ROSA LOTTE STURM
designing and acting weird
I began my studies in 2021 in the class of Anab Jain, where I explored the ecoloical, sociological, and philosophical dimensions of design. This foundation continues to shape my perspective.
Since 2023, I’ve been part of Stefan Diez’s class, where my focus has shifted toward materiality, mechanical precision, and craft-based innovation. I design adjustable objects—tools that respond to change, increase usability, and optimize production through smart, adaptable construction.
Exhibitions
June 2021
Ich und alles um mich herum — Viktoria
July 2022
Design Investigation — Angewandte Festival
December 2022
Boxing Day — Design in Gesellschaft
2022
Die Erde – ein dynamischer Planet (permanent exhibition) — Natural History Museum Vienna
July 2023
Industrial Design — Angewandte Festival
August 2023
SATT — grossraum
December 2024
Madame
July 2025
Prediploma Exhibition, Industrial Design — Angewandte Festival
December 2025
Z57
December 2025
Season Ending Show — Design in Gesellschaft
The project "Reachable" examines standardized design norms and highlights how falling outside these standards demands additional effort in everyday life. Whether bending down to pass through a low subway door or, as in the case of shorter individuals, struggling to reach high-placed objects — those who do not fit the "norm" quickly encounter physical barriers.
Drawing from research into body norms and standardization, "Reachable" explores the historical context of these developments. Designers like Le Corbusier and Ernst Neufert sought to define universal measurements to optimize spaces for the majority. Today, voices such as Caroline Criado Perez and Todd Rose criticize this pursuit of the "average," emphasizing the exclusion it can create.
Against this background, "Reachable" proposes a playful yet practical solution: a height-adjustable wardrobe that utilizes the full height of a room while remaining accessible to everyone. Through a simple rope-and-pulley system based on counterbalance and friction, users can easily raise or lower stored objects without the need for additional tools.
Made from metal and rope, with integrated hooks for flexible use, "Reachable" reimagines accessibility in furniture design — inviting reflection on how built environments can better accommodate human diversity.
In my project vessel' trialogue, I have reinterpreted the traditional shape of the vessel. The components - foot, belly and neck - are three individual elements, allowing eight different uses. We are invited to arrange the three parts differently, to discover new shapes and adapt them to current requirements.
The aim of my project was to incorporate the history of the vase into the object. The origins of the vase can be traced back to ancient Greece, where containers were ubiquitous in all areas of life. The vase is able to hold different heights and types of flowers.
The lampshade is a stretch fabric that simply attaches to an object in the environment. The base of the lamp is slipped over it and held in place by the friction between the fabric and the metal.
The fabric also makes it possible to vary the light intensity of the lamp. If the fabric surrounds the entire metal structure, the light will be darker; if a slit is left, the light will shine directly downwards and will be much brighter.
zickzack is a modular storage wall that brings structure and personal storage to open, flexible office environments. Its core element—the open box—is made from a single folded metal sheet, forming a stable volume without additional framing. Other modules like shelves and lockers build on this principle and vary in form and function. Stacked in an offset pattern reminiscent of brickwork, the system creates a structurally sound and adaptable architectural element.
Hanging and tangling techniques are much older than knitting and crocheting and are almost completely forgotten in our industrialised world.
Based on the two-day workshop ‘Hanging and devouring’ in cooperation with the Weltmuseum depot, I have developed a series of vases based on the ceramic skein technique, which translates the knitting technique into three-dimensional free forms with ceramic materials.
In addition, in preparation for the semester ‘Salvaging a Good Time’ (Yein Lee's introductory workshop). I created a weaving pattern for a Thonet stool, which continues to apply mesh techniques in the surface.
This espresso cup duo explores identity as something fluid, modular, and deliberately unstable. Heads and bodies can be freely combined and rearranged, allowing multiple figures to emerge from the same set of elements. What appears fixed at first glance reveals itself as variable, questioning the idea of a single, stable form.
The objects invite interaction: through recombination, users actively participate in shaping meaning and character. Identity here is not decorative, but constructed, contingent, and open to reinterpretation.
The duo is made from cast porcelain and finished with hand-applied porcelain engobe. The material’s precision and fragility stand in deliberate tension with the conceptual openness of the forms, underscoring the contrast
The 112 red Shumensko beer crates originally functioned as returnable containers within a closed logistics system. When returning them to Shumen became logistically and economically unviable, they were removed from circulation and transported to Vienna, where they were designated for recycling.
The Shumensko Greenhouse interrupts this trajectory of disposal. It establishes an alternative circuit for the crates, retaining the social use embedded in them rather than reducing them to waste. The crates are employed consistently and without hierarchy: plants grow in crates, compost is produced in crates, people sit on crates, and the structure itself is constructed from crates.
Fruit and vegetables are cultivated, and a vinegar-based lemonade (shrub) is produced and shared during a final garden gathering. The project frames reuse not as an aesthetic or symbolic gesture, but as a social and collective practice that actively resists linear consumption models and efficiency-driven disposal systems.
Nadine Weber, Rosa Sturm, Sebastian Lou, Stefan Sinn
Under the supervision of Design Investigations / Anab Jain
Much Wants More is a five-minute stop-motion film that examines the fragility of natural and social systems through a fictional narrative. At its centre is the character “Much”, whose experience of exclusion becomes the impetus for the creation of a new system. The handmade figures, crafted from Japanese paper, deliberately reference vulnerability, impermanence, and historical rupture, generating empathy without resorting to sentimentality.
The project critically addresses the consumption of human energy and the persistent drive for growth. It analyses how individual behaviour alters structural dynamics and how such actions can produce systemic consequences. The film positions itself as an investigation into power and responsibility, and into the ways fragile systems can be destabilised or transformed by individual actors.
Anna Sudy, Lisa Sperber, Markus Pettrém, Rosa Sturm
Under the supervision of Design Investigations / Anab Jain
This project addresses catcalling as a structural form of harassment rooted in gendered power relations. It critically examines public perceptions of safety in everyday urban space, with a particular focus on the vulnerability of older people. Personal safety is framed not as an individual responsibility, but as a societal failure.
Three wearables were developed as abstract interpretations of defensive mechanisms found in the animal world. These objects do not function as protective devices in a literal sense; instead, they operate as visible interventions that expose and challenge normalized forms of harassment. The project aims to empower individuals while drawing attention to the persistent gender imbalance that structures public space and everyday interaction.
Elizabeth Sharp, Eva-Maria Lainer, Lena Reutenauer, Rosa Sturm
Under the supervision of Design Investigations / Anab Jain