Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven is one of the best happenings of the year. Taking place annualy over two weeks at the end of the year with almost 500 exhibitions and close to 350 000 visitors, this is a huge thing. For me, this a golden opportunity to see how some of the most talented young designers think about the future. My main focus is the graduate exhibition from Design Academy Eindhoven. But the city of Eindhoven is full of design. In this post I will talk about the following categories: colours, shapes, sustainabilty, and finally just noting other interesting things.
Dutch Design Week is a festival of new ideas. Here you find 3D printed steelbridges to initiatives to make your own home scents. As an overall perception this year had no real strong joint idea. There were a lot of experiments on new materials, and in general I noticed fewer proper furniture pieces than previously. Perhaps one could say that 2018 is the year of experiments?
Colours
At the design week I could notice a lot of purple, pink and blue hues. Picture above from design student Simone Doesburg and her project was ALL about hues, glaces and colours.
Design student Alexandra Genis also used a lot of purple in various versions. Here she shows manufactured tastes. Not spices, taste. Grind the piece down with your spaghetti and it will taste like strawberry.
At exhibition Precious Plastic designer Dave Hakkens have used old plastic pieces and made it into a new material.
Overall a very lovelly exhibition with sustainable focus. Everything also for sale.
Softer pink but together with a bright yellow. Pots by Raw Color at the venue of Piet Hein Eek.
More students. Swedish Erika Emerén made ceramics imitating classical Swedish cake “spettekaka”. Also with a lot of purple hues.
Bright, almost electrical. Lio de Bruin made new textiles at the craft exhibition at Veem. It looks like candy, or drugs. Artificial, in a way. Not at all the earthy tones we haves seen for so long now.
Bright, bright colours. A bit of Bauhaus and a bit of the 80s.
Blue and purple neon lights in a new installation by Ontwerpduo.
Shapes
We have seen the evolution for “ugly” furniture pieces grow slowly but surely. It was quite evident at Eindhoven that noone wanted to do “nice” furniture anymore. It is all about the surface. Creating different reactions than previous. The question remains – what will be “ugly” when everything is “ugly”? Here at concept by Elissa Lacoste.
Almost the same idea but from Marine Lottermoser.
Romain Kloeckner shoots clay and creates pots.
Diego Faivre assembles waste and builds furniture which he sprays airdrying clay on.
Perhaps it is the unfinished surface or look that is appealing? Here ceramics made with a new dripping technique. By Carla Joachim-Godefroy and Jordan Morineau.
Over at Piet Hein Eek the Dutch designer Floris Wubben showed his new furniture pieces and they have the same sort of aesthetics. Unfinished and raw. More sculptural and balanced than the student works.
Back to students. Here chairs made of the iconic and massproduced white plastic chair. The designer wants to talk about copyrights. Who owns what? By Pierre Castignola.
Ugly chairs with a cause. Anna Jensen wants to talk about female sitting in the public space.
Sustainability
Of course a design week like this has a huge focus on sustainability. Plenty of new materials. Attention or awareness driven design like these vases are shown. These a freight ships with tons of interiors from China. On China… By Sem Leutscher.
An interesting concept about “pay what you can” as a café. Here you could also pay with labour. By Martina Huynh.
Dutch Design Week is a week full of conceptual projects. Like this. What does the greenery have to be so “pretty”? I guess it is the same movement as with the furniture that is deliberately “ugly”. Here a garden that is on “it’s own term”. Designed by student Minji Choi.
Recycle ambassador Piet Hein Eek is pushing the limits as always. I just loved his recycled and old kichens.
He showed two of them at his venue.
He was also interesting in talking about the responsibility as a designer. His pieces are really expensive. Here was a office library. What happens to it when the office needs to move? Piet made an installation and will resell the library.
At the design week there were a lot (A LOT) of experiments on new materials. Here a project that works with paper waste that is such a low quality that it can not be used. Until now. By Tim Teven.
Or how to make linoleum into look-a-like leather. All vegan. By Don Kwaning.
And experimental attitudes like Swedish project Made Matters. Here a designer have crushed the shells of crayfish and used a technology to rinse it from smell.
Two projects stood out as extra interesting. It was about the number or stuff we have home and a new solution to that. Bregke Tjallinks made architecture for those of us who are more interested in sharing stuff than owning. How would we live then?
Close to the same idea. Especially for smaller spaces. What if we stored everything in the floor? Could we? Would we? By design student Juul de Bruijn.
Finally. Some other things that stood out. When I look at these last pictures I sort of see tactility and craft. I think we might still need a bit of poetry in our lives.
Astrid Lugio at a craft exhibition.
Fransje Gimbrére
Antrei Hartikainen
More of Antrei.
A totally unlogical bench, but very poetic. By Siri Bahlenberg
Water fountain by Moreno Schweikle
It was a good week. As a summary, I can conclude that two nights in Eindhoven is good. Take your time and drink wine with friends, like here with Holly Becker from Decor8.