Labs

The Mechanical Workshop of the Design and Fine Arts Division offers a broad infrastructure, enabling students to work with materials such as metal, wood, textiles and ceramics. An inter-material approach allows projects that incorporate varied materials and techniques. Both analogue and digital technologies are applied. In addition to bronze casting, welding, sawing, sewing and modelling, students also use the embroidery computer, the CNC milling machine and the laser cutter.

The workshop team conducts courses and assists students when realizing their projects in the workshop. After attending an introductory course, students can work independently in the workshop during opening hours. They can also borrow small machinery and tools.

A large collection of samples, which is part of the Material-Archiv network, serves as a basis for studying materials and how to work with them.

The MediaLab is the service centre and centre of excellence for audiovisual design and photography at the HKB, Division of Design and Fine Arts. The members of the MediaLab give courses, organise photography and AV trainings and advise students, staff members and teachers of the HKB on technical matters and questions of content. The loans desk provides equipment for the creation and presentation of audiovisual and photographic projects to students, staff members and teachers of the HKB. An extensive range of equipment such as video cameras, photo cameras, sound and lighting equipment can be rented from the MediaLab. Alongside the internal university proceedings, the MediaLab also offers competent support to external individuals and institutions. Please don’t hesitate to contact us with audiovisual commissions.

The print studio at the HKB is a competence centre for manual printing techniques and a laboratory for applied experiments with materials in the analogue and digital fields. The staff at the print studio offer various basic courses in screen printing, relief printing, intaglio, as well as open teaching formats for individual in-depth projects. They support students with their technical and artistic expertise in the production of unique pieces, serial productions or self-publications. Students can also benefit from having access to a reference library, a graphic archive and a versatile infrastructure, including a flatbed printer, a risograph and various devices for the production of artists’ books.

The HKB Media Library is part of the BFH library and a member of the Swiss Library Platform SLSP/swisscovery. It is open to the public and a centre of learning and exchange for HKB students, lecturers and staff.