Dutch Design Week
Navigating memory and innovation
The theme at Design Week 2024, ‘Real Unreal’, addresses how we navigate the diverse realities of today’s world. How do designers today explore new truths and diverse perspectives, and can we meet in the middle? Making the unimaginable a reality is needed as a source of hope. The future may seem abstract to us now, but designers and graduates alike at DDW brought inspirational innovations to make distant visions into tangible objects and experiences. Among the graduates, critical themes of the climate crisis, the use of AI, care, and political powers were prevalent. Research and social relevancy have become an essential part of design, driving future practices forward.
We saw several solutions for resource management and reducing waste in material production. Designers wanted the public to physically experience the resources we extract, from touch to smell, all senses were engaged. More knowledge about materials opens up conversations about design, our connection to objects, and how they are made.
Designers also explored new systems of living and creation. Are there alternative ways to live our current lives? Can we meet the goals we have set on a global scale? Merging memory with innovation can reshape how we envision and interact with the world around us. Rethinking our cultural traditions and questioning our habits alongside new technologies can be a guiding principle for the future.
The following projects caught the eye of the OvN team while visiting DDW 2024.
Right, Eigengrau Pavilion by Zalán Szakács is an installation that challenges the limits of perception, making you question what is real and what is an illusion.
GMO Design by Clément Toumire-Algrain
Clément Toumire-Algrain is a French designer who has applied GMO methodologies to the garment design process, prioritising efficiency over personal preference. He created a unique approach that uses archival garment knowledge to create new styles. His method connects scientific principles with creative design, offering a systematic approach to fashion.
His personal archives and memories become a tool to express his identity while exploring how past information can shape the future. The project consists of a series of garments alongside a mapped poster of archived and referenced pieces.
You can see more about the project here.
Majmaa (مَجْمَع) by Dina Lebbar
Dina Lebbar is a Moroccan designer who uses connections to her culture to trigger curiosity and celebration. Her interactive table, Majmaa, showcases Morocco’s warm and hospitable sharing culture with a music synthesizer. The name comes from the Arabic verb “jamaâa,” meaning ‘coming together’. The round surface attracts visitors to participate, encouraging fun and playful interaction with strangers.
The brass touch sensors evoke the sounds of instruments with deep historical ties, such as an Oud. The fusion of craftsmanship and technology bridges the gap between tradition and future, using symphonic melodies and techno music into a singular performance.
Read more about the project here. You can also listen to the instrument alongside Lebbar’s commentary here.
I Spy… by Lotte Schoots
With traditional painting techniques, surreal pattens are built in depth through layers of paint and varnish. The result are statement benches with a gem-like appearance, showcasing otherworldly patterns. Schoots celebrates mimicry as a gateway to a new aesthetic.
You can see more about the project here.
Dutch designer Lotte Schoots was inspired by the treasures she finds in nature. Her detailed study and interpretation of faux bois techniques created gestures of knots and grains in wood. Transforming conventional wood imitation into imaginative art forms, our acceptance of photogenic replicas is challenged.
New Ore by Studio ThusThat
New Ore is their ongoing research into industrial waste from mining and metal industries. Studio ThusThat focuses on the byproducts and future applications for copper or aluminium steel. At DDW, they look towards potential in architecture and have connected with Pronck’s terrazzo for a new generation of materials. They show the beauty in waste, revealing hidden stories and telling new ones in the process.
You can find more about their work here.
Kevin Rouff and Paco Boeckelmann of Studio ThusThat were awarded the Dutch Design Award for the ‘Living Environment’ category and shortlisted for the Dezeen and Bentley Lighthouse Award. They exhibited ‘Tools of Rekindling’, a theme that centres on the act of harvesting as a form of activism to reshape our relationship with local environments and the ethical dilemmas of mining natural resources.
Light Tissue by Sofía Guridi and Mattea Lannacchero
Guridi showcases smart textiles that can also be bio-based and capable of sensing environmental changes. Her scientific knowledge combined with material experimentation bridges the friction between her Latin American material culture and innovation.
Aatlo University PhD researcher Sofía Guridi displayed a development of her 2021 project showcasing a biodegradable material for the digital world. Using carboxymethyl cellulose with conductive yarns, the smart textile weaves wood cellulose into a useable keyboard for future interfaces.
Ceramic Dress by Liwen Liang (梁砾文) / Ultra-slow Fashion by Saimi Parikka
At the New Order of Fashion exhibit, there were a number of impactful and impressive projects. Two pieces stood out, bringing crafts of the past to new generations.
Coming from a line of ceramic practitioners, Liwen Liang created an ultra-fine ceramic textile that pays tribute to their hometown Jingdezhen (Jiangxi, China). Liwen brought the muddy, warm, and broken ceramic atmosphere into a new reconstructed look that represents her modern heritage. Ceramic was fired into 0.3mm paper-like sheets, compounded onto fabric, and grinded to become soft and thin. The resulting dress is the same weight as a cashmere coat.
Saimi Parikka created an ultra-slow knitwear collection, hand-processing and spinning Northern Finnish wool from her uncle’s sheep. Parikka embraces her deep bond with nature and emotional connection to garments with her natural dyes and crochet techniques. She uses her specialisation in knitwear as a calming antidote to the hectic nature of modern-day life. She emphasises the need for community design, and states “there is no other way to be a designer than to work towards regenerative practices.”.
Dutch Invertuals celebrated its 15th anniversary. To celebrate this milestone, they challenged the designers to re-design a chair to showcase each designer’s expertise, using it as a canvas for their vision and expression. The chairs were similar in shape, but each chair's construction and materials differed. We loved the palette of different textures and colours, each creating a defined personality.
Designer Anna Resei combines digital tools to create the undulating appearance of her Formation lounge chair made from bent and cut aluminum sheets and textiles, both with digitally-applied prints, paired with upcycled upholstery filling for sustainability. Japanese designer Sho Ota designed the Touch armchair from solid Abachi wood.