Short bio

Nitzan Cohen is a product designer, art director and educator.

Cohen, a professor of product design and Dean of the Faculty of Design and Art at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano. At unibz Cohen founded the ‘Design Friction Lab’ a multidisciplinary Research Lab, and Design Studio at the intersection between science and the industry, of reality, vision and innovative solutions, defying market expectations and inducing reflexivity. Cohen's work aim to inspires designers, researchers and industry to push boundaries and explore new possibilities, leading to a more sustainable and equitable future. 

Cohen won several international design awards, and his work is part of the most renowned design collections worldwide. 

Main Research Areas

Together with the Design Friction Lab, Cohen currently develops projects focusing on crafted electronics and DIY culture, distributed manufacturing and open-source production, nano-electronics, biodegradable sensors and electronics, growing materials, enhanced fermentation processes, regenerative design, Micro
Farming, technologies for circular design and production.

Info

The Design Friction Lab’s unwavering dedication to defying the status quo has allowed us to create innovative solutions that push the boundaries of what was fiction and now became reality. We firmly believe that the long-term well-being of our planet and its inhabitants hinges on our ability to innovate and design sustainable solutions to complex environmental problems.
 
Through the exploration of speculative scenarios with a critical design approach, preferable visions and products are prototyped while always striving to meet real-world needs with a glocal perspective and embedding aesthetics into ethics.

By partnering with outstanding field specialists, scientists, artisans international cultural institutions and corporations, DFL designs sustainable futures one vision at a time.