Me & My Moustache in Munich

Sorry this blog has taken so long to write been so busy with the end of semester and sadly the end of 3rd year.

At the beginning of April a group of 30 odd Product Designers, Product Design Engineers and Sports Engineers descended upon the wonderful Bavarian capital of Munich.

For a week we drank Augustiner beer in the various beer gardens and halls throughout the city including the most famous the Hofbrauhaus House and sat in the English Gardens under the sun.

I also managed to bring home an extra stone in weight. Which I blame solely on the beer hall menu. To put this into context I started on the first night with a quarter chicken and half liter of beer for dinner, by the end of the week I was scoffing half a chicken, a liter of beer and looking for dessert. Let's just say I was embracing the Bavarian culture fully.

We couldn't have had better weather the full week we were there with temperatures around 20 degrees everyday. Allowing us to laze about in the sun at every chance we could.

However, we were there for a reason. It was after all a university organised trip and we had some places to visit; Bulthaup, Bosch/Siemens, BMW and Stefan Diez.

Our first visit was to Bulthaup a kitchen and living space designer located in the Munich countryside. We had a short presentation describing the background of the company, a look around the showroom and a tour of the factory.

I highly recommend you take a look at their website and watch the short video about veneers. I'd watched the video shortly before heading out to Germany and I was really excited to see the technology working. Their attention to detail and the overall finish of their product was nothing less than perfection which was mirrored by their price list. Expensive to say the least but I genuinely feel that if you had the money and the right location a Bulthaup kitchen would be a worthy investment.

Their products weren't designed or marketed as kitchens but architectural advancements and social living spaces. My favorite of their range was without a doubt b3 because it blended the living space and functional kitchen area together seamlessly using floating cabinets and multi function walls.

It's difficult to describe just how flawless the veneers and finishes on every cabinet without seeing them for yourself.

We made a visit to Bosch/ Siemens to discuss with them branding and managing companies that all operate under the same umbrella company. As I was particularly interested in branding I was excited for this visit, only to be disappointed. Simply because they never really gave us any indications of interactions between the companies and how they distinguish themselves from one another within the home appliances market.

The morning was structured with different company representatives giving a short presentation into their company and I was surprised to find that the other company representatives where also hearing a lot of this information for the first time.With one representative in particular joking about applying for a job with Gaggenau after hearing their presentation. Gaggenau are the top innovators within the Bosch/Siemens group and their products are top of the range and top of the price list.

I was under the impression that the companies would work closely together to share resources and, to a certain extent, ideas and products. However, this didn't seem to be the case which would have been more logical for the companies to work together to help distinguish their product from one another and cooperate with ideas that may have been more suitable under different brands than their own.

It felt like quite a competitive atmosphere with an 'every man for themselves' approach which came across as more of a hindrance to all the companies involved. This became evident during the question and answer session where we were informed that if two companies designed products that were too similar only one company could release their version and the other's would be scrapped. In my opinion this seems like a large waste of time, resources and money that could be easily solved with the implementation of better communication techniques throughout the companies earlier in the design process.

Despite this it was interesting to hear some of the presentations and the lunch was free. So a bunch of 30 students were easily pleased.

For anyone visiting Munich I can't compliment enough the free walking tour around the city which we done on our fist full day in the city. It was about an hour and a half with two English speaking tour guides who were excellent. The tour included history, architecture, the war and the beer gardens plus the weather was glorious.

Sorry for such a long blog this time I just have so much to say and yes, a lot of it may be highly opinionated but I'm glad I never had the time to write this as soon as I returned because the beauty of hindsight has allowed me to balance the company visits with reality instead of being caught in the moment and hype.

Here are a few other pictures from the trip some from my camera, some from other students.