The circle is complete: these are the results of the Cross Innovation Class 2023

There's a lot going on on the stage at the Design Zentrum Hamburg. Water splashes and motors rattle, glass doors swing open automatically and chip card readers beep. Perhaps a hundred people are sitting in front of the small platform, many of them young, some a little older. They are surrounded by metal stairs, bare concrete pillars, exposed exhaust shafts and bright red pipes hanging from the black-painted ceiling.

The industrial setting with an artistic touch suits the occasion. Because on this evening in mid-July, all kinds of prototypes will be presented at the Design Centre - small ideas with a big impact, so the attendees hope, solutions for today's problems, visions for tomorrow's life: How can we produce less waste? How can we protect our finite resources or at least manage them better? How can we ensure that we send the products we buy online from A to B and back again less often, thereby senselessly blowing CO2 into the air?

The Cross Innovation Class aims to find the right answers to these and other questions. The Cross Innovation Class is a programme of the Cross Innovation Hub of the Hamburg Kreativ Gesellschaft. The aim of the Cross Innovation Hub is to harness the creative power of local creatives for the economy. In the Cross Innovation Class format, for example, students from different universities and disciplines are brought together to design market-ready prototypes for companies.

In 2023, the programme, which is already celebrating its 5th anniversary, will focus on concepts for so-called circular cities. No, this does not mean cities with lots of roundabouts or particularly beautiful roundabouts, jokes Patrick Scheckelhoff, Programme Manager of the Cross Innovation Class, but cities that function in the spirit of the circular economy. A circular economy is a form of economy in which products and materials are not simply disposed of after use, but are processed into new products and materials over and over again in a cycle.

But what exactly is the problem here?

Patrick Scheckelhoff presses the button on his presenter and lets the figures that a projector throws onto the screen behind him do the talking: If humanity continues to live as it has up to now, it would actually need the resources of three Earths by 2050. End of the line. Silence in the audience.

And with around 75 per cent of Europe's population living in urban areas and the majority of human consumption, waste production and greenhouse gas emissions taking place in cities, cities have a huge impact on a sustainable future. And now students from the Hamburg Academy of Fashion & Design, HafenCity University, Wedel University of Applied Sciences and Leuphana University of Lüneburg are here to show how things can perhaps be done better.

For example, there is the product that one of the interdisciplinary teams has devised for Palettenservice Hamburg: a wooden pallet that is truly recyclable and is already standing in front of the audience. An ecologically compatible substitute was found for the conventional adhesive, which often contains harmful substances such as formaldehyde. Even steel nails, which are produced at great energy expense, are no longer needed. The boards and blocks of the "CircularPalett", as the new product is called, are now held together by wooden pins. The entire product is therefore unmixed and can be recycled particularly effectively at the end of its life.

Then there is the "FashionFlitzer" - a kind of high-tech used clothing container. Developed for the Hamburg Institute for Innovation, Climate Protection and Circular Economy, or HiiCE for short, it conceals a fully automated system inside. With the support of various sensors and artificial intelligence, this system analyses the clothing handed in for material, quality, damage or soiling and pre-sorts the items accordingly. Depending on their condition, the individual items can be reused or disposed of in the best possible way. The construction sketches presented by the project team show a modular kit that can be scaled up as required, expanded in terms of its functions and transported anywhere by lorry. In the miniature version on the stage, a small knitted jumper dangles through the handling system. The message is as clear as the white of its wool: far too beautiful to throw away.

PowerWash", a project for Frankfurter Entsorgungs- und Service GmbH, follows a similar approach. Residents can dispose of their organic waste at this collection point. The principle is simple: simply place the full rubbish bin, which is provided by the city cleaning service in return for a deposit, in the designated flap of the waste station and remove a clean rubbish bin from the second flap. Emptying takes place inside the station, together with cleaning. The disgust factor of the organic waste bin is therefore a thing of the past. And as soon as the container in the base of the station is full, the city cleaning service is automatically informed. All of this is intended to avoid unnecessary transport routes and also make the valuable organic waste usable - as "food" for biogas plants.

The prototype, on the other hand, which was designed for the logistics service provider Hermes, is intended to counteract the returns madness. Instead of sending back clothes, toys or electronic devices that you still want, you can store them in the "ReShop". This shelf, with its many hexagonal wooden compartments, is reminiscent of the honeycomb of a beehive and can theoretically be located anywhere in the city. If a return is made, the glass door of one of the compartments can simply be opened using the Hermes app and the goods deposited - and the purchase value is refunded. And perhaps there are other customers in the neighbourhood who are interested in exactly the same item. This would save unnecessary transport routes - and at the same time prevent retailers from preferring to shred their returns instead of reselling them because it saves them money. Those present are noticeably enthusiastic. Loud applause. Later, this idea is honoured with the Audience Award.

However, the jury, which will also be awarding a prize this evening, is most impressed by another idea: a prototype developed by a group for the water tech company ACO. In the "Clean House", water tanks on flat roofs collect rainwater and channel it through the house via an extensive pipe system - to the residents' bathrooms so that they can use it as dishwater and shower water; to the plant boxes on the façades so that the greenery there is watered naturally; and into small water wheels throughout the house that drive small generators to produce their own electricity. It sounds incredibly complex, but you can see the flowing and sloshing and streams with your own eyes behind a plexiglass wall. You can hear the gurgling and bubbling and smacking. It works.

This approach of at least temporarily interrupting water consumption in cities, slowing it down and not wasting what is probably our planet's most important resource, is the best approach of the evening for the Cross Innovation Class jury - and it was unanimous. This small idea could really have a big impact. Perhaps it is the last straw that breaks the camel's back.

Author: Laslo Seyda