Sorry for (y)our Loss: Designing for What is Not

“Sorry for your loss.” Every language seems to have a phrase like this — words that help people connect with those dealing with the loss of someone they love, offering a moment of shared empathy.

Loss is a universal experience, deeply tied to life and being human. The act of letting go is essential to making space for something new. In this course, we’ll explore how loss shapes not only our personal lives but also our worldview and design practice.

In a time when long-held values and visions for the future are being questioned, we’ll examine how design can engage with absence. Working in teams, students will explore the many forms of loss—personal, societal, and cultural. Through intercultural and interdisciplinary projects, we will challenge the idea of „designing for absence,“ exploring how to give presence to what is no longer there.

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Guiding questions include:

How can voids, gaps, or absences become intentional design strategies?

What does it mean to design for something that’s no longer there—or was never there?

How can subtraction be used creatively, when design is often associated with adding things?

What does it look like to design for future losses or transitions? How can design foster resilience and respond to impermanence?

How can design recover, reinterpret, or respond to lost cultural practices or forgotten techniques?

What happens when we design for intangible elements like feelings, memories, or things we cannot touch?

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By the end of the course, students will create tangible works that reflect different perspectives on loss, sparking conversations about how design shapes meaning in uncertain times.