Dutch Design Week: Picture This

Author

Susanne van Mulken

Published

02 November 2023

Reading time

3 minutes

Last week I had a morning of Dutch Design Week. What did I bring back from Eindhoven? Except for soaking wet socks and feet, because it was raining quite a bit.

'Picture This', this year's theme, was an urgent call to confront contemporary and future scenarios and embrace new perspectives.

What immediately struck me was that a lot of exhibits consider Design for Good to be of paramount importance. For a cleaner environment, for more health, for a fairer world, etc. It makes you optimistic.

The Amazon

Yet there is also a focus on visualisations that create more awareness of the need for change in the way we treat the earth. Wither 1m3, an installation by Thijs Biersteker and Unesco, shows how urgent the situation in the Amazon is. Every leaf that becomes transparent means the loss of 120 square meters of rainforest in the Amazon. Quite confrontational because the leaves disappear in seconds. Beautifully made, and if you were not yet aware of what is happening in the Amazon, then this one will cut into it.

A mobile forest

I found the entry about Bosk sympathetic and clever. They also received the audience award. A mobile forest of 1000 trees that you could have seen in Leeuwarden a year ago. And so could have moved. Do you want to have a tree somewhere where there are only tiles at that moment? No problem, you move the tree to the desired spot. Intended effect: People become enthusiastic about the 'new temporary forest' and start working for more permanent greenery in the neighbourhood.

"Bosk exerts gentle yet firm pressure to make cities greener."

Marketplace for residual materials

Also a nice one: Wastebase. A digital portal with a marketplace for residual materials in the manufacturing industry. You can see what others offer in terms of residual materials and make use of them. Cost-saving for supplier and customer, more circular for all of us.

Biobased construction

Building houses using only natural materials. It can be done according to Biobased construction by BrabantWonen and Buro Kade. Healthy, quickly built, nature-inclusive, a negative CO2 footprint, low energy consumption and fitting into any image quality plan. They build according to the principles of The New Normal.

Nabad

Marijke Jans / Studio Kade wants to create an alternative and inclusive place for reflection: Nabad. A covered garden with plants, grasses and soil that evoke serenity. The space leads visitors via a path to the middle of the room where benches are set up made of biomaterial, in this case coffee grounds. The idea is to offer these kinds of places in vacant built environments in large cities, among other places. Good idea.

From words to deeds

And then there was a lot I didn't really get around to. Because it was too much, or on a different day than I was there. For example, I would have found this workshop by Mythe Krepel interesting, even though I am not a government policymaker: About how we get from words to deeds. Sounds like Value-driven design (and doing). Another time!