City partners with Berlin on design

INDUSTRIAL designers and manufacturers in Shenzhen are expected to have easier access to German resources as the city partnered with Berlin on industrial design at the Ninth China (Shenzhen) International Design Festival, which opened at the Bao'an Public Library on Friday and ends tomorrow.

　　Themed "Creating and Sharing the Future," the five-day event features designers from Germany, Sweden, Scotland and China sharing their experiences in the areas of artificial intelligence, robots, 3-D printing and personalized digital fabrication at forums, workshops and exhibitions.

　　Visitors were awed by elegant designs and fine craftsmanship of everyday practical items — such as watches, glasses, lamps, pens, and an array of ceramic and glass ware — on display at the "Handmade in Germany" section.

　　German designer, Matthias Philipp, said that the products, all handcrafted in Germany with very limited production, were made by small family-run companies who are very interested in coming to China.

　　Design is very relevant for all of us and we want to show the German designs, designers and our design tradition. That's why we came to promote our products to the Chinese people, to give them the possibility to learn about our designers' tactics and the process behind," he said.

　　Philipp, who signed the cooperation deal with SIDA as the manager of Direktorenhaus Berlin and visited the city's industrial design fair last month, said that he found a lot of interesting designs by young Chinese designers and thinks the city has very good and innovative ideas.

　　Katrin Buchta, German consul-general in Guangzhou, introduced the strategy of the German Government's policy on "Industrial 4.0" at a forum Friday.

　　“There are a lot of factories in China that don't use robots or high-level computers to organize production, I think in this respect, China can learn from Germany and Germany's strategy of Industry 4.0 — how to introduce automation and digitalization into production process," Buchta said.

　　"But it's not just China learning from Germany — in some areas China is at the top of the world," she said.

　　Eight maker groups gave road shows at the festival, with programs on intelligent hardware, wearable devices, smart electronic products and robots.

　　Shirley Feng, secretary general of SIDA, said that the festival "bridges" local and German designers. "We hope that their designers inspire us to improve our own designs, and that this occasion may create more opportunities for cooperation."