote

Every team presented its idea to the whole group. Then all participants voted with tally marks on a flipchart.

051014

Votes counted from the tally marks on the flipchart.

TEKBOO received 14 votes, as many as the other three teams together. The winning team got a small souvenir: a table-tennis paddle and ball, plus flyers from THA_Funkenwerk and the gaswork coworking space.

Why the idea worked

A real problem. Behind the playful face is something almost everyone knows: forgetting to drink water.

One clear character. A bottle with moods is easy to picture. The four faces explain the product without many words.

Honest limits. We named the price, the battery, the risk of dependency and who would never buy it. That makes a concept believable.

Flipchart listing four team names with tally marks — The vote: TEKBOO, You Hoo, Help Soon – The Spoon, Crystal House.

Table-tennis paddle and ball on top of three flyers — The souvenir.

05Team

Five people, one result

This was teamwork from the first sticky note to the last vote.

The five team members celebrating with the souvenir — Team TEKBOO after the vote.

Nothing in this case study is the work of one person. All five of us wrote notes for every question, read them out and discussed them. We made the decisions together, for example to focus on drinking water and to give the bottle moods.

In the practical part we split the work. Each person took one part of the production. Then we put the parts together into one model and one presentation.

The workshop ran in German, and our notes switch between German and English.

Ideas. Everyone wrote notes for every question.
Discussion. Notes were read out and grouped together.
Decision. The concept was chosen as a team.
Build. Each person took one part of the production.

06Reflection

How I approach ideas

The workshop gave me a way of thinking I can repeat. These are the rules I took from it.

01Open upCollect many ideas, judge none

02ProvokeStrange questions break habits

03ClusterFind the pattern on the wall

04GroundConnect it to a real problem

05ChallengeName the weak points

06MakeBuild it, show it

01

Collect first, judge later.

Many notes on our wall were useless on their own. Together they pointed in one direction. Collecting ideas and choosing ideas are two separate steps.

02

Strange questions lead to useful answers.

Questions about the bottle’s personality and mood sounded like a game. They produced our strongest feature: a bottle with feelings.

03

Look for the pattern, not the best single note.

No single note won. The idea appeared when we saw the same theme in several question groups.

04

Connect fantasy to an everyday problem.

The bottle could have become a water cannon or a genie. We kept the character and tied it to a real problem: people forget to drink.

05

Criticise your own idea early.

Our own notes called the bottle “annoying” and “pushy”. We turned that into a design rule: the bottle has to respect personal limits.

06

Make it visible early.

A sketch or a rough model shows an idea faster than a long discussion. Our clay model made TEKBOO understandable at a glance.

07

Decide together, build in parallel.

Five people who had just met, three days. It worked because ideas were shared openly and decisions were made as a group. Then each person took one part of the build.

07Skills

What this workshop trained

Each skill below is tied to something we actually did.

Skill	What we did	When
Structured idea generation	Worked through the question groups with methods like “What if…?”, change of perspective and trigger words. Produced several dozen sticky-note ideas for one object.	Day 2
Finding the core idea	Read the whole wall, spotted the theme that kept coming back (the bottle as a character) and connected it to one everyday problem.	Day 2
User and market thinking	Described the target group by age, income, values and lifestyle. Named who would reject the product and why.	Day 2
Critical evaluation	Listed weak points openly: price, battery, dependency, weight, cleaning.	Day 2
Sustainability thinking	Checked materials, recycling, replaceable parts and energy use before building.	Day 2
Rapid prototyping	Went from sketches to a physical clay and LEGO model within one day.	Day 3
Naming and visual identity	Chose a name, colours and four facial expressions that carry the concept.	Day 3
Presenting	Presented the concept to all teams. Won the vote with 14 votes.	Day 3
Teamwork with strangers	Worked in a random team and reached shared decisions within three days, in German.	Day 1–3

Rethink It: Old Ideas, Thought Anew