Design has been devoted to technical and economic issues for decades. Given the current environmental crises, it is time to develop new perspectives on the relationship between design and nature. Design is no longer only a question of technological and material approaches, as it has dominated the view of design and architecture education in the past. Instead, fundamental aesthetic investigations are explored and theoretical reflections on the relationship between design and nature are undertaken that also engage with significant historical and academic positions.

During the summer semester, communication design students from Mainz University of Applied Sciences will be guests at the Design Campus in Pillnitz Park & Palace to explore the multi-layered interrelationships between design and nature. In the interplay between botanical observations, free design experiments, the reading of design-historical and current texts, discussions, design workshops and design exercises, new approaches to the historically significant design collections of the Museum of Decorative Arts will be sought as "nature interventions", integrated into the garden culture that can be directly experienced in Pillnitz.

Inspired by the impulses of design education in the late 19th century, which was about overcoming the formal language of the past, the project goes back to the roots: to open up perspectives for the future, young designers explore the "Language of Plants" directly on site. These fundamental design reflections on nature are intended to enable new and unusual approaches to the interrelationship between design and nature from the perspective of design – also to supplement the hitherto conventional technological and material approach to nature in the design field with current aesthetic views.