How do new ideas for living well together emerge? Often not in laboratories or corporate R&D departments, but in everyday life – where people improvise, repair, share and collaboratively develop practical solutions to real challenges.
With this idea in mind, the Neudorf Institute for Innovation, together with the New Design University and the University of Arts Linz, invited participants to the first Field Talks in Neudorf. The aim was to bring together people from different professional and personal backgrounds to explore how everyday innovation in rural communities can be recognised, strengthened and made visible.
The discussions focused on crafts, housing, education and neighbourhood life, as well as the question of how existing knowledge, practical experience and local resources can become starting points for sustainable innovation. Academic research met lived experience; design research met everyday practice; and students engaged with people who have spent decades developing regional knowledge and traditional craft skills.
A particular highlight of the day was the collaborative construction of the community’s first public place for exchange. Together with Gerald Wolfthaler and Manfred Furtner, participants built a solid timber bench with a public notice board using traditional woodworking techniques. The activity was about far more than the structure itself: the building process became an opportunity for conversation, mutual learning and the sharing of practical skills. Working side by side demonstrated how knowledge is not only communicated through words, but is most effectively passed on through doing together.
The Field Talks marks the beginning of a longer-term programme of research and design. The Neudorf Institute aims to create a place where local experience, academic research and design methods come together. Students will work alongside local residents and regional experts to develop new ideas, build prototypes and explore how community-driven innovation can emerge in rural areas.
The Institute deliberately understands innovation not primarily as technological invention, but as the ability to work carefully with existing resources, strengthen relationships and collaboratively create new possibilities. Rural communities hold a remarkable wealth of practical knowledge, craftsmanship and social networks that often remain invisible. The Field Talks was a first step towards bringing these strengths together and developing new perspectives for collaborative innovation and community-making.
