Since Philips closed most of its production sites in Eindhoven in the last years and moved it to cheaper countries in the Eastern world, there was a big gap to be filled in a city with around 200,000 inhabitants. It seems the city did the right thing in promoting its creative and cultural sector…

There was a broad mix to be found at this year’s Dutch Design Week. Most recongnizable was the Graduation show of the Design Academy Eindhoven. It’s not that ROGER is a believer of ratings like that of Business Week, defining the best 25 design schools in the world but it seems that the Design Academy Eindhoven deserves that decoration. If you don’t want to go into details, just have a look at the picture gallery. But there are some projects ROGER wants to draw your attention to.

Something really new in the way of silk production was presented by Elsbeth Joy Nielsen. Usually silkworms are thrown into boiling water when they cocooned themselves – which is the end of life. Now the young designer had the idea of an sustainable silk production: before starting the cocooning she puts the silkworm on a shaped piece of carton board which is held by a stick that is centered on the downside. The silkworm then starts trying to escape from this »platform« – without success of course as it fall down at the edges of the carton. In the two days of crossing the carton in the search of an escape the silkworm so spins a random net of silk. The result is a very delicate texture made of silk which you can see in the picture. After this procedure the young designer puts the silkworm back, lets him spin his cocoon and become a silkspinner butterfly.

The only problem is that the butterfly has been breeded to produce silk for centuries and now his wings are not big enough that it could make him fly. Well – maybe biotechnology can help on that problem. ROGER could hardly believe that this actually works and is still waiting for some in-between-results of this idea. But even if it’s not possible – it would be still a damn good fake!

Another very interesting project came from Nacho Carbonell Ivars. He produced different seatings and one is worth a honourable mention: a sofa called »pump it up«. Basically it’s a sofa filled with air that is connected to some other blow-ups in the shape of animals through a tube. Sounds easy, but it’s a great aesthetics that lead ROGER to some story to put behind. So as you are sitting on the completely blown up couch, the air escapes the sofa and slowly flows into the three empty rubbers on the floor in front of the sofa. The effect is that those objects get bigger and bigger… you see animals that lie on the ground. And with the air slowly changing volumes, the animals start standing up till you have a trio of elephants standing in front of you.

A nice idea for deceleration as ROGER thinks: if you do a break you have to wait at least till the animals got on their feet. That should take a while and prevents stressed managers from too short breaks and speed-wellness. And another effect: if you are overweight, the animals get pumped up much faster – so you have to get into movement earlier as a sporty sitter would have to.

There were really many interesting projects at the Graduation Show and ROGER can only recommend this event for the next year. The approach to the concepts was very playful and experimental and especially the Bachelors crowned their ideas with a professional visual or physical outcome. The entrance fee for the show was 10 Euro and ROGER thinks that it is really worth it. There are so many graduation shows that lack money and cannot produce a certain quality. So paying for quality was here the right concept: beautiful rooms in a former Philips production building in a post-industrial style, two bars/cafés on both floors, even an automated voting system… really the ideal graduation show.

And the rest of the Dutch Design Week? Well, to be frankly: there was something for everyone. Which ranges from local arts and crafts over interior design to the fine arts. Of course there’s also enough trash, like e. g. unbelievable ugly car prototypes or urinals to be fixed on a tree. A bit disappointing was also the show of the well-known Philips Research Lab, which is located just one floor under the Design Academy: they only showed a video of their latest inventions. Really a laugh if you see what the students come up with. As the local industry leader they should be able to contribute much more to this event.

All in all the Design Week is really worth the trip. The whole city is integrated in this event. »Design Shuttles« with installations on the roof bring you from spot to spot for only 1,50 Euro, there are design dinners (in the »TAC« they designend »forgotten« Dutch foods and combined it with the latest molecular cooking)… everyone seems to participate in the creative restructuring of Eindhoven. Definetely a felicitous event and an interesting place to be!

For some more impression have a look at the picture gallery.